Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has had all references to Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions removed from its cover. Konami, the game’s publisher, had a rocky split with Hideo Kojima, who created the Metal Gear Solid series. Now, despite making efforts to reassure fans that the well-respected game designer would still be involved in the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom pain, Konami has removed all references to Kojima from the game’s cover.
The new box art, shown here, is essentially identical to the old box art minus the Kojima Productions logo and the text that read “A HIDEO KOJIMA GAME.” Those references to Kojima have been present in previous Metal Gear Solid games. Not too long ago, Konami removed all references to Kojima from the Metal Gear Solid website, which angered some fans. It was assumed that the final cover of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain itself would still feature Kojima’s branding as it is after all, his game.
The Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain cover change supports the rumours that Kojima’s split with Konami was less than friendly and that the two are continuing to have issues. Chief among those issues was the cancellation of Silent Hills, a much-hyped horror game that Kojima was leading, as well as the removal of the Playable Teaser from the Playstation Network. Other rumours suggest that Kojima Productions, which was a subsidiary of Konami created by Kojima, has been forced to close. Those rumours were also supported by the voice actor who played Solid Snake in the Japanese version of the Metal Gear Solid series.
Konami has been doing a lot lately to anger fans, including announcing that it would refocus all its development on mobile games. Despite that announcement, however, Konami continued to assure fans that it would continue to work on its major console games and that their quality would not suffer. That was all well and good, but the company’s recent actions have shown that may not really be the case.
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
RSS