HomeFeaturesMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Does Metal Gear Solid need a new Kojima? Konami have “many people” in mind, but it’s “difficult"Remake producer hails younger generation but says there’s no new creative head
Remake producer hails younger generation but says there’s no new creative head
Image credit:Konami
Image credit:Konami
Almost a decade after his acrimonious departure from Konami, the shadow of Hideo Kojima still looms overMetal Gear Solid. He’s there, barely camouflaged, in the undergrowth ofMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater- a remake of the fifthMetal Geargame, originally released in 2004, which tells the tale of a lone US special operator hunting superweapons and old mentors in the jungles of the southern Soviet Union.
I’ve replayed the first hour ofMetal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eatermore than that of any other game, struggling to extract a perfect run from its dorky camouflage systems, which let you switch up clothes and facepaint instantly while lying right under an enemy’s nose. Playing an hour of Delta felt like just another crack at the prize: rescuing my bag from a tree branch, navigating that swampy area with the crocs, hiding from guards in a hollow log, scurrying across an exposed rope bridge to the factory with the Soviet rocket scientist. Konami might call that familiarity a success, but MGS3 has been rereleased twice before - there was the expanded Subsistence version in 2005, and the HD update in 2011, which is still available. I don’t, so far, feel the need for another tour in Naked Snake’s boots, though I guess I can’t blame Konami for being careful with Delta’s design. Their first attempt at a post-Kojima Metal Gear Solid, 2018’s zombie interludeMetal Gear Survive, wasa bit of a stinker.
Image credit:Konami
Can that intimacy outlive “the” creator, or has Kojima become (brace for deep-ish cut) something like the Colonel Campbell who oversees Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2? And if that’s the case, who could finally oust the figure of Kojima and steer Konami through the creation of brand new, original Metal Gear Solid games? I asked producer Noriaki Okamura about this at the Delta hands-on event. The answer: there isn’t anyone currently, but we have a few people on our radar.
“So in terms of someone to sort of replace that creative director role, there isn’t really a single person that has taken over,” Okamura told me through a translator. “But rather, we’ve created this new Metal Gear Solid team - we’ve got a great team full of young new creative minds, a very talented team that are currently working on this game together.
“And within this team there are many people that we think in the future as well could definitely be people like that, who could create these new ideas, have these creative visions, and this is definitely a team that we would like to develop and grow into roles like that. But there isn’t a specific person that has taken over, necessarily, it’s much more of a team effort.”
“Obviously we have a lot of respect towards his creative vision,” Okamura added. “And in terms of our new team, we’d like to create these games in our own way with our own talented team that we have, with our own creative ideas for the current generation of fans, and the next generation of fans as well.”
Okamura’s answer also gave me the answer to my follow-up question: did Delta’s creators consider taking more liberties with MGS3’s fundamentals, perhaps meddling with the story? I brought this up partly in light of Square Enix’s qualified success withFinal Fantasy 7’s remakes, which are effectively brand new works with drastically dissimilar combat, writing and framing that respond half-antagonistically to the original. But I also asked because Metal Gear Solid games in particular love to poke fun at their predecessors and the techno-thriller psycho-drama that is Metal Gear as a whole.
(4K) METAL GEAR SOLID Δ: SNAKE EATER - Official Trailer #1 | KONAMIWatch on YouTube
(4K) METAL GEAR SOLID Δ: SNAKE EATER - Official Trailer #1 | KONAMI
Okamura doesn’t see things that way, of course. MGS3 is his “personal favourite” of the series, and he wants “both old fans and new fans to experience that same excitement and thrill that I experienced when first playing Metal Gear Solid 3”. For Konami, Okamura went on, “Delta is Metal Gear Solid 3, it’s not something new, it’s not a completely new title. It’s the game as it was for us.
“Obviously it is a 20 year old game now, so the graphics for example needed to be updated, and the controls needed to be updated, to adapt to the current generation of consoles, the current generation of gamers,” he said. “We want them to be able to enjoy the experience the same way as it was, but without thinking ‘I don’t know how to use these controls, I don’t understand what this is’. We want them to be able to experience the game without any struggle whatsoever.”
