Konami

“These games had their own worlds and stories. I felt a certain authorial quality in them.”

“So I went around to different game companies, and partly because I was living in Hyogo prefecture at the time, but I thought I'd check out Konami.”

“When I told the senior devs on the team about my idea, they were very dismissive: 'There's no games like that.'”

“There was a sort of legend at Konami, that if you got involved in this project, you'd up demoted or transferred. (laughs) [...] once we got a working build running, and they saw that exclamation mark pop up when the enemy gets surprised, that sold them on the concept.”

“This has been important to me, because Konami has often told me my ideas are too crazy, and there's been dark times where the warm letters I receive from fans were all that sustained me.”

“There was a period, before my Father died, where I thought I'd become an artist, but my Father died very suddenly when I was 13. My family was full of artists, you see, and they hadn't been able to make a living off of it.”

The official biographical profile Konami published on its blog presented Kojima, besides as creator of Metal Gear, Snatcher, Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid, as one of the video game industry’s leading film buffs and noted that he also worked as a commentator and wrote film reviews.

The premiere of Control turned the city, for Kojima, into a Joy Division festival. He bought the soundtrack and Paul Smith T-shirts, several photobooks, remastered reissues, compilations and rarities; thanks to contacts at Konami’s London branch he also secured two UK-exclusive editions. Seeing posters, shops and cinemas full of the lost band felt like a day he had never imagined, and he expressed the desire to visit Ian Curtis’s grave someday.

“when I say as a creator, "I want to create this new game", it's still the same as twenty years ago! People still ask, "will that sell, will that be good?" Nobody really understands whether it would be an instant hit or whatever - I'm not just talking about the top executives, but even the development staff!”

In 1993, seven years after joining Konami and at age thirty, Kojima was made associate general manager of Development Group 5, a team of fewer than ten people with few sales. In addition to game design he now handled personnel, administration and budgeting—tasks he was doing for the first time. When he came across Section Chief Kosaku Shima again in a bookstore, Kojima saw in that character a secret support for worries he did not want to show and for the loneliness of being caught between the organization and his work.

In 2008 Kojima’s business card listed “Creative Officer, Konami Digital Entertainment” and “Director, Kojima Productions.” He argued that job titles don’t hire people, don’t make anything, don’t create profits and do not endure, and that he wanted to be remembered for his deeds and his name rather than any position; he intended to spend the rest of his life on his personal mission, not a title. When exchanging business cards he introduced himself simply as Hideo Kojima, a game designer.

“You know, we've been asked this a lot - how do you guys know this? Even my wife didn't know!”

“I think creating that now wouldn't really be 'cool' [laughs]. I'm not saying that I shouldn't do it, but I think that I probably won't.”

“Sure, there is definitely pressure. We don't belong wholly to Konami, so that pressure might be lighter, but since Kojima Productions is a part of Konami and Konami does the business side of things, yeah, I feel pressure there, that there's a need for it to be a successful, ongoing series.”

“I won't make games with senseless violence. There has to be a reason for it, such as war.”

According to Konami’s 25th anniversary website, the project’s original objective was to make a war game, but the MSX2 could not display many enemy soldiers on a single screen nor more than four bullets at once, so Kojima proposed a game about fleeing the enemy in the style of the film The Great Escape: with the rule of escaping without fighting, the tension of war could be conveyed without many enemies on screen.

“Lost World was the first project I was assigned to and the game was cancelled after six months.”

“Every week they paid for us to visit a forest in the mountains nearby. We would dress up in military uniform and play games there. It was a good time.”

“We had so much more budget so we were able to go to Hollywood and hire a composer.”

“Policenauts also had its own share of naming issues. The game was originally known as "Beyond," reflecting the theme of the story. Konami could not trademark this name, so they went with Policenauts instead.”

“He tried to explain the meaning over and over again via the phone, but was frustrated with his inability to get through.”

“In the past I've mentioned Silent Hill in interviews, and as a result of that the president of Konami rung me up and said he'd like me to make the next Silent Hill.”

Kojima spent almost three decades at Konami, beginning in 1986. In 2015, amid a bitter split, Konami removed Kojima's name from Metal Gear Solid V marketing; at The Game Awards in December 2015 the game won awards but Kojima did not attend, reportedly barred from attending by Konami. That same month Kojima re-established Kojima Productions as an independent studio partnered with Sony. Silent Hills had been cancelled in April 2015.

“Last year, I thought I lost everything. But I didn't.”

“couldn't even talk to them – he had to talk through someone else. That's how that game was finished.”

“Even when I went to the bank, I couldn't borrow money. They said, 'We know you're renowned, but you don't have any actual results.'”

“I thought, I'll tell her once I've become a little successful. I didn't want her to worry.”

“It was 100% out of my pocket. No funding from anyone whatsoever. So we're independent.”

“So, we could put audio on there, and now games could talk. No one had made anything with CD-ROMs yet.”

While in middle school, Kojima's father suddenly collapsed and died in front of him. For economic reasons he gave up his dream of becoming a novelist or film director, and after graduating from university in 1986 he joined Konami.

In 2026 Kojima was scheduled to give a talk at the Game Developers Conference about his fateful decision a decade ago to go independent after a messy breakup with Konami, but he withdrew without offering an explanation; Kojima Productions announced he would not attend and said that some members of the studio would still present at the event.

“I want to do something new. But I saw so many people requesting it. And I was thinking, maybe I only have 10 years left. […] And we shook hands and that's how the partnership started.”

Besides Metal Gear, at Konami Kojima produced or supervised other games: he was producer of Zone of the Enders (2001) and of Boktai (2003), executive producer of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010) and supervising director of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013).

In a text written for Konami's website, Kojima described Policenauts as his most difficult birth: it took four years from planning to the first commercialization and six years in total including later conversions. During that time his department changed three times, and the organization, his position and his work environment changed repeatedly, while the world moved — the Berlin Wall disappeared and the Cold War structure collapsed — and they were also struck by a large, unexpected earthquake.