Hideo Kojima had the chance to see Metal Gear become an anime — and turned it down flat. According to Screen Rant, the legendary designer brutally rejected an anime adaptation of his most iconic game, dismissing the Metal Gear project outright.

It's a striking stance given the current climate, where seemingly every major game franchise is being mined for animated adaptations and streaming series. Metal Gear, with its cinematic stealth-thriller DNA and decades of beloved characters like Solid Snake, would seem like an obvious candidate. Kojima apparently disagreed.

The rejection fits the creator's long-standing protectiveness over his work. Kojima has always treated Metal Gear as a directorial vision rather than a licensing opportunity, and his famously film-obsessed sensibilities set a high bar for how the series should translate to other media. For fans holding out hope of seeing Snake in animated form, this is a door closed by the one person whose opinion mattered most while he was attached to the franchise.