The Metal Gear that wasn't

There's nothing more for me to give you.

Metal Gear Solid is a dead franchise. But for every corpse in the video game industry, MGS' is one I hold the most lingering affinity towards given the very real fact that it holds my single favourite game of all time 'Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater'. I try not to think about what could have been and what we've lost without it's guiding hand in our lives, which means I tend not to think about Metal Gear in my day to day if I can help it, but then I'm greeted by some horrifying article about MGS III and MGS II getting pulled down from digital storefronts and I flip the hell out. Only to find out that it's because of licencing issues on the intro footage for the game that someone at Konami forgot to renew and they're going to be write on filing that. Thank god, I don't need that heartache today. (I don't care if there is a MGS III remaster coming, don't take my original!) but then there was another piece of gaming news that made me think about Metal Gear, and it was Call of Duty. Wait what?

That's right, the latest Call of Duty game to drop is called 'Vanguard', and it was (according to the creators) an attempt to imbue Call of Duty with some of those 'iconic character's that other franchises have and whom have be eerily absent from COD. Bear in mind, that I'm paraphrasing their words there, not giving my own opinion. In fact, the second I heard that very statement the first thing I did was quiz my baby brother, who has obviously never played a COD in his life, about any iconic COD characters he knows and even he was able to produce Soap McTavish. (Because of the Price punching you down the stairs meme, but that still counts) What followed is a game which many are calling painfully average where COD tries to bring back World War II and tell some story about a vanguard made up of 'exceptional individuals' who only get two whole missions in the entire game (the rest are flashbacks showing you how cool each member is) and the game ends on some of the most lazy sequel bait you could hope for. But it made me think of Metal Gear.

'Why?' You might ask. Well, think about that premise again. You've got a fictionalised story set in the throes of World War 2 that brings together a team of crack individuals, all specialists in their fields, on a covert mission that could change the very course of the World War. (In Vanguard that secret conspiracy is hilariously underdeveloped) Yes, by in large Activision had sat down and made their own infinitely worse version of Cobra Unit, the squad led by the Boss in Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater. (FYI Activision; you'd have scored an entirely new fervent fanbase if you'd teamed up with Konami and made this a COD/Metal Gear Crossover. The game would probably be a godawful insult to the Metal Gear name, but us fans are desperate, we'll buy anything.) Naturally this had me thinking about the possibility of the famous Metal Gear game that never was, the one which was rumoured to be in conceptualisation stages, which would have followed that very unit in a whole new era for the Metal Gear brand.

For those who don't remember or are unfortunate enough never to have played Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Cobra Unit are a group of super solider spies who conspired to protect western geopolitical interests through the blackest of black ops missions. Their leader was known as The Joy, whom would later become Snake's mentor under the moniker of 'Boss'. Under her were The Pain, the hornet soldier who was infected with parasites that granted him control over insects; The Fear, the spider soldier who specialised in stealth and experimented with early forms of active camo; The End, 'the father of sniping' an impossibly old man with the ability to photosynthesize to keep himself alive and stake out the perfecting sniping position in the foliage by matching his body temperature to the plants; The Fury, (who the game will insist is not their own insane version of Yuri Gagarin) the secret first man in space who was engulfed in flames upon re-entry and is now a fire and pain obsessed 'fire solider'; and finally The Sorrow, the enigmatic spirit medium who's true powers have never quite been explored due to the fact that at the point of MGS III, the man is already dead. (which doesn't stop him from stealing the show in one of the most memorable set pieces the title has to offer.)  

Now just from that rollcall alone I bet you can start to see how promising of a ensemble cast we were looking at here. Much more interesting than Vanguard which just stuck a bunch of famous faces over stereotypes and called it a day. (Oh, Laura Bailey is in Vanguard? Then I guess she has to be a Russian sniper with a bad accent.) This Metal Gear game would have broken new ground as the first in it's series to feature an entire squad, probably in a system similar to the Diamond Dogs mechanic in Phantom Pain but much more constrained and focused. Heck, maybe there was even the chance for co-operative multiplayer in such a game, given that these agents must have worked on missions together at points. There's just so much that could have been done.

In my mind, the perfect idea would be a game which maps itself out over the course of the War and various locations across the Allied front which would serve as mission locations. Players would choose their load-out and the character they play as for that mission, and perhaps that choice will also somewhat dictate their objectives as characters like The Sorrow, The Fear and The Joy specialise in infiltration whilst The Fury or The Pain can perform more martial actions. Individual stories regarding who these characters were and which parts of the war they're fighting for can keep this team fresh, perhaps with making them a rough near-mistrustful team at first, only to become a diehard unit that transcends the borders of their countries by the end. All of which will heighten the underpinning tragedy of how the two lovers from the group, The Joy and The Sorrow, are destined to be split apart directly after the war as they end up on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain.

But most of all, I'd love to see how the Metal Gear stealth formula would have evolved with the inclusion of special powers and the fertile setting of World War II. How would enemies be balanced in order to make The Fear's stealth suit gameplay standout, and how will The End's photosynthesis play out in an urban sniping setting? Would The Sorrow take the stage, or would he perhaps serve better as an overwatch character? Would Kojima have gone the logical step of exploring World War 2 conspiracies, or perhaps might he have touched on the alleged occult practises of the Nazi's. And of course, what special new event would happen during the events of the war in order to spur the impending historical spiral event which characterise the Metal Gear franchise, wherein the Cold War lasts longer?

Alas, all this is dreaming of a game that we will, rather definitively, never have in our hands because the world is cruel and Konami are crueller. It's always the way that even after an entire career's worth of risks taken and dreams invented, it's the shots that aren't taken which linger the longest, sting the deepest, a sobering reminder that one can never be satisfied. But at least we have some image of what Metal Gear would have ended up looking like without Konami's assassination attempt (codenamed: Metal Gear Survive) and that is an dream to keep us smiling at night. Afterall, isn't it nice knowing that even after everything it covered, Metal Gear could have had even more stories to tell? I liken that to a fable of one's own unending worth and propensity to invent, for as long as we can keep dreaming the fantasy never ends.