‘Metal Gear Solid V- The Phantom Pain’:Main Man Kojima Gets the Finger From Konami

A while back, I saw a trailer for Tim Burton's take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It showcased all the best lil' moments from the movie (as always, negating the entire need to watch it, as with trailers that tell the whole damn story): marauding squirrels, Christopher Lee being the most freaking badass creepy dentist you ever saw... all of that good stuff. But when it came to naming the actors involved, only one name was dropped. Johnny Depp, the narrator said, followed by a stony silence.

No other poor bastard was worth mentioning, apparently. Johnny 'It's Freaking Johnny Depp' Depp is a one-man selling point for movies, which explains the kind of buy-and-sell-the-whole-Kardashian-clan salary he gets for Pirates of the Caribbean. In the video game world, Hideo Kojima has a similar kind of gravitas. That is, he did.

Recently, Mr. Metal Gear Solid has had quite the falling out with Konami. It was never explained quite what happened there, but it looks like it was serious business. The company cancelled Kojima's other project, Silent Hills, and are now trying to eradicate his name from the Metal Gear world like a pissed Ancient Egyptian Pharoah defiling the obelisks of his ancestors with a chisel.

Yes indeed. The ‘A Hideo Kojima Game' branding on the boxart of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is no more. It was on earlier versions, as Kotaku reports, but has been removed from the finished product (arriving September 1). I'm sure there's some kind of professional reasoning for doing this, and it's not just third grade schoolyard dumbassery on Konami's part. Then again, I'm not sure.

They've even changed the iconic Tactical Espionage Action to Tactical Espionage Operations. The damn cheek.