On Christmas day, diehard Metal Gear Solid fans faithfully tuned into a broadcast called Kojima Station. The hope was that Kojima would give fans a neat look behind-the-scenes on Metal Gear Solid V. Maybe he’d even give people a release date. Who knows!
So fans watched this stream for almost three hours. Kojima opened presents and talked about movies. Then, it was time for an announcement. And what Kojima revealed was unexpected, but not in the way hardcore fans had hoped.
Around the 2:44:00 mark of the stream, Kojima pulls out a picture of…a chicken hat:
Why would Snake wear a chicken hat in Metal Gear Solid? Well, why not? The series can be pretty goofy sometimes. The hat does have a purpose, though. According to our pals at Kotaku East, if you die too many times in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid, or if you get caught tons, the game will ask you “would you like to use a chicken cap? Yes or no?”
If you say yes, you’ll start wearing the chicken hat — and enemies will react to you slower. They won’t notice you as fast as they normally do while you wear the chicken hat, which means that, while the game is calling you a chicken for wearing the hat, it’s also helping you get through tough sections. Think of it like the Golden Tanooki suit in Mario games, something that you only get after dying a few times. When you wear it, you gain invincibility — the hope is that it will ease players into the game a little better. Same deal with this.
Amusingly, the chicken hat can do special things, like glow in the dark (enemies can’t see this, of course). It’s the sort of thing that would make one tempted to say yes, just to add some hijinks to the game, but if you do wear the chicken hat, you’re kind of stuck with it. Snake will be wearing a chicken hat even during serious cutscenes.
You know what? The chicken hat is an amazing feature, thanks to how silly it is. But would I have watched a stream for almost three hours on Christmas day for this announcement? Hell no. That’s time I could be using to open presents and drink eggnog and such. I don’t think I’d watch a stream for that long on any day, really, for that kind of an announcement. Fans that tuned in seem to feel the same way, judging from the reaction to the stream:
(From r/Metalgearsolid)
To be fair, Kojima never hyped this stream, and Christmas isn’t a national holiday in Japan. Fans just hoped he would give them something cool for Christmas, which technically he did. It’s just not what people wanted. Still: Kojima, you loveable troll, you. How could you!
Comments
7 responses to “Hideo Kojima Trolled Everyone On Christmas, Because Of Course He Did”
I wanted a puppy! I told you all year I wanted a puppy! Sure, you never said you would get me one, but you knew, KNEW I wanted one, so when you said there would be Christmas, I knew it would be a puppy! And then it wasn’t, and you are totally evil for it not being a puppy, because I knew it would be one!
Kojima actually hyped the hell out of the Christmas stream, and stated that there would be an important announcement that Metal Gear fans wouldn’t want to miss. A chicken hat that activates easy mode is as far away from an important announcement as you can get.
http://i.imgur.com/y5w4Q.jpg
Oh no, I got the joke. Was just mentioning that Kojima did hype the stream, as opposed to what Patricia stated above (“To be fair, Kojima never hyped this stream…”). I personally thought it was hilarious.
You seem to forget that Kojima once released MGS2. Kojima made an entire career out of doing hilariously mean shit to his own fans.
What a goddamn hero.
See my reply to Daniel Minge above. Definitely didn’t forget or miss anything, and found the whole thing to be quite entertaining, particularly as a huge Metal Gear fan. 🙂
Fair enough.
I think it’s hilarious. I thought MGS2 was hilarious. I thought TIME PARADOX as a fake trailer for MGS4 was hilarious. I think a lot of people take the whole thing way too seriously seeing the story is a convoluted mess that involves a guy with a haunted hand from a dead clone, AIs running the world for profit they can’t spend and a white, African, child soldier who is now a brain in a robot ninja body after he killed the president who was a super clone.