The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley has spoken out about Hideo Kojima’s absence from this year’s event, saying he was left heartbroken when news broke that the legendary developer would not be allowed to attend the awards earlier this month.
Speaking on Reddit, Keighley shed light on the reason behind his decision to speak out about the situation following Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s Best Action/Adventure Game victory at the show:
"It just broke my heart that he couldn’t be with us – something had to be said. I didn’t tell anyone on the show team what I was going to say and it wasn’t rehearsed." He went on to describe the whole affair as a "heartbreaking situation."
With Kojima-san not in attendance at The Game Awards 2015, it was left up to Kiefer Sutherland, who voices Punished Snake in the critically acclaimed stealth-action title, to collect the award on Kojima’s behalf. However, prior to this, Keighley addressed the crowd with the following:
"As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I wanted to tell you a little bit about that. Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight’s award ceremony to accept any awards."
The latter months of The Phantom Pain’s development this year were dogged by the well-publicised issues with Kojima-san and his bosses at Konami, although the exact details regarding the situation remain unknown. However, the Metal Gear creator has now parted ways with the studio, with The Phantom Pain being his last entry in the long-running franchise. Despite this, Donna Burke, a long-time standing contributor to the series, has indicated we won’t have to wait long to find out what Kojima-san is up to next.
One of the casualties of the Kojima-Konami bust-up was Silent Hills, the survival horror title that was the result of a collaboration between Kojima-san and the acclaimed Hollywood director, Guillermo del Toro. While not much about the game was known prior to its cancelation, del Toro has expressed his disappointment on a number of occasions regarding Konami’s decision to shelve the project.
The Game Awards were not the only occasion where Kojima-san was conspicuous by his absence; the developer also failed to collect an award for MGSV at the annual PlayStation Awards in Japan earlier this month. The good news is that the esteemed developer has asserted his desire to continue creating games for the rest of his life.