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Not too long ago, Konami released an overhauled Metal Gear Master Collection which took five games and ported them over to modern hardware. This included the original NES Metal Gear games, Metal Gear Solid, Sons of Liberty, and also Snake Eater. However, critical receptions were not happy with the frame-rate and resolution limitations, many of which barely surpassed the originals. Noriaki Okamura, who has worked on Metal Gear since 1998 and is now Lead Producer on the series, has recently apologised saying that Konami are “very sorry the game wasn’t up to standards.”
The Master Collection had been slammed for locking frame rates at 30FPS in the PSX remasters, and 60FPS in Snake Eater, while none of them exceeded a 1080p resolution. While quality of life had been improved across the project, the reality was that emulating the game provided a higher fidelity experience in most cases.
“We’re still continuing to update and improve the game to address these issues,” Konami’s Lead Producer continued.
Hideo Kojima was the director and producer responsible for Metal Gear’s early success, and his last mark on the franchise was Phantom Pain. Since his (mostly) undocumented departure from Konami, the studio has struggled to produce any new titles that have landed mainstream success, with eFootball (formely Pro Evolution Soccer) the only noteworthy game in recent history, and the Silent Hill franchise permanently stuck in a cycle of remakes.
Okamura also has said that “[Konami] want the players to be able to judge for themselves whether this new team is right for the job of keeping Metal Gear going.” This was said in an interview with David Hayter – the voice of Snake and many others – as part of promotional material for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a remake using Unreal Engine 5 which saw its first gameplay reveal at this year’s Xbox Showcase.
This marketing material was at least honest. Hayter asked Okamura if there were any original team members working on the Delta project, to which Okamura replied “there are plenty of people on the team who were part of the original games,” though there was no mention of Kojima – as expected. Okamura mentioned that many team members have since left Konami and are now “pursuing their own path now,” which is definitely the case considering the upcoming launch of Death Stranding 2.
Konami have put the fate of the Metal Gear franchise in the hands of its fans, though something tells me that Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is going to be an undeniable success, despite the Master Collection woes.
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