Hideo Kojima shared a surprising bit of news on social media this week. The legendary game director revealed that Konami received an offer to develop a Matrix video game in the early 2000s, but nobody at the company bothered to tell him about it.
“No one told me in all these 26 years,” Kojima wrote in his post. He only learned about the opportunity recently, over two decades after it happened.
The timing lines up with The Matrix‘s peak cultural moment. The Wachowskis’ sci-fi blockbuster hit theaters in 1999 and became an instant phenomenon. Around that same period, Kojima was deep in development on Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which would release in November 2001.
Kojima acknowledged he couldn’t have jumped on the project immediately. MGS2 demanded his full attention. But he suggested there might have been a window after wrapping that game. The possibility never materialized because he never knew about it.
Instead, The Matrix video game license went elsewhere. Shiny Entertainment developed Enter the Matrix in 2003, which launched alongside The Matrix Reloaded. That game featured over an hour of original footage written and directed by the Wachowskis themselves. Shiny followed up with The Matrix: Path of Neo in 2005. Monolith Productions also created The Matrix Online, an MMO that ran from 2005 to 2009.
Kojima spent nearly three decades at Konami before departing in 2015. During his tenure, he created and led the Metal Gear franchise through multiple acclaimed entries. Beyond Metal Gear, he produced other projects like Zone of the Enders and Boktai. In 2005, Kojima Productions became an official internal studio at Konami. After leaving, he reformed Kojima Productions as an independent company.
His revelation frames this as a corporate communication breakdown rather than a rejected opportunity. The offer apparently existed at a business level but never reached the creative director who would have actually made the game.
What Kojima’s working on now
These days, Kojima has a full slate. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach arrives in 2025. He’s also developing OD, a cloud-powered project with Xbox and collaborator Jordan Peele. Beyond that, he’s announced Physint with PlayStation, described as a next-generation interactive espionage experience.
Given his current commitments and age—Kojima is in his 60s—a Matrix project seems unlikely now. He’s previously stated he wants to complete two more games before potentially moving into film and retirement.
