Kojima Returning to MGS5? Why He Can’t Walk Away
September 29th, 2008 | Written by Anthony Perez | Topic: Industry News
In a recent interview with 1up, Hideo Kojima did more than talk about his afterthoughts on Metal Gear Solid 4. What Kojima did was ever so slightly crack a window into his mind and motivation, two aspects of the acclaimed designer that show why the man has never been able to untether himself from the Metal Gear Solid series.
It is a running joke in the gaming industry that Kojima is worse than Brett Farve at deciding when to call it quits. After each Metal Gear Solid wraps development, the aspiring-filmmaker-turned-game designer always says that he’s done with the series. In the interview, Kojima hinted that he may be back for a Metal Gear Solid 5 by saying:
“I have three concepts for MGS5 already. What would be ideal for me with MGS5, though, is that we don’t do those. If the team picks one of those concepts, I have to get involved again, which I don’t want to do. There are already so many good ideas from the staff, so if we select one of those, that would be really good. At that point I could really rely on them and take the step back to be the producer, which is the ideal situation, I think.”
Kojima is a perfectionest in the worst way (for him) and the best way (for us). He just can’t keep his hands off of a Metal Gear project, which he lamented about earlier in the interview.
“Because I thought that leaving things up to the team members and giving them more responsibility was the only way for them to grow, sometimes that sort of sacrifice can be too much, and in this case it was. Nothing good came of giving them more responsibility.”
Those are bold words coming from any leader of men, but at least he’s honest. Kojima just doesn’t have the capability to let others work on the project if they are going in the wrong direction. He talks directly about that inclination at length during the interview and what it shows is that Kojima is very much like Apple CEO Steve Jobs, a man praised for his work ethic and infamous for micro-managing his employees.
“They sometimes worked really hard while going in the wrong direction — if I had been in that position, I would have known better and recognized that it wasn’t working. But they wouldn’t stop — they’d keep at it. And I should have stepped in to say that it wasn’t going to work.”
This is who Hideo Kojima is, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever be able to fully step away and into a producer role. I actually hope he does, even if it’s at the detriment of MGS5. I want the man to move on to something new because he’s been talking about it for a while. Check out the final bit of the interview:
“Well, I want to create something new, and it’s difficult to explain since no one’s seen it before. I don’t know if it would sell very well. I’ve been warming this up for a long time, and I keep thinking that I’ll try this idea. But ideas always change, so I really don’t know what the final outcome will be.”
Do it, man. You’re more than Metal Gear and I want to see what that “more” is exactly.
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Comment by Andrew G on the September 30th, 2008 at 7:40 am
So basically he’s decided that he’s done with the series unless his team wants to use one of his many good ideas? It’s like MGS is a guilty pleasure for Hideo. He acts like he doesn’t really like doing it when in fact he keeps coming back for more. Is he ashamed of it?