Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
It might seem like common sense to most people, but it’s worth noting that Hideo Kojima got his due respect in the opening cinematic credits of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. The original Metal Gear director famously had a falling out with Konami that culminated in his departure in 2015. Kojima has since gone on to run Kojima Productions on its own, which is currently continuing development of the Death Stranding series. Konami is currently focused on its remake of Snake Eater and publishing Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2, but it seems Konami made sure to give Kojima his due for work in the former.
I was at Tokyo Game Show 2024 where I participated in a demo play session of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. You can read more about my impressions of the game over on the Tokyo Game Show 2024 Metal Gear Solid Delta preview. You can even watch a run of the demo. However, you’ll notice that the demo starts once Snake lands. That’s because we watched the opening cinematic in a special theater just beforehand. It was during that opening cinematic that the line, “Based on original story by Hideo Kojima” made an appearance.
While it might simply seem right and reasonable for this to be the case, it’s not always so, especially in the game industry. There have been stories of developers being uncredited on projects big and small, notably including language localizers and/or QA testers. Striking Distance’s The Callisto Protocol is a hefty recent example of a game with allegations of developers being left out in the end credits, but issues also go back further such as in that of 2011’s LA Noire where hundreds of developers were said to have been left out of the in-game credits. Rockstar later addressed them on its website.
Meanwhile, Kojima left Konami in 2015 in what was a troubled exit. Kojima went on to make Kojima Productions a standalone studio that developed Death Stranding, but where he stands with Konami nowadays hasn't been addressed in quite a while and wouldn't likely otherwise be a subject broached by either party.
With the direction of Metal Gear Solid’s direction in fresh hands for Delta, it’s good to see that one of the main visionaries of the original game got his due. We still don’t know exactly when Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is landing quite yet, but Konami and the developers of the remake have done well to remember where it came from. Stay tuned for more updates on the game right here at Shacknews.