The Wachowskis once approached Hideo Kojima to make a Matrix game in the late '90s, but were reportedly shut down by one of the company's higher ups, according to a former vice president of licensing at Konami Digital Entertainment.
Following the release of The Matrix in US cinemas back in early 1999, the film pretty much became an instant critical and commercial success, winning over audiences thanks to its magnificent blend of philosophical themes, Hong Kong-style action scenes, and groundbreaking special effects.
As a result, there was a lot of speculation in the video game media at the time about a potential Matrix video game, and even more rumours going around about the studio that would eventually be tapped to make it.
In a December 1999 report in the multiformat NextGen magazine, it was suggested, for instance, that Konami's Metal Gear Solid team, led by the famous designer Hideo Kojima, was among the forerunners in the discussions to make a Matrix game, with the Wachowskis speaking with the creator about the possibility of lending his team's talents to the adaptation. But, as history tells us, this version of reality ultimately never came to pass, with Shiny Entertainment instead ending up winning the license, going on to produce two separate Matrix games: Enter the Matrix in 2003 and The Path of Neo in 2005.
For years, it's been a source of fascination for fans of the Japanese video game creator about how far these discussions actually went, with no one quite being sure why the partnership never came to be — especially given that the creators both seemed to be mutual fans of each other's work.
However, recently, while talking to Christopher Bergstresser, a former vice president of licensing at Konami Digital Entertainment (about another project that he worked on during his time at Sega), he provided an explanation for why these conversations never resulted in an agreement being struck, stating that the Konami higher-up, Kasumi Kitaue, had shut down these discussions pretty much as soon as they begun, as he wanted Kojima focused on the Metal Gear Solid series.
"The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima," Bergstresser told me. "So Kazumi Kitaue, Kojima, Aki Saito (who still works with Kojima), and I were at the Konami HQ, and we got a call from the Wachowskis, who wanted to come in and meet with Kojima. So they did!
"The two of them came in with their concept artist, and effectively they said to Kojima, ‘We really want you to do the Matrix game. Can you do that?’ Aki translated this into Japanese for Mr. Kitaue, and Kitaue just looked at them and told them plainly, ‘No’. We did still get to enjoy the Matrix Japanese premiere and afterparty, though."
Looking at the timeline, this makes a lot of sense. At the time, Kojima and his team were hard at work in the preparation stages on creating Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty — a game which Kojima later has repeatedly noted "shared some similarities" with the Matrix, such as "characters running on walls and such". As a result, it probably wouldn't have been beneficial for Kojima to pick up another major project at this critical stage and would likely have served as a distraction. Nevertheless, it's something we would be curious to have seen, given that the designer/director has rarely, if ever, worked on licensed projects.
Taking a look at Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 2 development diary, details of Bergstresser's account seem to be supported, with Kojima mentioning that on August 25th, 1999, he met the Wachowskis and their concept artist, Geoff Darrow, in Hyatt Park, Shinjuku, on the day of the Matrix's Japanese premiere.
However, speaking to another former Konami employee, who wished to remain anonymous, they suggested the story isn't entirely accurate, stating that Kojima had continued to "show strong interest" in a Matrix game after Kitaue's comment and revealing that there was "immense disappointment" among members of the team that the creators didn't end up collaborating on a project together.
We've reached out to Akihiro Saito and the Wachowskis to try and find out more details, and will update the article should we hear anything back.