Image: Konami
Video game developer Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami didn’t part on the best terms. Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain sold millions of copies, but only after years of delays and budget overruns. Towards the end of its development, Konami pulled Kojima’s name off the game’s box and later even barred him from attending an awards ceremony where Metal Gear V was honored.Kojima left Konami and the publisher used the game's Fox engine and what remained of Kojima's former team to churn out Metal Gear Survive. It turns the military stealth game into a zombie hunting survival game. Die-hard fans were upset and some felt it was an insult to Kojima’s legacy.One fan who played Metal Gear Survive thinks he found a secret shout out to Kojima buried inside the game. An in-game screenshot shows a character looking over a list of various combat units. The first letter of the second word in each unit spells out KJP FOREVER. KJP, supposedly, stands for Kojima productions, the Konami subsidiary Kojima ran while making the Metal Gear Games.The last two combat units listed are Bastard Yota and Cunning Yuji. Metal Gear Survive’s director was Yota Tsutsumizaki and one of its designers is Yuji Kaine.It sure looks like someone slipped in a secret reference to the man who came before them and, given persistent rumors of how much it sucks to work at Konami, I can’t blame them.Metal Gear Survive isn’t doing well. Critics and fans have both panned the game as a cynical cash grab, an attempt to use the Metal Gear license to sell a middling survival game. Konami angered the game's few fans when they discovered extra save slots had to be purchased using in-game currency at a real world cost of $10.