Konami confident it can make a new mainline Metal Gear game

Konami could be ready to continue the Metal Gear Solid series without Hideo Kojima at the helm, but exact details on what's next remain unclear.

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It's been 10 years since Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released, and since then, Konami hasn't made a sequel or carried the main franchise forward. Instead of immediately focusing on Metal Gear 6 when Hideo Kojima left in 2015, Konami shrugged off expensive AAA budgets and coasted on mainstay franchises like eFootball/PES and Yu-Gi-Oh. Then in 2020, Konami ramped up a new internal game dev team specifically focused on console games, a new report from Bloomberg reveals.

After five years of development, this dev team has just released the fruits of their labor and intensive efforts, showing that they have the ability to make new Metal Gear games--at least production-wise (it'll be hard to match Kojima's eclectic touch). Konami recently launched Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a remake of the original Metal Gear Solid 3 released on PlayStation 3, to high acclaim. This has emboldened the Japanese games-maker, who now says they have a team that's capable of making new mainline Metal Gear sequels.

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In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Noriaki Okamura, the producer on Konami's new Snake Eater remake, said that the main goal is to create a new vanguard of developers who can swoop in and keep Konami's main franchises going. Metal Gear remains one of the most important video game series of all time with 63 million lifetime shipments across decades of time.

"We definitely built a team that could create a Metal Gear game. We've tried to get a lot of young people to build them up to create high-end triple-A games. We believe it would be a great opportunity for them to not only work on just one franchise, but to be able to take on a lot of different types of projects."

Konami has yet to discuss any future plans for more Metal Gear Solid games, but given Snake Eater's current early success, that will probably change in the coming years.