It looks like Kojima still has some loyal followers at Konami with the discovery of a secret message inside Metal Gear Survive.
Survive is obviously the first Metal Gear game since Kojima left Konami in what looks like a very messy split, and it appears at least someone on the game's team still has feelings about that.
Over the weekend numerous images appeared showing what appears to be an acrostic in an early scene from the game (that's a fancy word for when the letters of several lines spell something out).
Here's the best image showing what's going on:
As you can see, the role call of soldiers spells 'KJP FOREVER', with 'KJP' previously an abbreviation for Kojima Productions.
The last two names, Bastard Yota and Cunning Yuji seem to be a reference to Survive director Yota Tsutsumizaki and producer Yuji Korekado. They are the only names on the list marked as AWOL, everyone else is KIA or MIA. Those nicknames here suggest that someone wasn't too pleased with their place in how things went down.
The final credits of the game do... sort of include Kojima, with an oblique 'special thanks' to 'METAL GEAR SOLID V ALL STAFF.'
That obviously includes Hideo in there somewhere but seem about as close as Konami got to acknowledging him. The other message doesn't seem like something the publisher would knowingly sign off. It's not clear yet whether anything similar appears in the original Japanese, this could be something added in localisation.
If you want to read more about the idea behind Survive's ambitions then we've an interview with the producer named up there, Yuji Korekado, explaining the idea behind the spin off.
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