Assistant producer Ryan Payton has just left Kojima Productions. Aside from working on MGS Portable Ops, he's also the guy to be thanked for the exquisite Western approach for the controls system in Metal Gear Solid 4, as well as its other bonus content on the collector's edition Blu-ray.

No, Payton's leaving wasn't the cause of any bad blood among the MGS4 team. Speaking to Kotaku in an interview, he reveals that his decision to leave Kojima Productions was due to personal reasons; and without dropping any more details left it at "some pretty heavy news concerning my mom."

As for future plans, he intends to move back to North America and find work somewhere closer to his family. We expect he'll still be doing video game development - as he states, one of his dreams is to land an original game concept of his on retail shelves, but for now, he wants to take things easy and spend more time with his family (aaaw, he's a family guy!).

An interesting note he reveals towards the end of the interview though:

It'll be hard not being involved in MGS5, but I've got the utmost confidence that Hideo Kojima, Ken Imaizumi, and our amazing team will put together another blockbuster game. I'll be cheering from the sidelines.

It looks like the next installment in the Metal Gear series is pretty much confirmed now - though whether it is actually MGS5, I believe it is probably just a placeholder title, a default working title referring to "the Metal Gear game that comes after MGS4." From this quote, it also seems that Hideo Kojima will be working with the same team to deliver the next game.

And with that, we give our warmest thanks to Ryan Payton for all his efforts and work on some of the most memorable games in recent history. Godspeed!

Btw, for those asking about the picture, it's taken from Ryan Payton's blog, from an entry during that time when they were working with Ubisoft Montreal (Payton's the guy with the cool glasses - aside from Kojima, who also has cool, iconic glasses). And yes, that's Jade Raymond.

Makes me wonder... will Payton and Raymond work together in the future? Hmmm...

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Related aricles:

• Hideo Kojima might stay for next Metal Gear
• Ken Imaizumi and Ryan Payton talks MGS 4 faves and collector's edition