Hideo Kojima Distances Himself From Metal Gear Survive
By Alexander Pan 18 September 2016
When asked about Konami’s upcoming Metal Gear Survive at his 2016 Tokyo Game Show presentation, Hideo Kojima addresses the question by distancing himself from the game.
Ever since Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima acrimoniously parted ways with Konami after months of contention, the future of the wildly-successful franchise was thrown into question. After firmly stating that the Metal Gear series will continue without Kojima, Konami made good on its word when it recently unveiled Metal Gear Survive, a co-op survival game. Given that this is the first title in the series since Kojima left Konami, fans are undoubtedly curious about what the famed director has to say about this spin-off or whether he was involved, and when asked about the game recently, it appears that he has nothing to do with the project.
During his stage presentation at the 2016 Tokyo Game Show, Kojima was asked whether he had anything to do with Metal Gear Survive, to which he emphatically denied. Stating that the upcoming spin-off has “got nothing to do with [him],” Kojima then alluded to how his Metal Gear games were about “political fiction and espionage” and that zombies don’t fit into the vision he had for the franchise.
Kojima wasn’t the only former Metal Gear designer to make comments about Metal Gear Survive. Former character and mechanical designer on the Metal Gear series Yoji Shinkawa was on stage for Kojima’s presentation, and he too denied any involvement with Konami’s upcoming game before joking that if he had “worked on that game, it would have mechs in it.”
Given that he’s currently busy working on his brand new game, the mysterious Death Stranding, the Metal Gear series is probably the last thing on Kojima’s mind. Despite a projected 2018 or 2019 release window for Death Stranding, it appears that fans are more invested in that game than they are for Metal Gear Survive, which is scheduled for a 2017 release.
With a questionable shift from console gaming to pachinko machines, the backlash from fans following the Metal Gear Survive announcement, and now distancing of Kojima and Shinkawa from the Metal Gear series, it is certainly going to be an uphill battle for Konami to earn back all its fans. While the company has requested that fans keep an open mind following massive amounts of criticism of Metal Gear Survive, it still remains to be seen whether the upcoming title will be a worthy entry to the series or a massive disappointment, so let’s give Konami the benefit of the doubt for now.
Metal Gear Survive is scheduled for release in 2017 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: IGN
