Many years ago, actually last century, there were rumors that Hideo Kojima was in talks to create a video game based on the hit movie The Matrix. This never happened, and Shiny Entertainment took over the license and released two games that were canon in the Matrix universe. These were Enter the Matrix and The Path of Neo and both were rather good. I remember spending most of Christmas playing Enter The Matrix.
A novel interview with Christopher Bergstresser, former vice president of licensing at Konami Digital Entertainment, revealed that “the Wachowskis were huge fans of Kojima” and met with him along with Aki Saito and Kasumi Kitaue, a Konami executive.
“They both came in with their concept artist and basically told Kojima, ‘We really want you to make a Matrix game. Can you do it?'” Krzysztof recalls. “Aki translated it into Japanese for Mr. Kitaue, and Kitaue just looked at them and told them clearly, “No.”
It seems Kojima was still interested in the idea, but it never came to fruition, probably because Konami was busy with Metal Gear Solid 2 at the time.
UPDATE: Kojima stated that the meeting described below did not take place. He posted the following message on Twitter:
“I was surprised to see on social media that the Wachowski sisters had “offered me the design for The Matrix!” in 1999. In these 26 years, no one has ever told me that such a conversation took place. At that time, we were mutual fans and exchanged emails. “The Matrix” has not yet premiered in Japan, but I have already seen it in U.S. theaters and at a preview screening.
“When the Wachowskis came to Japan for the promotion, I think I met them three times. In the morning we had an interview with Famitsu in Shinjuku – then Geof Darrow joined us for a talk session. In the afternoon, they were invited to the KONAMI CS Division headquarters. I was then the vice president of KCE JAPAN, a wholly owned subsidiary. When I arrived at the headquarters, their meeting with Mr. Kitaue, the head of the CS division, had just ended. I joined them later and we talked for about an hour without a translator (Aki wasn’t even there.) I think John Gaeta, the visual effects supervisor, was also there that night and I attended the opening night screening and party where I also met Joel Silver.
“At the time, I was already very busy with MGS2 and probably couldn’t have accepted the offer right away. But if someone had told me, maybe there would have been a way to make it work.”
Original story continues below…
Kojima continued to correspond with the Wachowskis and in 2000 he met with them to discuss the similarities between their works. “I saw (The Matrix) four times. I like this type of work. What I planned to do for my next project was largely turned into a movie. We planned some things like characters running on walls and stuff like that, but they beat me to it (laughter).
Kojima’s later hit Death Stranding explored similar themes to the Matrix series, such as blurred reality and another world, while Higgs’ character is similar to Agent Smith.
However, this may not be the end of the story. Kojima is working on an OD for Microsoft and now we know that it will be a horror anthology in which notable directors will appear in episodes. The only confirmed name is Jordan Peele, but the Wachowskis would be a great choice for an episode.
Source: Timeextension.com
