We are shown a “psuedo-historical retelling of events” in which, after Big Boss and Kaz escape the attack, the dying soldiers and destroyed base left behind are sucked into a giant wormhole that appears in the sky. Metal Gear Survive opens with a bizarre epilogue to the ending of Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes. Unfortunately, the lazy story that attempts to connect all these dots falls apart at the seams. While a lot of what Survive brings to the table sounds like a word-soup of the most successful gaming trends of four years ago, it actually comes together better than you’d think. Instead, you’ll be exploring a distorted land to scavenge basic materials, craft survival gear, and evade or engage hordes of shambling humanoids and twisted creatures. Here, you won’t be sneaking through military facilities or invading Forward Operating Bases. Metal Gear Survive takes the framework of the last Metal Gear Solid and uses those assets and mechanics to deliver a massively different type of game.

If you are as much of a Metal Gear Solid fan as I am, I urge you to open yourself up to this possibility like I have, because while Metal Gear Survive is not an espionage narrative art-piece in the vein of Kojima’s work, it’s a fun and unique adventure that gives you a great reason to revisit the solid gameplay and graphics of Metal Gear Solid V. Over time I became more comfortable with the existence of Survive and I kept my mind open to the chance of this game being something rather than nothing. To see Konami come along a while later and announce Metal Gear Survive, a seemingly out-of-trend zombie survival game built on the shambling corpse of Metal Gear Solid, all I could do was laugh at the absurdity of it and wish ill on Konami for their misguided attempt to keep the franchise relevant. When I found out about his harsh departure from Konami, I felt a sea of awful emotions crash against me.

I have a lot of love for MGS, and the artistry that director Hideo Kojima put into each of those titles. The messy relationship between Konami and the Metal Gear Solid series is perhaps one of the most heartbreaking video game stories of recent years.

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