Hideo Kojima project reportedly cancelled: "That's the games industry for you"

Hideo Kojima recently had a major project cancelled, according to an extensive interview with Japanese site Livedoor that was translated by VGC.

"Recently a major project of mine got cancelled, so I'm pretty pissed, but that's the games industry for you," Kojima says after Livedoor asked about plans for his next game. Just what that game could have been is unclear, but Kojima was discussing future projects earlier in the year, as GamesRadar reported back in January.

In an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu, Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa discussed wanting to work on a manga together, or something with mecha that Shinkawa could design. Kojima also mentioned wanting to make movies, but that's obviously not what was canned.

Kojima Productions did have plans "to work on multiple game projects, one of which would be a 'big' game", and Kojima confirmed he was working on smaller, episodic and digital-only titles. That's a lot of projects, so it's unclear which of these were cancelled, but at least we know Kojima is still working on something. He tells Livedoor "It's still in the early planning stages, so I can't say much, but on the downlow I'm actively working on it."

While it certainly sucks to get a project cancelled, it's good to know Kojima is still plugging away at a new game. And thanks to the success of Death Stranding, Kojima Productions won't have any funding issues. “We’ve absolutely crossed the line we needed to cross to be in the black, including recovering development costs, so I’d call it a successful result,” Kojima tells Livedoor.

We'll just have to wait and see what Hideo Kojima has in store for us.

What could Hideo Kojima do with the power of next-gen games? All signs point to a lot, especially after we saw developers react to the PS5 Unreal Engine 5 demo.

Alyssa Mercante used to be a features writer at GamesRadar and is now a freelance writer and editor. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.