Metal Gear Solid IP is Being Licensed Out, “Up for Grabs”

When rumors were swelling about Konami licensing Silent Hill out to Bloober Team and a “prominent” Japanese developer, it was reported that Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania were being outsourced as well. Jeremy Penter aka Karak of ACG Gaming further added to the rumors in MrMattyPlays’ H.A.M. Radio podcast (from 1:10:00 onwards). When being told that Konami were apparently licensing the Metal Gear Solid IP out, he said, “Apparently they are.”

While this could be taken as just some ambiguous musing, Penter would provide some clarification on Reddit. He noted that the source who told him about this “has been with me since Far Cry Primal leaks. And mostly has been right, from Bethesda moving to zero day review code and this year to Deathloop, [Vampire: The Masquerade] Bloodlines, Dragon’s Dogma 2 leak, Xbox Game Boost work, and a couple more this year.” While noting that he was simply stating what he heard from the source, he further added that, “That source has been reliable all this year so I said it. I don’t have the time to really discuss BS so I don’t repeat most. But they were right about the Bloodlines stuff, the Deathloop stuff. So I figured it was worthy.”

Responding to a comment, Penter noted that, “I was informed in some way Metal Gear was up for some kind of grab. Which is why I was discussing the IP, it just descended into this and the discussion that Microsoft could be a mediator (money lol) between some kind of IP deal.” He then believed that this would likely “hinge less on Kojima and more on Metal Gear.”

Of course, there are also rumors of Kojima Productions close to signing a deal with Microsoft to publish its next game. Studio founder Hideo Kojima had apparently gone to Sony, which published Death Stranding, for his next game but was reportedly turned down. Regardless, take all of this with a grain of salt. We’ll see where it all goes in the coming months especially with Microsoft confirmed for E3 2021.