Why Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima won’t be playing the upcoming MGS: Snake Eater remake

The video game industry is still vaguely fascinated by the high-profile breakup of Hideo Kojima and Konami. Their partnership built the Metal Gear series, which became one of the most iconic and lore-dense video game franchises ever. It has been a decade since Kojima parted ways with Konami and Metal Gear, but people still can’t help but ask him about it. Because of this, we now know that he won’t be playing the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake when it comes out in a few weeks, and we’re honestly not surprised.

For nearly a year leading up to their public falling out, Hideo Kojima and Konami had been fighting back and forth with each other over control of the Metal Gear series. The bad blood between the two has been well documented, but it ended with Kojima out of Konami and seeking a publisher ready to help him create his weird yet intensely popular games. Since 2015, Kojima has not been involved in any of the Metal Gear Solid games that have been produced at Konami.

Fast forward to today, and it seems that things still aren’t quite settled between the two. During a long interview with SSense, Hideo Kojima was asked if he would be playing Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. His response was to simply laugh and say, “No, I won’t.”

We’re not surprised at that statement. Kojima has long held that Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was the end of the Metal Gear series that he created back in 1987, so we can’t see a reason why he would want to play a remake of one of its entries made without his involvement.