8 Most Spiteful Video Game Easter Eggs Ever

2. Hideo Kojima Reminds Konami That They Can't Erase His Legacy (Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes)

Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes Deja Vu mission
Konami

Hideo Kojima's breakup with Konami sent shockwaves through the gaming industry in 2015. Reportedly, Kojima was caught in a power struggle with his long-time publishing partner, resulting in the two parties going their separate ways.

It wasn't a clean split however, and there seemed to be some pretty heated emotions on both sides of the argument: at one point, Konami took the rather childish step of removing Kojima's name from all advertising materials for his then-upcoming game, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

As for Kojima? Well, he took a shot at Konami in a very unusual, Kojima-like way: he did it one year earlier.

In 2014's Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (a prologue to The Phantom Pain), the Deja Vu mission allows players to "erase" the logos of Kojima's previous Metal Gear games, and during this task, a rather interesting bit of dialogue can be heard:

"You might be able to erase the markings, but the memories will never disappear..."

At the time, nobody could possibly understand what this meant, but with hindsight, it's clear that Kojima was well aware of the trouble that was brewing behind closed doors, and he wanted to remind Konami that his legacy would endure - even in spite of the company's later attempts to erase his name.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!