Hideo Kojima is the man behind the Metal Gear franchise. All of the ideas and concepts explored in the various games have come from his mind. While this singles him out as a genius it also means he has trouble letting go.
In an interview with the Official Playstation Magazine at E3 2012, Kojima spoke about his desire to leave the franchise in the hands of others as far back as Metal Gear Solid 2. That didn’t quite work out as he had planned.
“Metal Gear Solid 2 was meant to be my last Metal Gear before I handed it off to the team, and the team did actually start working on MGS3, but unfortunately there were problems and it didn’t go well, so I was forced to come back and work on it.”
“When it came to MGS4, I said OK this time for sure I’m not getting involved so I really handed it off. Because I set two different directors working on it I was sure I wouldn’t have to get involved, but there was a difference in expectations of what I felt that Metal Gear should be.”
“It’s very hard to come up with the concept of a game and hand it off to other people, as of course they can’t see what’s in my head. They may not be able to understand the concept completely, or the messages that I want to convey and that’s where things went awry in the past as people couldn’t really understand what I wanted. I decided at that point that if I was going to make a game based around these ideals that I would do it myself, which is why I keep getting involved.”
With this in mind it’s no wonder that Kojima is once again working on the Metal Gear series, with Metal Gear Solid 5 currently in development. He is also working on new IP a world away from the franchise that made him famous.
Judging by how good the MGS games have been I suspect these will also be slices of genius.
