The question that a lot of us had on our minds when we found out that Konami would be continuing to create Metal Gear games after the departure of series creator, director and visionary Hideo Kojima was just what the series would look like. That question has been answered and the answer is simple; derivative and not very interesting. Fans got a glimpse of what the upcoming Metal Gear Survive was going to look like last month with a trailer reveal and they didn’t like what they saw, now that actual gameplay footage is in the wild not many minds are going to be changed.
The very idea of a squad-based Metal Gear game that takes place in an alternate universe with zombies wasn’t exactly the strongest one in the first place, but now that we get to see the game in action the eye rolls are hard to suppress. There was one moment where it all really became clear that Konami was just trying to be weird and had no actual idea what made Kojima’s strange vision so spectacular and fun; when they were demonstrating the “defense missions” and a cardboard box fell from a wormhole.
“A cardboard box has come through a wormhole,” the narrator explains, which was the moment where the whole thing came together with a ridiculous bow. There are attempts to recapture the charm of Metal Gear, like using a Fulton extraction on a sheep to distract zombies, but something about it just doesn’t feel right.
There were risks taken within the Metal Gear franchise before like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but that at least had Hideo Kojima’s fingerprints on it, this just feels like cashing in on a popular franchise without understanding what made it special and unique. How Metal Gear Survive actually turns out remains to be seen, but once again, fans don’t seem to be taking to this game and are upset that Kojima isn’t a part of it.