A press release from Konami has revealed that the company will begin looking for ‘key staff’ to work on ‘a new Metal Gear series’.
This follows yesterday’s rumours that the upper management of Kojima Productions, including Kojima himself, will be leaving Konami by the end of the year.
Konami have released a press statement on their Japanese website stating that they would “begin to audition of key staff” with the aim to “embark on production of a new Metal Gear series” once Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has been released this September.
Konami have reassured fans that Kojima “will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products”, but will fans be interested without the father of the series working on the games?
The terms Konami and Kojima were trending worldwide on Twitter last night and the majority of tweets were siding with Kojima.
Source: Video Gamer
Ouninpohja
Hope his departure’s not in the pipeline.
That’d be like someone else trying to make a GTA game :(
Tuffcub
Erm, check back to yesterdays post.
Jag
It looks like TPP really will be Kojima’s last Metal Gear. It’s a shame it’s come to this and I’m not sure if Konami realise just how much of a mistake they’ve made.
In reality they probably don’t care and just want to milk the franchise dry as it’s the only thing making them money. (Along with PES I suppose)
Mark Lee
Also, Silent Hills will probably be up in the air.
The Lone Steven
20.03.2015 was the day that Metal Gear’s future was put at risk by Konami. Without Kojima and his guys or the team Kojima Productions took under their wing/put together to hand over Metal Gear over to, the franchise risks becoming a generic milked franchise that uses the history and name to sell itself.
This raises big alarms for me as Konami seem to have a very nasty habit of killing their IPs, according to the research i’ve done. The future of Konami itself is at risk due to Metal Gear being their strongest franchise. PES is PES and i’m unsure if that’s selling well or just struggling. Metal Gear always sells and has a huge fanbase. Castlevania is dead or at least,on hiatus due to the 2 games that were released in the past few years being GOW Clones and failed to sell well. The second one was met with poor reviews.
Without Kojima, I fear that Konami will pull an Activision or an EA when they were milking everything and not allowing their developers enough time to finish the game.
I can’t see Silent Hill going ahead due to Kojima being the main force behind it.
On an unrelated note, Kojima’s departure kills any hope of Zone of the Enders getting revived. Unless he owns the rights to them.