It looks like Konami staff left a secret message in Metal Gear Survive

From deep within the bowels of Konami, there comes a howl. It looks like developers of Metal Gear Survive, the first in the long-running series to come out from post-Kojima Konami, have left a message at the front of the game marking a moment of respect for those that went before.

Upon creating your character in-game, you're shown a glimpse of a clipboard that features yourself and your fellow soldiers - and keen-eyed Redditors have spotted that the first letters of the initials of a succession of them spells out 'KJP forever', an apparent reference to Kojima Productions, Hideo Kojima's outfit that was once an integral part of the Konami development team. The references don't end there - the last two names on the list, both marked as 'AWOL', are 'Bastard Yota' and 'Cunning Yuji', perhaps referencing Metal Gear Survive's director Yota Tsutsumizaki and producer Yuji Korekado.

Kojima left Konami at the tail-end of 2015 as development on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was wrapping up in seemingly strained circumstances - the director's name was earlier removed from marketing material for The Phantom Pain, and Konami initially denied that Kojima had left. Since then Kojima has taken some of his team over to an all-new Kojima Productions, currently working with Sony on Death Stranding.

Metal Gear Survive came out on Friday in the UK to a fairly muted response. It's quite far from the series' highs, though it's maybe not quite as bad as you might have feared.