Konami tries to explain Kojima Productions snub

The erasing of the Kojima Productions branding from both Metal Gear Solid V and older Metal Gear titles is down to a change in production organization”, according to Konami.

The still mysterious apparent fallout between the Metal Gear creator and his employer came to light last week, along with confirmation from Konami that it is hiring a new set of developers for a new Metal Gear game and the discovery that mentions of Kojima are being wiped from old pack shots.

In accordance with the recent change in production organisation of all of Konami, Kojima Productions, as well as other internal production companies, has had its name, etc, changed to move into the corporate headquarters work structure,” is the somewhat dry explanation offered by the company via its Japanese language Twitter account, as reported by Kotaku.

When pressed on Kojima’s situation, however, the PR line remained resolute: Yes, he’s working on MGSV. No, we’ve got nothing to say beyond that. Which is much the same as Kojima himself has said.

Naturally director Kojima is playing the game, checking all the small details and giving directions to the staff as the title continues to completion,” it added. Bringing the thoughts and ideas of director Kojima in an open world game of the size of MGSV is incredibly difficult, the director and the team that’s been there from the start are coming together as one as they aim to finish the game, so please give them the support they need.”

The site adds that in a recent interview a Konami PR spokesperson also elaborated on the claims that the Kojima team has had its access to internal internet, email and other services restricted:

It true that during the organisational change, there were things that were revised. [This was done to make an environment where staff could give] undivided attention to development.”

The same rep refused to comment on whether Kojima was no longer a full-time employee and was now working on a contract, but did confirm that he will be less involved with MGSV’s pre-release promotion than he has been for other games.

On that theme, Polygon reports that the Kojima Station video podcast, in which Kojima discusses the game’s development, has been paused”. It had been due out today. It also points out that the last original tweet on Kojima’s personal account, which is usually very active, was made a few days before the news of the disagreement broke.

It contained simply the words heading off” and a picture of MGS star Snake boarding a helicopter.

Heading off.pic.twitter.com/JWyh4DbeIY”

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) March 16, 2015