I don’t often agree with the words that come from Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima’s mouth, but when I do, I can’t agree with him enough.
In an interview with GamesTM, Kojima explains that high-end gaming is losing base with a younger generation of video gamers and that the new consoles have yet to prove themselves to the masses fleeing towards mobile and indie games.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is destined to reverse that trend, he believes. “We’ve seen a phenomenon around the world,” says Kojima in his interview.
“Young people are losing interest in high-end games and focusing on mobile and social titles, especially in Japan. I wanted to show people that Japanese high-end games are still worth playing and that big Japanese games still have a future.”
It’s a grand ambition, especially because I haven’t seen anything that sets Metal Gear Solid V apart from the rest of the crowd besides its franchise’s legacy. However, this is the man who has already once convinced the world of a future where stories as large as Hollywood films could be told through a video game. Metal Gear Solid paved the way for the modern style of storytelling in our medium, for better or for worse.
Now, Kojima wants to reconnect with the next generation of audiences again and show them that Japan has a place on the HD scene after it was pushed aside by big bully Western publishers during the last console cycle.
In the interview, he also dives into more reasoning as to why Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain have been broken up into two different packages.
“A game that big wouldn’t be ready for next-gen launch windows, and we didn’t have any Japanese titles that would be available. At that time, the Ground Zeroes portion was almost complete and a lot of fans were asking for a prologue, so that’s the decision we came to. That was the reasoning behind the move.”
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will be released on March 18 on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will see a release somewhere in the future.
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