Producer Noriaki Okamura has spoken out on how the current Metal Gear team no longer includes several former members, including one particularly famous lead.
Okamura shared this statement in the latest METAL GEAR SOLID Legacy Series promotional video, hosted by David Hayter.
Here’s what he said:
“Myself included, there are still plenty of people on the team who were part of the original games. But it’s true that many have moved on, or are no longer involved. Everyone who is no longer working on Metal Gear is pursuing their own path now, and that’s going to remain the case for these titles.
So why even bring these titles back if that’s the case? Well, we’re seeing that more and more, newer gamers aren’t familiar with the series. We can go online and see, “what’s ‘Metal Gear?’” “Never heard of it!”
But we’ve been entrusted with the future of Metal Gear, and we consider it our responsibility to make sure people can continue to enjoy the series. That’s why we brought Metal Gear back into action.”
It has now been nearly a decade since Metal Gear’s original designer and creative lead Hideo Kojima left Konami in a firestorm of controversy. We won’t relitigate that whole debacle here, but we will point out, as Okamura has explained, that there are still a lot of people who made those original games, who are still working for Konami.
Of course, we have to imagine that it must have been that way, because Konami management likely were not interested in proceeding with these rereleases in the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection, as well as the production of Metal Gear Solid Delta. And it’s true that many of these same people made Metal Gear Strive, but as Okamura explained, they would have made these rereleases sooner, if they didn’t have to deal with licensing issues over the use of real life photographs in the games.
Okamura also made sure to address the complaints consumers rightly made about the imperfect release of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection, saying:
“Now, when it was released, we got a lot of unhappy feedback, where people were struggling with bugs and playability issues, and issues with the resolution. And we’re very sorry that the game wasn’t up to standards.
But, we’re still continuing to update and improve the game to address these issues. We want everyone to still be enjoying Metal Gear, and this compilation, even 10, 20 years from now, so we hope everyone will give us a little more time to get it there.”
Lastly, Okamura tells fans that his team is looking for the feedback, and he wants the fans to hold them accountable:
“We want the players to be able to judge for themselves whether this new team is right for the job of keeping Metal Gear going. So please, keep watching, and keep us honest.”
You can watch the full video below.
