There are few gaming stories as tragic as Konami's. The Japanese game publisher used to be a household name, putting out hit after hit in legendary franchises. Castlevania, Silent Hill, and Bomberman are three of its greatest achievements, but only Bomberman is still getting new games. The Castlevania Netflix series is persisting alongside some re-releases, and rumors abound of several new Silent Hill projects, but the fact remains that after doubling down on Pachinko and the expulsion of its star developers, Konami just hasn't been the same.
Perhaps the greatest victim of this was the Metal Gear series. Led by auteur developer Hideo Kojima, the Metal Gear franchise is celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2022. Unfortunately, neither the series' founding father nor many festivities are to be found at Konami. As part of its shift into other markets and growing tensions between Kojima and Konami's management, Hideo Kojima was let go shortly after MGS5’s launch in 2015. He took a lot of his old co-workers with him, though enough were left for one final Metal Gear game to be made in his absence. No one knows what will come of the Metal Gear franchise now, but it's a shame to see how far it's fallen after such a strong start.
The Early Years of Metal Gear Were Its Best
On July 13th, 1987, Metal Gear was released for the MSX2 computer. This was Hideo Kojima's first time in the director's chair, and he made sure that it would leave a lasting impression. It is considered to be the title that popularized the stealth genre, and it received a console port to the Famicom a few months later. Eventually it got a sequel in 1990 and both came overseas, and the rest is history. The Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake duology is a bit awkward to return to nowadays, but fans have these games to thank for what Metal Gear became.
A full eight years after Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid was released in 1998 for the Sony PlayStation. While it does take place chronologically after the Metal Gear titles and starts with Solid Snake coming out of retirement, it is essentially a 3D remake of Metal Gear 1 and 2. This game and its two numbered sequels form the basis for many veteran Metal Gear fans' love for the franchise. The amount of care poured into the series from 1998 to 2004 shows in every aspect of these games. While the controls are slightly dated by modern standards, they are definitely worth revisiting to experience the military intrigue, goofy Easter eggs, and ingenious design that started it all.
Metal Gear Fell Apart At The Finish Line
After several years of spin-offs, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots released as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2008. It had some controversial elements, but nowadays, fans just want the chance to play it again on a modern platform. As Metal Gear Solid 4brought the modern Solid era to a close and the futuristic Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance picked up afterwards, it seemed like the only place to go was back. Picking up after the PSP-exclusive Portable Ops set in MGS3’s mid-1900s era, the 2010 PSP title Peace Walker led into 2014’s Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and 2015’s Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. All of this bridged the story gap between MGS3 and Metal Gear, but at a great cost.
Many fans had been frustrated with the franchise since MGS4, and MGS5 hit a breaking point for some. Ground Zeroes is a dense and well-polished premium demo with less than an hour of story content, and The Phantom Pain was seemingly unfinished due to Konami forcing the game out the door. In spite of its gameplay being praised as some of the best stealth action ever made, MGS5 couldn’t hide its empty open world, intrusive live service multiplayer, and abrupt ending. After Kojima left, the 2018 Metal Gear Survive was the nail in the coffin, being a widely panned zombie survival game. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has revived itself via memes to entertain a new generation of fans, but veterans can only hope that Metal Gear will return with a new vision someday.