Sure, there is definitely pressure. We don't belong wholly to Konami,…

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.

“And in my spare time I want to establish a new game, which I have been wanting to do for a long time. I do have strong urges to create a new title other than the Metal Gear series.”

Kojima explained in 2011 that he kept continuing Metal Gear because, while fans fervently wanted more, he felt the story could not end and a creator could not turn his back on them. At the same time he recognized that neither creators nor their series are eternal, a contradiction he described as a spiral in which they became trapped.

“They can't break free, they can't quit, they can't lose. It felt like that when Metal Gear started gaining fans and I started getting fan letters.”

“In the beginning, I would say the answer to that is yes. I had very specific people in mind when I created a game, and I had a message that I wanted to pass along. But now my thought process is changing.”