This might be one of gaming’s biggest “what ifs”: had Konami not intervened, the industry could look very different today.

Hideo Kojima says he was as surprised as anyone this week to learn he’d allegedly been tapped to develop a game based on The Matrix, since no one ever told him about any meeting between the Wachowskis and Konami. The Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator clarified remarks made days earlier by Christopher Bergstresser, who served as Konami’s VP of strategic planning and business development from 1996 to 2002.

In a tweet, Kojima explained that in 1999 he and the Wachowskis exchanged emails as mutual fans, then met when they traveled to Japan to promote The Matrix for its local premiere. He believes they met three times, yet the offer never came up in conversation. He was deeply busy with Metal Gear Solid 2 at the time and likely couldn’t have accepted right away, but had someone informed him, he might have found a way to pursue it.

I was surprised to see on social media that the Wachowski sisters had “offered me a Matrix game project!” back in 1999. In all these 26 years, no one ever told me such a conversation had taken place. At the time, we were mutual fans and exchanged emails. The Matrix hadn’t been… pic.twitter.com/4P10P9eEfT

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) October 29, 2025

It’s a pity Kojima’s Matrix game never materialized, assuming the offer truly existed, because it would have been a dream pairing. While the franchise isn’t as white-hot as it was in the early 2000s, a project like this still has huge potential; none of the prior tie-ins captured what makes the IP special.

Case in point: Enter the Matrix. Launched on May 15, 2003 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC, Shiny Entertainment’s effort landed with a thud. This is the same studio behind Earthworm Jim, MDK, and Messiah, yet compared with those, Enter the Matrix felt like a giant step backward.

Source: WCCFTech