The Wachowskis once asked Hideo Kojima to make a Matrix game, but Konami said no, and history ended up taking a very different turn.
By the late 1990s, Hideo Kojima was one of Konami’s most valuable creators. Metal Gear Solid had sold millions worldwide and turned him into a rare celebrity developer in Japan.
Konami was doubling down on safe bets, chasing sequels instead of experiments. Kojima’s projects were costly and demanding, and leadership wanted him focused squarely on Metal Gear. Still, you can’t help but wonder if The Matrix might’ve been the one side project worth burning a little midnight oil for.
The Wachowskis wanted Kojima to make The Matrix game
According to former Konami VP Christopher Bergstresser, the Wachowskis personally approached Kojima in 1999 after The Matrix’s release. They reportedly visited Konami’s Tokyo headquarters with concept artist Geoff Darrow and asked him outright to develop the official Matrix game.
Twitter/Hideo Kojima“The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima,” Bergstresser said in an interview with Time Extension. “They came in and said, ‘We really want you to do the Matrix game.’ But Konami higher-up Kazumi Kitaue immediately said, ‘No.’ He wanted Kojima focused on Metal Gear Solid 2.”
Kojima did, at least, attend the Matrix’s Japanese premiere and afterparty, where he noted the similarities between Neo’s wall-running and a planned MGS2 character named Chinaman. The two projects were creatively linked, both obsessed with perception, control, and digital illusion. But The Matrix went to Shiny Entertainment instead, which later produced Enter the Matrix and The Path of Neo, neither of which managed to stick the landing.
Bergstresser’s story matches Kojima’s own 1999 development diary, where he mentioned meeting the Wachowskis and Darrow at the Hyatt Park in Shinjuku. Another unnamed Konami employee later told Time Extension that Kojima “showed strong interest” in the adaptation and “immense disappointment” when it was shut down.
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Kojima says he was “surprised” to learn of Matrix game proposal
Following Bergstresser’s interview, Kojima posted on X/Twitter, stating, “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,” he continued, before recalling the three occasions in which he had met them.
If Kojima had made The Matrix, it might have been the most self-aware blockbuster game of its era. Instead, we got Death Stranding twenty years later, which is a devastatingly good consolation prize, and proof he didn’t need anyone else’s universe to build one of his own.