Kojima Working on New Metal Gear?

Ever since a new teaser site popped up within the last couple of days, the rumors have been rampant that Konami, and indeed Kojima himself are hard at work creating a brand new Metal Gear game. Apparently someone happened to notice that in the page information in their browsers tools the following keywords came up for the site: Hideo Kojima, MGS, METAL GEAR, NEXT, game, konami, kojima game, KJP, Kojima Production.

Now, I refuse to say as others have that this is part of an elaborate breadcrumb trail that leads us to the inevitable conclusion that Hideo Kojima will be making a new Metal Gear Solid game. There are two components of this mystery that need to be examined. First of all, taking the keywords alone as evidence may not be the best idea. On the one hand, it’s very likely that those are just the keywords that Konami wanted to use in order to draw the people who would be searching those words to their site. But on the other hand, things are seldom an accident when it comes to Konami, and especially when it comes to Metal Gear. I still remember when they released a pamphlet years ago at E3 and it turned out to have encoded information about the game encrypted inside.

In my mind, its hard to take that little bit as evidence as it could easily just be an innocent use of keywords to draw the right kind of traffic. On the other hand, we do know that every single title in the Metal Gear Solid series has received rave reviews from critics, and sold millions of copies at retail. That’s really all you need to know. Konami isn’t going to leave money on the table and not make another installment in a series that so clearly still has legs.

However, whether or not this teaser site has anything to do with a Metal Gear Solid game is still unknown, though my gut reaction is that it will be. Kojima has been quoted as saying he was done with the Metal Gear franchise three times now. Right when he was nearing the completion of each game (MGS2, 3, and 4). To put it frankly, I just don’t trust what he has to say about the future of his own career anymore. If past events are any indication, he’ll get homesick after a while and come back around to another MGS game.

TGR Rating: Likely