A History Of Konami Ruining Kojimas Legacy

As we all know, during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, there was controversy between Konami and the games developer, writer and director Hideo Kojima. With Kojima’s first step into the horror genre with Silent Hills, which was cancelled under no reason – Kojima declined to speak on the matter. Silent Hills would have featured The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus, it would of help the genre – saved it in fact.

For the new Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima would be dismissed from the project and company with the following release the 5th instalment; The Phantom Pain. With Konami there was some very strange practises taking place as reported by Kotaku, especially the way they would conduct their staff like;

• If Konami employees were not being of any use to the company, they would reassign the employee to another role, being either a security guard, cleaning staff or at a pachi-slot machine factory – very unorthodox.
• Employees leaving the office during a lunch break would have their absence monitored with time cards, if they’re late or stay out too long their name would be openly announced throughout the company.
• Like most offices, cameras monitor the corridors for security purposes – to ensure the safety of the employees. At Konami the cameras are set to monitor their own employees movements, rather than for security.

September 2015 was the day that development was cut short to push the video out that was in near finished state – further in reference to Kojima’s dismissal would be that his name would be stripped from the casing of the game, and development listings, this would also mean he would be removed from accepting any awards that the game would receive in 2015’s game awards.

After his departure, Konami would go on the develop a new Metal Gear Solid game, but this would spin off from the original franchise that would allow players to be in another universe, where the reality was that players would be killing zombies, this was clear to everyone Konami were simply trying to cash in on the recognition of the Metal Gear brand rather than continue it’s storied history of well made games.. With poor animations and mechanics that were buggy, that were just not a fun experience to play with. The game also focused a lot on using melee weapons which wasn’t great when fighting off hordes.

The game received moderate rating and reused assets from The Phantom Pain and with smaller maps, but still sold or a below average price of $39.99 and most of its die-hard fans shunned the Metal Gear Survive spin-off.

It does seem Konami moving away the US market and focusing more on their Japanese clientele with their development of the popular Pachinko machines at places like Timeform Casino, as this would focus on the Japan market which happened extremely quickly, just after 10 months of The Phantom Pain release pachinko machines where released to which I assume to increasing company profits, despite angering hardcore MGS fans – this only led a distasteful outlook on the company in the US market. It seemed they were more focused in increasing profits than the art of a video game. It was a clear intent that Konami was attempting to kill of the franchise.