Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 has a notable disclaimer that the press took notice off when Konami shared previews with the press earlier last week.
As reported by GamesRadar, the full disclaimer reads like so:
“This game contains expressions and themes which may be considered outdated. However, these elements have been included without alteration to preserve the historical context in which the game was made and the creator’s original vision. Player discretion is advised.”
GamesRadar compares this warning to one the one famously appended to the home video releases of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, but that seems to be making light of the situation here. The Metal Gear Solid games had some particularly abhorrent content in Metal Gear Solid V, but unbiased eyes would be able to plainly point out that the earlier games also had some content that would have been best appended with content and/or trigger warnings if they had become conventional when those games released.
To demonstrate what I mean, here is part of the ESRB’s description of what is found in this collection:
“Firefights are highlighted by realistic gunfire, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Players can employ close-quarter combat to incapacitate guards, eliminating them discreetly (e.g., choking, stabbing).
Cutscenes contain additional acts of violence: a man’s hand sliced off; a character electrocuted repeatedly during an interrogation; a character’s arm getting dismembered; a man crushed by a giant tank, resulting in a large blood pool.
The collection contains some suggestive/sexual material: a man briefly groping a character’s crotch; a woman asking a man to “make love to me”; a Snake Beater achievement earned after repeatedly zooming in on a pin-up poster. One sequence depicts a nude male character with exposed buttocks.”
To gamers, these may evoke what they consider ‘classic’ scenes in the games, but that’s similar to saying the woman getting her eye forced into a wood splinter in Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters is a ‘classic’ scene in that movie.
Of course, these contents need such warnings appended to them. This has nothing to do with censorship or prudishness. It has all to do with protecting consumers, particularly people who may not be aware that these games would have such content in them. Not everyone processes such content in the same way, with some people justifiably avoiding, for example, that they re-experience trauma in fictional media.
This is not to mention the political and military themes of these games, which, for example, Ukrainians may no longer feel rings true to their situation. It’s testament to Metal Gear as a franchise that the games are relevant enough that it’s still worth playing them again. And that makes these warnings necessary at all, because if they weren’t worth it, it wouldn’t be worth the effort to explain all of that.
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 will be released on October 24, 2023, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows on Steam.
