Konami is preparing to bring back delisted Metal Gear Solid games

Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-07-13 12:11 JST)

Konami Digital Entertainment announced on July 13 (JST) that they are preparing to bring back the temporarily delisted titles in the Metal Gear Solid series after certain games were taken off of storefronts in November of last year (related article).

Metal Gear Solid is a stealth action series created by Hideo Kojima. The original Metal Gear was released on July 13, 1987, making today the 35^th anniversary of the series. With their emphasis on stealth gameplay and dense stories, the games remain popular with fans even today.

Currently, ports of the PlayStation 2 titles Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 are delisted from digital storefronts. The delisted games are as follows:

・PlayStation®3 METAL GEAR SOLID 2 SONS OF LIBERTY HD EDITION
・PlayStation®3 METAL GEAR SOLID 3 SNAKE EATER HD EDITION
・PlayStation®3 METAL GEAR SOLID HD EDITION
・PlayStation®Vita METAL GEAR SOLID 2 SONS OF LIBERTY HD EDITION
・PlayStation®Vita METAL GEAR SOLID 3 SNAKE EATER HD EDITION
・PlayStation®Vita METAL GEAR SOLID HD COLLECTION
・PlayStation™Now METAL GEAR SOLID HD COLLECTION
・Xbox 360 METAL GEAR SOLID HD EDITION: 2 & 3
・Nintendo 3DS METAL GEAR SOLID SNAKE EATER 3D
・GOG.com METAL GEAR SOLID 2 SUBSTANCE
・NVIDIA® SHIELD™ METAL GEAR SOLID 2 HD for SHIELD TV
・NVIDIA® SHIELD™ METAL GEAR SOLID 3 HD for SHIELD TV

According to an official statement from Konami, sales were suspended due to delays in license renewals for certain historical archive footage in the games. Each of these titles contains live-action footage such as the nuclear explosion footage used in Metal Gear Solid 3, but Konami did not specify what footage was in need of license renewal.

Konami said they were making preparations to put the games on sale once again back in November of last year but had remained silent on the issue for over 6 months until today.

The temporarily delisted games are generally for previous generation consoles, so most fans probably own copies already. However, there are fans clamoring for the return of Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance on PC through GOG.com. Hopefully Konami can make these games available for fans again as soon as possible.