Ben-DutkaDid you know that if Hideo Kojima had had his way, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty would've been the last MGS installment with which he would've been involved…? Yeah, we didn't, either.
In an E3 interview , the ambitious developer said "problems" kept forcing him back into a leadership position when his team was working on MGS3 and MGS4. Said Kojima:
"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."
That's what happens when you're a perfectionist, we suppose. No matter how much confidence you might have in your talented staff, they're just not able to produce the exact vision you have in your head. Right, Hideo? Kojima added that 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." …see, we knew it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; it proves he has a fantastic passion for his ideas, which we need more of in any creative-based industry.
But Kojima has finally managed to move beyond MGS (even though he's currently working on the fifth entry). The oft-rumored Project Ogre is in the works, and that Fox Engine has been talked about quite a bit. As far as we're concerned, the more Kojima can do, the better off we'll all be.