Metal Gear Survive…Just Stop

Can we all just agree that Konami’s treatment of the Metal Gear franchise ever since the departure of Hideo Kojima has been an absolute mess at the best of times? Between the pachinko machines and whatever their new “game” is, the credibility the franchise had has been slowly fading away since 2015. Now with new information about Metal Gear Survive, it’s safe to say the nails are being driven into the coffin of the beloved franchise.

In a recent preview with EGM, it’s been confirmed that the zombie survival shooter roughly placed in the same universe as Solid Snake will feature microtransactions that will have impact on the single-player, including boosters to character stats and increases to the frequency of rare loot drops from fallen enemies. But hey, at least there aren’t lootboxes! How sad is it that we have almost accepted that as a selling point of a game?

So besides the game’s player-hostile economy, the Metal Gear Survive will include another feature that has been a bane of several games’ existence: always-online connectivity. Yes, the same insanity that caused irreparable harm to the Simcity reboot of 2013 and angered fans of Diablo III and Starcraft 2 is coming to Metal Gear Survive, even for single-player. Konami has tried to justify this by claiming that it’s to make it easier for players to jump into multiplayer co-op from the single-player mode, but it still will cause several potential players to pass on the game due to lack of sound internet connections. High-speed broadband internet isn’t free and, in many regions, isn’t easily available, so games like this requiring that kind of connectivity will hinder sales and anger people who do play it in the event of an internet outage.

I would recommend avoiding this game. Konami has damaged the Metal Gear brand enough as is; it’s time for us, the consumers of the medium and fans of the franchise, to let it die in peace.