Metal Gear Survive certainly has an uphill battle facing it. Fans of the Metal Gear series are still fairly salty over both the lack of a proper ending in MGS5 as well as the forced departure of series creator and visionary Hideo Kojima, never mind Konami’s abysmal treatment of ex-employees and announcement that they’re moving away from AAA games as a whole. Not a whole lot of people were rooting for this title and after the most recent news that number may grow even smaller.
With just a few weeks left to release, information on the spin-off is starting to come out more frequently, along with more trailers showing off aspects of the gameplay. What these don’t show off is that the game will require an always-on internet connection, and the inclusion of microtransations, two of the most controversial ideas in gaming right now. It’s the former that has people a bit more upset, since while the game does have a co-op focus there’s also been a lot of talk about it’s single player experience. According to Konami’s brand manager the connection is required to create “seamless transition between single and multiplayer”.
Killing zombies is fun enough, but is this the right direction for the MGS series?
As for the microtransactions, it is worth noting that MGS5 wasn’t free of these either, with the much maligned FOB Insurance packages as well as the Mother Base coins that could be purchased. The information for Metal Gear: Survive appears to be more in line with recent releases like Destiny or Battlefront 2, offering players blind loot-boxes filled with materials. It’s unclear how this will affect the flow of the game or multiplayer interactions.
It is still a few weeks until the release, and all of this is subject to change before then, but Konami haven’t exactly endeared themselves towards their player-base recently. We’ll see how this all goes down properly when Metal Gear Survive releases in March.
