Konami addresses harsh criticism from MGS fans: “Metal Gear is dead, and you’re the ones who killed it.”
Metal Gear Solid Delta, the remake of 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is coming this year. Konami has gradually been releasing more info about the new game via their Metal Gear Production Hotline programs on YouTube. The latest episode, released on June 28 (with English subtitles), revealed some of the scathing feedback Konami has received about their recent attempts to revive the Metal Gear Solid series, indicating that fans are skeptical about an MGS game with no Hideo Kojima involvement.
Like the first broadcast back in March, the most recent episode featured Metal Gear series promotion manager Jiro Oishi and production producer Noriaki Okamura. This time, they were joined by another MGS veteran, creative producer Yuji Korekado. The program gave a breakdown of the feedback that Konami received on the questionnaire issued during the March broadcast. Positive feedback accounted for only 24%, with 11% of the answers being negative. The majority of the feedback was neutral (64%), with even some of the positive responses remaining cautious (“I feel like you really do care, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”).
The strong negative comments, such as “Metal Gear is dead, and you’re the ones who killed it,” and “You’ll probably do a bad job on the next game too, so I’d rather you just give up,” refer not only to recent issues with the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection but are likely rooted in fans’ widespread dissatisfaction regarding Hideo Kojima no longer being involved in MGS, and the circumstances surrounding his departure from Konami.
Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima had overseen the series since its conception in 1987 right up until he left Konami in 2015. The games released by Kojima Productions, his development team within Konami, received high acclaim- including those outside the Metal Gear series. However, the Kojima Productions team was dissolved in 2015 following Konami’s reorganization, and Kojima was no longer on the company’s executive board. Kojima then left Konami in December 2015 to set up his own company, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (capitalized).
Amid these changes at Konami, there were also a number of incidents that called into question their treatment of Hideo Kojima. For example, Kojima’s last Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, won a couple of awards at The Game Awards in 2015. However, Konami’s legal department reportedly refused Kojima permission to attend the event. The Japanese actor who played Snake, Akio Otsuka, stated that Kojima Productions had been disbanded, and there were many other hints that Kojima’s departure from Konami was not amicable. In addition, the sudden removal of the “A Hideo Kojima game” branding from the box art and promotional material for Metal Gear Solid 5 rankled many fans of the series.
It seems that with the Metal Gear Hotline Production program, Konami is trying to foster transparency and open communication with MGS fans. Okamura assured viewers that Konami is listening; “We pay attention to this feedback, and we take it seriously.” Many of the comments on the video praised Konami for sincerely addressing and responding to negative feedback.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is scheduled to be released on PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series S|X later this year.
Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-06-29 13:33 JST)
Kosuke Takenaka
Articles: 51Related Posts
Walk, Kazumi Games Studios’ anticipated PS1-style horror game, may be getting a full game announcement soon
Sega Saturn’s Fighters Megamix has a hidden stage that was kept secret all this time due to an unfortunate bug
I can not blame them, there is a two fold problem with Konami as it currently stands. The fact that they have treated a lot of their former talent really poorly for the decade, and chased them away because they thought they could get into Pachinko Machine only to crawl back again with Remasters and throw a high stakes game on Remakes. The other which is an even greater problem is that the talent pool within Konami is unable to understand what fans truly do desire from a remake due to the key veteran talent leaving somewhere else and executives just being out of touch with the industry trends to execute it correctly. For example Silent Hill 2 is said to be a product of it’s time, yet Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 Remake was the closest to Silent Hill blending Action and Horror together, but then you see they outsource to a Polish studio that could not even perform this correctly.
For this reason I do not have as much trust even though i am a lifelong fan of MGS. For Delta the advertising features a unrealistic chase for graphical power that naturally focuses on ugly characters and fidelity that nobody will sit and look at. Than anything with clear color grading, HDR and SFX work to make beautiful characters which Kojima is the greatest on and why I still think he has it with Death Stranding despite it being highly experimental.
I just think priorities are in the wrong places for Konami because Executives do not have common sense, and they chase trends, directors just focus on model details than trying to recreate the beauty that is Metal Gear Solid. I would like to be proven wrong, we will see until then I will be following Kojima.
Yall complain about the video game that deserves a breath of Life brought back into it Snake deserves a breath of life and to awaken from his slumber, I know metal solid survive was horrible it wasn’t a metal gear game though, and we all know it was just like call of duty zombies its a have fun joke. My main point I’m trying to get to is what about the movie it’s being ran by a mediocre at best director that used a ton of CgI in his movie. Now you want to add Isaac from ex machina he was great in that film because that’s the kind of character that fits him. He is not snake and he and the director will ruin that film it needs to be re casted and needs a veteran writer or Kojima to right it himself and Kojima has to be on set. Metal gear left some things not finished and too many to continue Phantom Pain had some really horrible crap in it the replaceable missions trash the separation of ground zeroes it should’ve been a part of PP and much longer then it would’ve felt better at the hospital. Half of the game is missing we’re missing 2 to 3 bosses atleast and the 3rd act with liquid. The war never really ends if you count Rising. I’m just saying I’m fearful for the future of this franchise but I’m excited finally. The same can not be said about the film I’m scared for it, it will ruin metal gear.