Metal Gear Solid shook the world with its melodramatic plot and gripping gameplay. It set a new standard for Story to Gameplay Ratio and single-handedly popularized the Stealth-Based Action genre.
The player controls Solid Snake, an infiltrator on a secret mission to dispose of decommissioned nuclear warheads. During his mission, he receives advice and support via codec radio from Colonel Roy Campbell.
Why Was Metal Gear Solid 4 Removed?
While most Metal Gear games have been ported to multiple platforms, Guns of the Patriots has never been released on anything but PlayStation consoles. This has led to some fans questioning why Sony had an exclusive deal with Kojima Productions on the game.
The game’s setting is a world where war has become a business, and private military companies (PMCs) fight proxy wars in the name of profit. These companies use nanotechnology to connect soldiers to a control network and prevent them from experiencing fear, doubt, or remorse during missions.
A recent post on ResetEra revealed that Kojima didn’t port the game to Xbox because of hardware limitations. The PS3 used Blu-Ray discs, while the Xbox 360 only had DVD-based drives. According to former Kojima Productions developer Ryan Payton, the reason for this limitation had less to do with exclusivity than storage capacity. Microsoft even petitioned Kojima to port the game to Xbox, but he refused.
Kojima’s Take on War
Kojima has always been influenced by the politics of postwar Japan, a country torn apart by conflict and plagued with societal distrust. His games are about pacifism, nuclear proliferation, civilian suffering military heroism, and the nature of war. They promote avoiding combat whenever possible and only resorting to violence as a last resort.
Kojima cites a passage from Kobo Abe’s novel Nawa, or The Rope, as inspiration. It mentions that humankind’s oldest tools are a stick to hit back what is evil and a rope to pull in what is good. Kojima says most games use the sticks but that he wants Death Stranding to use the ropes.
He has surrounded himself with a talented group of Hollywood friends, including Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro. They help him to create a world that is as dark and disturbing as his protagonist, Sam and also serves as a surrogate family for him to assist the wasteland.
Kojima’s Take on Technology
Kojima is a proponent of technology, openly adapting it as the conduit for his stories. If the story in his head requires Virtual Reality, he will use it; if it calls for cutting-edge motion capture technology, he will implement it.
He uses a small staff for his games, preferring to work with close collaborators and be aware of every aspect of the production. He has said that this method allows him to see how the game plays before it is released, as well as how the players interact with the world.
Throughout the Metal Gear Solid series, Kojima’s use of technology fosters connection. His weapons are based on a spherical force field called Kojima Particles, a force that causes massive eroding damage to any foreign object that comes into contact with it. He has also incorporated the technology into his power systems, with Torus and Omer Science Technology using Kojima generators to power their facilities and spheres.
Kojima’s Take on Politics
The politics of war, nuclear proliferation and civilian suffering are themes that, have run through the entire Metal Gear Solid series. Kojima, who once said that “70% of my body is made of movies,” has always been interested in the world outside his video games.
A glance at his twitter feed will show you he is an entTwitteric fan of a variety of movies and TV shows, often quoting them in his own posts. He has also made clear that he is a proponent of progressive values and is not afraid to speak his mind.
It seems natural that someone with this mindset would be triggered by posts falsely linking him to the murder of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The video game creator has threatened to take legal action over the images, which were shared on 4chan by a French politician associated with the country’s nationalist movement. This is not the first time that Kojima has been a victim of online misinformation.