Hideo Kojima Leaving Konami was One Giant Prank

Two weeks ago, rumors started cropping up about a falling out between Konami and renowned game creator Hideo Kojima. The entire of Kojima Productions staff was then reported to have been shifted into a contractual status because of this. Furthermore in the next few days following the news breaking, Konami proceeded to remove traces of Kojima and his team by: erasing Kojima Productions labels off of games the team has worked on in the past and by removing the development team from Konami’s company listings.

No clear word has come out from neither Konami nor Kojima regarding the matter, other than Konami assuring the press that Kojima will continue to work on and finish Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Well, it turns out this was all an elaborate joke by Hideo Kojima. All it turned out to be was a corporate restructuring planned by Konami. Wanting to consolidate the brand, Konami is in the process of fully integrating Kojima Productions into the company. The team will still operate in the same capacity they currently have, and the only difference is that all the succeeding titles created by Kojima and his team will be under the Konami label. In layman’s terms: Kojima Productions will cease to exist as a separate entity from Konami and will operate as an internal development team within the company.

Being the infamous trickster that he is (having orchestrated such schemes such as fooling everyone into thinking Solid Snake was the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and more recently the entire Moby Dick Studios/Phantom Pain fiasco) we’ve come to expect a joke of this magnitude from Hideo Kojima. This smokescreen is just the latest in his growing list of hijinks, and we can expect more to come.

Hideo Kojima’s full statement regarding the matter can be viewed here.