I mean every time that Kojima made a game it turned out to be something that people talk about for years on. But the second it gets slightly more ambitious investors get their panties in the knot about it even though throughout history Kojima's products made a massive return. This split will also, in my opinion, lead to Kojima losing access to Decima engine, which sucks in a whole different way.
I never bothered Death Stranding and everything after MGS-3 has been very meh IMO. He didn't really want to make MGS 4 & 5.
MGS 3 itself while an excellent game overstays it welcome after you defeat "The End" IMO.
The games that he is well known for at this point are really 20+ years old.
> something that people talk about for years on
In the case of MGS4 and MGS5, because they're weirdly horny... Like, MGS5 was a good game, but you can't tell me that Kojima doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about bikini clad snipers.