Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima reportedly opening new studio

The Metal Gear creator and director Hideo Kojima has had a tough time with Konami recently. It all started in March when Konami slowly began erasing Kojima's name from the games he created and they published. Konami quickly put Hideo Kojima's name back on Metal Gear Solid games after fans began noticing.

Most recently, Konami barred Kojima from attending the Game Awards to collect his award for The Phantom Pain winning the best action/adventure game of 2015 category. It appears as though the drama between Kojima and Konami is ending.

Konami's treatment of Kojima has even been called 'cruel' by fellow game publishing company executives.

According to the online version of a Japanese newspaper known as Nikkei Shinbun (via NeoGaf), Hideo Kojima officially left Konami today. The newspaper went on to detail that Kojima is forming a new studio with colleagues from his former studio, in order to continue developing games. Nikkei suggested that Kojima will develop games for Sony's PlayStation consoles with negotiations already underway with Sony, but there wasn't any mention of his games being outright exclusive.

Nikkei did not have a source for their claims, so file this news under Rumor for now. It should be noted that Konami has maintained the rights to the Metal Gear series.