Hideo Kojima is considered one of those video game creators who have made a permanent mark on the industry. Gamers all around the world know of his achievements, and they can agree with the fact that he might have made some unusual games, but he never made a bad game. Metal Gear Solid can be considered his most iconic franchise. One series that put his name on the map.
He left Konami back in 2015 after he completed Metal Gear Solid 5. Just a few months after the release of this title, he moved out and started figuring out what he wanted to do next. But very few fans of his would know that he never wanted this series to become the franchise that it became; he was pushed into expanding it.
Hideo Kojima never wanted to expand the Metal Gear Solid franchise beyond Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was an incredible achievement back when it launched. It still holds up as one of those games that were way ahead of their time. Both in visuals and gameplay mechanics, that game has inspired numerous other stealth games.
Hideo Kojima was its director, and since the launch of Sons of Liberty, he has let his desire to move on from the series known. He kept on telling people with each installment that he wanted to do something else. But there were a bunch of things that stopped him from doing that.
When Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was launched, it became a phenomenal success for Konami. The publisher was blown away by this unexpected turnout; critics were singing its praises, and the game’s copies were flying off shelves.
It did not matter to Hideo Kojima, though; he wanted the story to end and move on to some other game. But Konami wanted him to move ahead with a sequel. He was nudged into doing yet another game, and that’s how this franchise kept on growing.
Composer Rika Muranaka, who worked on the soundtrack of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, revealed that Hideo Kojima saw this game as the end of it all. He never wanted these games to turn into a franchise, but Konami kept insisting.
“Hideo didn’t want to do a series or franchise like Final Fantasy. So he kept fighting with Konami, because Konami were like ‘It’s a hit.’ That’s what the business people say. Hideo being an artist, he wanted to make a different video game. But it became so successful that everybody wanted a sequel. That’s a kind of hard position to be in. It becomes someone else’s game.”
It expanded until one day when Metal Gear Solid: 5 launched, rumors of him leaving Konami started coming in. At first, everyone denied those rumors, but later they turned out to be true. This marked the end of Kojima’s relationship with those games and Konami.
He then went on to open a new studio and started creating some unusual experiences over there, Death Stranding being the first of those. He is still working there on Death Stranding 2 and an Xbox-exclusive horror game called OD. It looks like, eventually, he got what he wanted.
Hideo Kojima kept on making new Metal Gear Solid games but always kept things fresh
While Konami wanted him to make a sequel, he did not. So, Hideo Kojima found a way to make new games. He made every new game mechanically stand out from the last one. Metal Gear Solid 2 was a game with an isometric camera angle set in an urban environment.
Metal Gear Solid 3 was a game set in a dense forest. It even featured an unexpected character, the person who was previously the villain of the franchise. It featured Boss as the protagonist and told the story of his rise to become Big Boss.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots once again took gamers to an urban setting. But missions were mostly based amidst ongoing wars. Players had to navigate through gunfire, making sure none of the two sides saw him.
And Metal Gear Solid 5 gave players the first-ever open-world game in the franchise. It gave them a bunch of flexible gameplay mechanics to make their espionage missions more fun and successful. Kojima has a brilliant mind; he kept on making new kinds of games while still continuing a hit franchise.
