So I think that it's hardly an earth shattering revelation right now for me to say that I'm an overwhelmingly huge fan of the Metal Gear franchise. I'm talking obsession level right here, I love those games more than I like myself. If there was one series of games I would simultaneously give my right arm to work on whilst not ever wanting to touch for fear of sullying the franchise, that conflict of emotion could only ever be attributed to Metal Gear. Thus you know that I was well aware of the budding rumours of an impending remaster hitting the first three games of the franchise, or is it a full remake? (Details are sketchy) But all that was neatly undercut by a huge, actual, development that came right the heck out of nowhere; Metal Gear is now on PC!
Now by 'Metal Gear' I unfortunately only refer to Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, because Snake Eater never gets the love it deserves, but that is some bona fide progress considering the amount of fan made projects attempting to do that very thing which Konami has cut down in the past ten years. (I count at least three.) For some incomprehensible reason none of these games have made their way to Steam or Epic yet, but debuting on GOG is good enough for the time being and it opens the figurative floodgates for all sorts of things that just weren't possible before for fans. For example, now there can be actual work done on HD retexture packs and even model swaps. (The latter of which would certainly be more difficult, but would be welcome considering the low-res models on the first game at least.) We could be looking at a whole renaissance of Metal Gear appreciation starting right now!
But why is this happening? Why now? Konami, as it stands, has no level of cred with the dedicated gaming community and unfortunately for them, not a lot of their brands hold mainstream appeal. Castelvania is typically best when a platformer, Bomberman hasn't been a household name for decades and Metal Gear suffers from the perception of being 'too long'. Each one of these titles that I have mentioned have suffered from either mismanagement or straight up character assassination, so if Konami is trying to drum up excitement they're going to have an uphill struggle. There would have to something big up their sleeves, some sort of upcoming game that could win over even the most curmudgeonly gamers. They'd have to be working up to a full remake of the Metal gear Solid Games. (That's right, we're circling back around to those rumors.)
As the legend goes, someone is hard at work trying to create full remakes, not just remasters, of the MGS franchise in order to capitalize on the same sort of success that Capcom is enjoying. This sort of plan doesn't come out of nowhere either, fans sounded the excitement bell all the way back during the leadup for the abominable Metal Gear Survive when we saw those HD remade MGS 3 cutscenes only to learn they were being made for a Pachinko machine. As a self-proclaimed MGS 3 aficionado who flares his nostrils everytime anyone dares suggest remaking something so close to perfection, even I had to admit that those screens looked good. (A little too much panning in some of the scenes, but I'd rather an over-active camera than a still one.) So Konami knows there's an audience out there willing to pay through the nose for MGS remakes, it makes sense that they'd be capitalising on that.
And this might just come into fruition with another rumour I've been hearing, although to be honest this other one is a lot more of a long shot. Apparently, folk have said that Hideo Kojima, the legend himself, is in talks with Konami in order to get back in their graces to work on Silent Hill(s?) again. Now if that is true, it would be insane giving the absolute 'salted-earth' manner in which their partnership concluded. (Just as a reminder; Konami went so far as to remove Kojima's director credit on the cover of every game it was on.) Plus, other rumours said that their breakup was actually on personal issues over business ones, and I think we all that those wounds tend to cut the deepest. But perhaps cooler heads are prevailing, and Kojima is back on board to help them with the Metal Gear revitalisation project. That would need to be the case, because otherwise I know these games are going to run into some issues.
For one, a full remake would mean that everything would need to be remade from the ground-up, and Konami just aren't talented enough to do that as they are now. Now I say this not as a disparagement against the many artists who do work at Konami, but merely as an observation of the mess they made of Metal Gear Survive. That's a game that was not only conceptually rotten, but which stunk in every aspect. They couldn't even mimic Kojima's eye for shot composition to the point where it was immediately obvious where they stitched his footage with their own. And as for them lacking the writing talent, that's no great insult, most of the world lacks the writing talent to get up to speed with, yet alone significantly add to, Kojima's hair-brained narrative. Even the art of reworking some plot points could collapse the entire premise without the right eyes involved, think about how crazy the source material is! You've got nano-bots, vampires, photosynthesising centenarians; this stuff ain't coming together without a bonafide genius pulling the strings on the otherend.
For two, I don't particularly think that Metal Gear is quite in need of a remake quite as much as the Resident Evil games were. I mean sure, Resident Evil 2 was a masterpiece, but one that was poorly aged in mechanics, gameplay and visuals; Metal Gear Solid 3, for example, is aged in visuals at best. Maybe a few mechanics could do with some work too. But if you remastered the game right it would easily stand up against the stealth games of today as one of the best examples of it's genre, and that's something you can't really improve upon. I wonder if you'd even get anything out of rerecording actors lines, because some lines may be a little stiff, but a lot of it carries the charm of the franchise. We're not talking 1990's Capcom level of crap-tier acting, there's little to improve upon.
At the end of the day, bear in mind that I'm heavily protective of these games so any issue I introduce is going to get naturally inflated, but also remember that I'm the key target audience, so if they can't sell it to me they're pretty much up a creek. Personally I had already long come to terms with the death of my favourite franchise, and I really don't want that corpse poked around any more than it already has been. At this point I don't even know if I'm up for continuation games, even with Kojima at the helm, that's how over this period of games I am. But if the stars align and that old MGS magic manages to break through this rusty exterior of faux-disinterest, I may be willing to at least see what these remakes have to offer. And even if it's a mess, a least we have the originals to fall back on. (Either way; it's a surprisingly good day to be a Metal Gear fan)
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