1P Start

Metal Gear Solid 4 is now upon us, and it has been widely greeted as the best game ever to appear on any machine ever, which I think means it’s quite good. However, it is also relatively short, with many lucky PS3 owners having already finished it after clocking in 20 hours or so gameplay. While the more hardcore amongst you may be starting it all over again, many will now box up Hideo Kojima’s latest masterpiece and start looking to the future instead.

Luckily for those people, Metal Gear Solid 5 has already been mooted, although not officially announced by Kojima. Even though this fourth instalment is the last chapter in the Solid Snake story, it’s not the end of the franchise, or even the end of Big Boss.

In an interview with 1UP, MGS4 assistant producer Ryan Payton revealed some tidbits about the future of the franchise, and the possibility that the next game could well take the form of a prequel.

He said:

I’m happy we could wrap up Snake’s story in MGS4 because it gets to the point where if we continue on with Metal Gear Solid 5 with more Solid Snake adventures, we’ll get to the point where the game has absolutely no basis in reality. I do like the idea that this character has had four or five big missions, and then that’s when it ended, rather than have 20 missions where there’s no chance in hell a secret agent could ever survive. He’s had four or five really big missions, and that seems a little more realistic to me.

[Kojima} said he’s thinking about MGS5 already, and we’re all kind of curious what’s going on inside his head. Maybe he should have been more specific by saying, “I’m already thinking about Metal Gear Solid 5, but Metal Gear Solid 4 is the final chapter of the Solid Snake saga.” There are some misunderstandings that this is the final Metal Gear game. But it’s really the final chapter of the Solid Snake story. That’s all. There’s still a lot of room for filling in the gaps as far as Big Boss is concerned.

I’m so glad that the Metal gear series is set to continue as it has been one of the most awe-inspiring set of games I have ever played. From the original on the Playstation right through to the latest release on the PS3, all the game have an air of believability and originality not seen in any other game series.

It’s a rare skill to be able to make a game feel like a movie but still be fun to play, and that is what Kojima has achieved time after time. Maybe some of the cutscenes are a bit on the long side, but Metal Gear Solid is still a great game, and has continued the fine tradition.