When Kojima Productions announced its 5-year anniversary celebration event, many assumed that the company would be revealing a new game, perhaps something horror-related given Hideo Kojima’s penchant for the movie genre. What we got instead was a fancy new wallpaper showing off the studio’s LUDENS logo, though this is seemingly the first of what will likely be a total of 5 reveals before the curtains close on the event. While we await any forthcoming information from the studio, at least they were kind enough to reveal the origins of its LUDENS logo.

Kojima Productions’ 5-year anniversary celebration kicked off with a new wallpaper depicting the LUDENS astronaut with what almost appears to be a DualSense controller on its back, which may or may not tie into a later announcement. Alongside this wallpaper is a meaty Q&A featuring Yoji Shinkawa, the chief designer of the LUDENS logo.

When asked how the logo came about, Yoji Shinkawa revealed that the Kojima Productions logo was originally meant to be a ballet dancer. “When we first started to create the company’s logo, Mr. Kojima brought up the idea of a ballet dancer jumping,” Shinkawa explained. “As ballet is  “comprehensive art”, he said he wanted to achieve that digitally. But I had a hard time digesting this idea.”

So, one of the ideas that I proposed was a mixture of an astronaut suit and a knight from a digital world, something that Mr. Kojima had suggested in the past. Then, he added the idea of the Turing machines and the flag to this. By the end, the concept of the ballet dance was completely gone (laughs).”

So there you have it, it appears that the LUDENS logo was, in some form or another rattling around in Hideo Kojima’s head for the past 20 years, and Yoji Shinkawa took those ideas and refined it into what we know today. Even if there aren’t any game announcements as part of the studio’s 5-year anniversary, at least the event gave us an inside look into the imagination of the man behind Metal Gear.

So, thoughts on the origin of the LUDENS logo? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!