Hideo Kojima tonight accepted the 2016 Industry Icon Award, saying that he “thought he’d lost everything,” in the aftermath of his acrimonious split with Konami. He also showed a clip from his new game (see separate story).

Kojima is best known for his work on the Metal Gear series of action-stealth games, which have enthralled players for almost three decades. He spent most of his career working on the franchise for Konami, but is now creating his own project, Death Stranding.

At last year's Game Awards, Kojima had been invited to take to the stage and collect trophies for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, which won in a handful of categories. The event’s most memorable moment was host Geoff Keighley candidly telling the audience that Kojima would be unable to receive the awards for his final Metal Gear game because his ex-employer Konami had barred him from attendance.

“We had to be back on stage this year, to give one man a moment he was robbed of,” said Keighley tonight, adding that “what happened last year was a tragedy.” He described Kojima as “a great man.”

Kojima and Konami went through a painful, public fallout just ahead of the release of Metal Gear Solid 5 last year. The protracted breakup included the cancelation of Silent Hills, the removal of Kojima’s name from the cover of the final Metal Gear Solid title and the dissolution of Kojima Productions Los Angeles.

Kojima’s on the up-and-up these days, however. He formed a new studio called Kojima Productions shortly after leaving Konami. In June, appeared during Sony’s E3 2016 press conference to reveal Death Stranding, which is slated for a PlayStation 4 release sometime in the distant future.