Hideo Kojima is slowly being erased from Konami

Hideo Kojima is the creator, writer, and director of a number of great games. And up until recently he was the Executive Content Officer at Konami — currently directing Silent Hills. With April 1st being the start of a new fiscal quarter, Konami released a statement detailing the individuals that would hold Executive positions within the company — Kojima was not on the list, an odd omission considering he had previously been listed as Executive Content Officer.

This is not the only thing that Kojima has been removed from either. The official Twitter account for the Metal Gear series had always been @Kojima_Pro_live — until recently. The new official Twitter account is @metalgear_en, a move thoroughly removes the Kojima name from the account.

Another move came from Konami's home page for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Where it once had said "A Hideo Kojima Game," it no longer does:

Before:

After:

There are more changes, but the point has been made — Kojima is slowly being erased.

VideoGamer.com obtained a statement from a Konami representative on Hideo Kojima's sudden MIA status on the games:

"Konami Digital Entertainment, including Mr. Kojima, will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Please look forward to future announcements."

Kojima will continue working with Konami, but will no longer hold an executive position and will not be accredited in the game's title. This seems odd; perhaps Kojima's departure shows a return to concentrating on game development instead of business aspects or MGS V will be his last.

There's speculation that this is all an elaborate April Fools' joke (not like Kojima has never trolled us in the past, right?), but there's also the tiny fact that Konami is a publicly traded company. A major move like this would surely shake things up and I'm sure shareholders would get quite upset if it turns out to be a big joke.

If it is real, then the fate of Silent Hills seems to be hanging in the balance now…

[Thank you, V_ben & Gaf]

Catch me on Twitter @TatiMo_GZ