Kojima, Matrix, and the game we never got

Matrix, the timeless masterpiece by the Wachowskis, debuted in theaters worldwide in 1999. Naturally, at the time, it was inevitable that thoughts immediately turned to one or more video games that would bring the virtual world of Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Agent Smith, and the Sentinels to our platforms.

One of the first games to arrive, in this sense, was Enter The Matrix, developed by Shiny Entertainment on behalf of Atari, for which we remind you of our 2003 Review. However, for a long time, rumors circulated that the then-brothers – now sisters – Wachowskis were huge fans of Metal Gear Solid and had originally contacted Hideo Kojima to propose that he create the tie-in.

More than 25 years later, this rumor is finally confirmed: in an interview with Time Extension, former Vice President of Licensing Christopher Bergstresser revealed that the meeting between the directors and the game designer did indeed happen. "The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima – he recounts – so I, Kazumi Kitue [producer], Kojima, and Aki Saito [who still works with Hideo] received a call from them to come to our office [during the film's promotional tour in Tokyo] and meet him. And they did! They came with their concept artist and actually told Kojima 'we would really like you to make the Matrix game. Can you do it?'"

Kojima, for his part, immediately showed interest in the project, but it was Kitue, on behalf of Konami, who shut down the matter with a firm "No": Hideo-san was in fact at that time engaged in the early stages of developing Metal Gear Solid 2, and it would have been absolutely impossible to start a second parallel project – and this despite many members of the MGS staff would have been delighted to work on Neo and co.

Too bad...