The ongoing drama between Konami and Hideo Kojima continues, although it’s taken quite the weird turn this week.

The New Yorker published a story reporting Kojima has officially left Konami earlier this month, with the author of the article even tweeting out a photo of what’s being considered to be his farewell party:

Here is a photograph of Kojima's farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of: pic.twitter.com/xgRUoYs5qt

— Simon Parkin (@SimonParkin) October 20, 2015

Today, Konami is denying the report and says Kojima is still an employee of the company, but is currently on vacation after completing development on Metal Gear Solid 5, according to a spokesperson for Konami. “Because the development time for console games is so long and fatigue builds up, it’s common for employees to take extended periods of time off when development is finished,” explains the spokesperson.

When the spokesperson was asked about the farewell party, their response was, “We’re not sure what kind of thing this was.”

It was reported earlier this year Kojima would leave Konami once development of Metal Gear Solid 5 was complete, which Konami clarified days later with their own statement. We’re not surprised to see Konami once again attempt to explain what’s really going on with Kojima’s employment status with the company. We don’t quite get why they would continue to string the gaming community along by saying he’s still an employee when it’s rather obvious by now he wants to branch out and do other things. Hopefully Kojima can speak out about what's really going on between him and Konami one day, but we don't see that happening for some time.