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Metal Gear Creator Kojima Says Bigger Budgets Can Stifle Creativity

Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima has said that it can be more difficult to maintain creative freedom when working on big-budget games.

“I want to use a lot of technology, but as we use more technology we need more budget, and when you need more budget it’s more difficult to put more authorship into [the game]; the relationship with the marketing department becomes more difficult,” Kojima said in a roundtable interview at E3 2014 attended by GameSpot. “So, as a creator it has become very difficult; the more technology we use, the more difficult [being creative] becomes.”

Kojima attended E3 to promote his most recent and biggest game to date, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The recently released prelude to that game, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, has been the subject of some controversy lately due to its depictions of torture.

As Kojima explained at the same roundtable interview, he expected people to have a strong reaction, but that he doesn’t want to shy away from presenting such subjects in his games, and that they’re meant to make players empathize and understand Snake’s motivations.

Earlier this year, Kojima also said games will never be considered culture if they don’t broach sensitive subjects.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is currently in development for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, though publisher Konami has not announced a release date for the game yet. For more on it, be sure to read GameSpot’s previous coverage from E3 this week.

Emanuel Maiberg is a freelance writer. You can follow him on Twitter @emanuelmaiberg and Google+.

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