Hideo Kojima looks to an open-world future where Metal Gear doesn't define him

Hideo Kojima is best known as creator of the Metal Gear series of stealth action games, but he doesn't want those games alone to define him, he told EGMnow in a recent interview.

"I'm often misinterpreted," Kojima said. "I've always said that I want to work on original properties, but Metal Gear offers plenty of benefits. The Fox Engine, for example, took a lot of time and money [to create]; we were only able to develop it because it was intended for the next Metal Gear. In the next game, I'm introducing concepts intended for entirely new intellectual properties using the Metal Gear brand."

Kojima said that Grand Theft Auto 3, which was released the same year as Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, taught him about the exploration in open-world games, which weren't present in Metal Gear titles.

You can see that influence in Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, the next installment of his landmark franchise.

You can see that influence in Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, the next installment of his landmark franchise. Kojima made a similar connection during a PAX Prime 2012 panel that Polygon attended.

"Once we get the Fox Engine moving as it is now, we can use it to make an FPS, a game like Uncharted, an on-rails type of game, and any kind of game if we really wanted," he said during the panel. "What I really wanted to do - the biggest challenge for me would be making an open-world game, so that's what I'm trying to do with it right now."

For more on Kojima and the future of Metal Gear, you can check out our report from the PAX Prime panel, as well as Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes' North American cinematic debut from the same panel.