Breaking News all around.

Konami is going through some restructuring beginning at the Fiscal Year of April.

Kojima Productions is no more. Everything is being rebranded to Konami, including the names of both Kojima Productions studios in Japan and LA. Kojima's name is also being removed from all branding of Metal Gear games.

Hideo Kojima is also reported to no longer be an executive at Konami.

While Konami PR maintains that Kojima still works for Konami and will be working on metal gear, Gamespot reports that come December the team will be disbanded and Kojima will be leaving.

There appears to be a heavy communications block going on at Konami right now. So consider much of this rumor and speculation, but something big is going down.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/kojima ... 0-6426024/

This is good, isn't it?







Being serious, though, I'm not actually panicking just yet. There's definitely something going on, but other people have pointed out that Kojima's name hasn't been removed from the Silent Hills stuff. It might just be that Konami wants to consolidate their brand. There's no denying that Kojima Productions has become a bigger name than their parent company these days, they may want to stress Metal Gear as a Konami product more than "A Hideo Kojima Game". Which I disagree with doing, but it may not be all doom and gloom for Silent Hills. Until Kojima leaving Konami is confirmed, I'm going to assume this game is still on track.

If Kojima leaving Konami is legitimate, though, then see the above picture and quote.

The strong arm tactics and communications block suggest otherwise. Something drastic and last-minute looks to be taking place. This suggests PR is scrambling around and there's no concrete announcement yet as normal changes and restructuring of this sort are usually detailed with large press releases to belay any worries. Were this some normal thing decided upon awhile ago Konami would've been prepared and be answering press inquiries like it's no big deal.

I would love to be wrong though...

Yeah, something is definitely happening. I'm not denying that. I'm just not ready to believe all the "KOJIMA LEAVING KONAMI CONFIRMED" news posts until we get something more concrete. If I believed everything these websites reported, FFXV wouldn't be coming out.

This caused me to double-check the date to see if it's April Fool's Day...

Even without taking Silent Hills into consideration (I've only allowed myself to become minimally excited about it), this news is a bit depressing, if it happens.

I don't care about it, to be honest.

I find it really hard to believe that pretty much the second in command is just being tossed out the window with haste without any proper answer. I smell bullshit.

But even if that's true... Eh, whatever. I lost a lot of respect for Kojima.

Just let him pursue what's best for him and, if it's FF related (heard a rumor about Square-Enix), guess it's just another reason for me to not care about what happens. At all.

...

+1 for Nanaya's first post. The thing with Big Boss. Pretty clever...

I'm hoping this is just a rumor, but i'll wait until we get more solid info.

This isn't good. This probably means Silent Hills gets thrown down the shitter with him gone because let's face it; without Hideo, Konami is perfectly content on continuing to outsourcing the series out to a bunch of relatively unknown studios. The series needs a AAA touch to put it back on the map again.

I don't believe it's a rumour. A source I know has confirmed (which I can't disclose, unfortunately) that there's been a falling out - Konami itself is struggling with the aftermath and how they can manage the situation.

I would like to think that it's Del Toro who's at the helm of this, so Kojima's leaving - at this stage - might not have the negative impact it would've had even six months ago. Fingers crossed!

There was a KOJIMA here. It's GONE now.

If Silent Hills gets cancelled you will find me in my room, sobbing loudly and surrounded by several empty buckets of ice cream.

I believe he's really leaving Konami.

That said, he was aked to direct silent hills back in 2012. The game's development may be far more advanced than we think it is.

I would like Kojima to finish Silent Hills, but maybe it will still be close to what he wanted, even though someone else may finish it.

this is what I'm hoping. Maybe Silent Hills will never be released though. P.T will become even more of a phenomenom then.

Del Toro seemed like more of a producer/consultant than someone directly behind the design documents or gnitty gritty of the game development from what I remembered. Even if he wanted to take over, I don't know how much of his expertise will truly translate into game development.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Silent Hills disappeared. In the "Reno Con" thread in this very forum, jdnation's info from Norman Reedus stated

Couple that with Konami becoming increasingly less involved with video games and Kojima, this isn't exactly making me optimistic the project will move forward.

I would hate to see it die this early on, but that's the nature of the business sometimes.

Well, that's that then. This means The Phantom Pain is the last Metal Gear game I play, at least. Hopefully they can find someone else to helm the next Silent Hill game, though. That series never truly needed Kojima as far as I was concerned.



I don't think Del Toro has talked much about this game, but it'd certainly be cool to see him directly take control.


Overall, I'm not sure how to feel about Silent Hills possibly being in trouble. We never actually got any information whatsoever about the game itself. Yeah, we got PT, but we've never actually seen Silent Hills. Who knows what the game will be or would have been. For me it's just the concept of "the next Silent Hill" I care about, moreso than the title "Silent Hills".

My husband is in the gaming industry (board and card) and he has heard vague rumblings of shifting at Konami. I don't know what I am allowed to say legally, but I don't know all that much more than I have already said anyway.

Konami released a statement it's kind of vague though.

I'm conflicted, personally I'm not a fan of Kojima, but he's a pretty interesting game designer so I was curious to see how Silent Hills would turn out. Hopefully it continues on if he's gone from the project.

I'll wait until we have more information before I actively start worrying about Silent Hills. Kojima has already said that he'll be finishing MGSV, so he could very well be continuing to work on Silent Hills. That and the fact that Guillermo del Toro is still attached give me hope. The man is a genius when it comes to monsters and horror.

Still, I'm sad that Metal Gear will no longer be in Kojima's hands after MGSV. I genuinely hold it up as one of the greatest game series ever created, and Kojima made it what it was. Damn you, Konami. Damn you.

Well, this makes it easy for me regarding the Metal Gear series. After Phantom Pain, I'm done with the series and I'm sure I won't be alone.

I'm just worried about what happens to Silent Hills. It would be so nice to have a new game in the series that is given a proper budget to work with and a compitent team that can do it justice. While I enjoyed Downpour, there is no denying it was unpolished and buggy as hell. And the graphics got a downgrade too.

A lot of people are pointing to the fact that the shift is supposed to happen april 1st as if thats a confirmation that its a joke, but if i remember correctly, April 1st is actually the start of Japan's Fiscal year so it would make more sense...


That being said, this is Kojima, and has anyone noticed that the statement by Konami doesnt even say that Kojima is leaving, it just says that he will still finish it...unless I misread it, Konami has no where actually stated that Kojima is "leaving" which makes me feel fishy about the whole thing (and trust me ill probably reread it a few times after I post this)

Then again maybe that is just blind optimism...

Silent Hills is probably fine because Konami likes money.

Depends on your definition of "fine", though. Kojima likely won't be making it anymore and I think that's what a lot of people were mostly excited about. I'll be checking out whatever the next Silent Hill game is regardless of who makes it, but given how the conversation surrounding Silent Hills was mostly people going "Silent Hill sucks now but Kojima will save it", I suspect to a lot of people it's not fine.