Fans of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear franchise will be shocked to hear that the mastermind behind the series believes that it has been his “biggest failure”.
You may be scratching your heads, and rightly so, as Metal Gear has gone on to be one of the most popular and recognizable names in industry. Unsurprisingly, Kojima then went on to clarify this statement by adding that it has also been his “biggest success”. Hard to argue with him there.
If you didn’t already know, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Metal Gear, an achievement that Kojima is undoubtedly proud of, but also trapped within. Speaking to IGN, he elaborates, saying:
I don’t like necessarily that people think Metal Gear defines me. I love Metal Gear, don’t get me wrong. But as a creator, I really want to work on other projects, including new games. We want to do new things, things that nobody else has done before, so even if I keep producing Metal Gear games, I want to have something else apart from Metal Gear that pushes the boundaries.
He then went on to reflect on the past 25 years, describing his experience in developing the Metal Gear games over that time.
I guess you could say I’m very pleased with all of [the Metal Gear games] and at the same time very displeased with all of them. Every time I make a new game I put all of my effort completely into that game. It’s like putting all your effort into a new child that’s being born. Once the project is done I can step back at look at it objectively, which is when I can see a lot of flaws. That’s when I start to make a new game that tries to fix some of those flaws.
Fortunately for all of us Metal Gear fans, this doesn’t mark the end of the franchise by any means, as the Platinum Games developed title, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is on the not too distant horizon, as well as another major installment in the franchise.
Talk about being a victim of your own success.
