We’re a couple years into Konami remembering it owns this weird licence the kids are calling ‘Metal Gear Solid’. It kicked off with the release (and subsequent repair) of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1, and it continues in a matter of days with the release of Metal Gear Solid Delta—Konami’s glitzy UE5-ification of 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3.
But what about new Metal Gear? Might Konami ever again—after the much-maligned Metal Gear Survive—try its hand at a brand-new Metal Gear without the stewardship of Hideo Kojima? And could it ever be as good as it was back in the day?
I suspect the answer to the first of those questions depends on how people take to projects like Delta, but as for the second, I put it to Snake actor David Hayter when he sat down to chat with PC Gamer, asking if it was possible for a truly great Metal Gear to be made without Kojima’s guiding hand. His answer? Well, kinda.
“I think it’s absolutely possible,” said Hayter. “Will it be the same? No.” Per Hayter, “There’s no way to replicate his exact genius, his exact weirdness, his specific personality,” so any future MGS that tried to do so would be doomed to eternal epigone status.
But take heart, because that doesn’t mean there can’t be another great Metal Gear, just that it won’t be great in the same way as the games of yore. “I think there is a way to do a different generation of games… When I was a kid, I loved Tim Burton’s Batman, and was like, ‘Well, that’s how Batman should be done.’ And then Chris Nolan does Batman and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty badass as well.’ So will it be the same? No. Could it be amazing? Sure.”
Still, Konami might be hunting around for someone who can properly take the Metal Gear reins for a while. “I’ve been a working screenwriter for 26 straight years and written on countless pieces, and I think I’m pretty good at it,” said Hayter, “but I look at the Metal Gear scripts, and I’m like, ‘I could never do this.’
“That’s a singular voice… the tone of it, the execution of it is something beautiful that isn’t done the way I would do it.” Plus, of course, whoever becomes the new face of Metal Gear has to unknot all that lore. “Part of what I love about it is I can’t keep all the lore in my head. I should know it better than anybody, but it’s so complex and so profound that even I can’t keep track of all of it.”
I have to admit, I’m sceptical of Metal Gear’s future sans Kojima. The series is so inextricably tied to his brand of research-heavy weirdness that I feel like any follow-on is doomed to feel either like it’s doing Kojima cosplay or else like it’s jettisoning everything that made the series unique and memorable. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see somebody try. I’ve been wrong before, after all.
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