Metal Gear Solid Boss Hideo Kojima Wants To Leave Franchise (Again)

Metal Gear Solid supremo Hideo Kojima has once again expressed his desire to step away from the hit action franchise.

Speaking to Game Informer, Kojima likened the move to Ridley Scott handing over control of the Alien series to James Cameron. "At Kojima Productions, if our studio were a kitchen and the head chef changes, then it changes the flavour and it changes. The world franchise usually becomes more open, as in Alien.

"To be honest, I've actually wanted to do something similar just to change it. I don't know if the Metal Gear brand sometimes is a bit heavy to carry. The franchise is difficult to handle. But so far I've had no success [passing the torch]. Metal Gear Rising [Revengeance], fortunately that was a spin-off so that went well.

"Ideally I would like to step out from the Metal Gear franchise as a producer and dedicate myself to other games. So far that has proven to be a bit difficult. Alien is a very successful example [of a new director coming in]. Unfortunately in our case it's more like Terminator, that once Cameron steps out of it there was kind of a mess."

Kojima has expressed a desire to make games that aren't part of the Metal Gear series since the second game in 2002, but has never successfully parted ways with the adventures of Solid Snake and Big Boss.

On what he'd like to do next Kojima said he "would like to make more games that have that indie game taste or some completely different type of game with a big budget," before adding: "If I wasn't doing games, well of course I'd like to get involved in movies or write novels. I'm almost 50-years-old so I don't have that much time left. If I were to write a list of things that I want to do before I die, it would be a very stuffed list. Because of my age I'm starting to think of the other things I have to do before I die.

"I've been working in the Metal Gear franchise for over 25 years. This world has allowed me to tell a lot of the things that I wanted to say. That said, it has a very specific worldview and a very specific set of game elements. I'll probably be saying this until I die, but there are still more things I want to tell, more things I want to communicate, and more things I want to experiment with."

He also spoke of how he'd want the series to become more open, likening his vision to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto.

"One thing is that within Kojima Productions I'd love to put all my efforts and time into creating a Metal Gear Solid that's kind of what [Rockstar] does with GTA. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's still a business. In parallel we have to work on other projects and make things balanced towards Konami as a whole. Finding that balance with how to work on all our projects proves to be a little difficult."

Next month sees the release of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a smaller and cheaper MGS title that acts as a prologue to full sequel MGS V: The Phantom Pain, which is expected to be released either later this year or more likely in 2015.