Metal Gear Survive is the first game in the longrunning series to not involve director Hideo Kojima, which may make you wonder: Is he in the credits? The answer is yes, sort of.
The credits for Metal Gear Survive, which came out earlier this week, include a “Special Thanks” section dedicated to “Metal Gear Solid V All Staff.” Technically, that means Konami is thanking Kojima, which you might not expect after the endless saga that led to the longtime Metal Gear director resigning in October 2015.
Metal Gear Survive, a spinoff that pits soldiers against zombies, was conceived and produced without Kojima.
It’s not quite Uncharted 4's appreciative nod toward Amy Hennig, but at least it’s something?
Considering that Konami stripped Kojima’s name from the box art of Metal Gear Solid V before it shipped, I guess a shoutout to “all staff” is as much as they could’ve asked for.
If you’re not familiar with the Konami vs. Kojima battle, this New Yorker article is a good refresher. We still don’t have the full picture – and nobody at Konami will offer their side of the story (I’ve asked!) – but various reports have described horrible work conditions for the Metal Gear Solid V crew.
Some left the company alongside Kojima to form a new studio that’s currently working on the much-hyped Death Stranding, which will be out in 2045.
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22 responses to “Metal Gear Survive’s Credits Thank Hideo Kojima, But Not By Name”
LOL, what, were they meant to thank him personally? Come on Jason, this is a non-story and you know it…
Of course they should have thanked him personally, if they had any class.
I found it interesting.
Given that MGS is Kojima’s life time work, it’s a shame but with such a lousy spin off it might be good to not have Kojima’s name in it.
I wouldn’t even call this an MGS game, to be frank. It looks like dog shit, has no story, and by most accounts is just a survival zombie sandbox. Sad.
Agreed. Konami is just milking the franchise. MGS is dead without Kojima and they know it.
Doesn’t deserve the title MGS at all.
And I wouldn’t even call Final Fantasy Dissidia a Final Fantasy game either, right? It looks like dog shit, has no story, and by most accounts is just a 3D fighter with an all-star roster. Sad.
Fuck me, if my eyes rolled any harder they’d fall out of my head. Hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned…
Glad you like the game, but I ain’t no MGS fanboy. I wouldn’t consider Dissidia NT to be a Final Fantasy game either, except that you get to play as extremely famous and popular characters from a lot of the Final Fantasy mainline games. Survive lets you play as Soldier McSoldierface, and makes a poor attempt to tie the game to the Metal Gear world. Honestly, this game could have been set anywhere and you wouldn’t really know the difference. Call me if you start encountering The End, Vamp or Laughing Octopus zombies. That would be cool.
I don’t know what game you played but if you played far enough into the game it had a better story then phantom pain. Plus it had good boss fights, big plot twist and can actually tie into canon metal gear if it wanted to. As much as I wish we got something different please don’t take away from the employees. They put alot of work into the game. Fuck the CEO and big shots of konami bit don’t hate the workers. They tried.
I think it’s nice. You’ve gotta remember… The same people who made MGS:V’s maps, systems, models, cinematics, etc are the same people who made these. Kojima didn’t make MGS:V single-handed. He directed these developers.
We’re talking about flesh and blood developers who are still doing the same stuff they were doing previously, who miss their captain. Working on a property that he had invested so much into, but without him… I’m sure that absence is felt pretty keenly, and that his influence and legacy is still felt in everything that he did and everything he had plans to do.
Also, I’ve been playing the game and it’s actually a pretty great spin-off so far. I’m only a couple hours in, but the power progression is feeling really good. Just made a bow for the first time, locked down some reliable food/water sources, unlocked skill-training, starting to master the surprisingly engaging cartography mechanics… it’s all unfolding really nicely.
I am not disregarding the MGSV team but without Kojima, Metal Gear is not Metal Gear.
If Kojima was still there, there will never be a game like Survive. Just like if Disney didn’t buy lucasfilms, there will never be more Star Wars.
It will received mixed critiques, some may like it some may hate it but ultimately it feels like the essence of Metal Gear is missing without Kojima’s directing.
See above re: Dissidia/Final Fantasy.
It’s the very nature of a spin-off to have a different essence to the property that spawned it.
I understand what you mean but I think we got too far off topic.
MGS is a special franchise where Kojima is either the director/producer of the game. He was involved in all of them unlike Final Fantasy where each one may have different director/producer. Not to mention they are mostly different universe and does not share anything in common including the story.
Comparing MGS and FF is abit farfetched imo considering how different the franchise is. Maybe comparing MGS and Kingdom Hearts is closer since KH is a single universe franchise too.
Kojima to Metal Gear is like Nomura to Kingdom Hearts. If one day Nomura no longer leads Kingdom Hearts and spin off to Kingdom Hearts Zombie. What would you think?
Particularly a KH game with none of the Disney characters in it…
Never played Kingdom Hearts, so I can’t speak to that… but personally, I have a feeling that you’re overestimating the impact of the ‘auteur developer’.
Let’s try a different franchise with a strong name associated: can you imagine Mario games not directed by Shigeru Miyamoto?
Of course you can, because there have been plenty – he basically stopped directing after Super Mario 64. He shifted into a Producer role, to start with, and there’ve been plenty of titles he hasn’t touched.
Was Super Mario 64 in your opinion ‘the last real Mario game’? Of course not. Even after the man retires, Mario games will be mario games. No matter how divorced Paper Mario might be in mechanics, tone, and characterization from Super Mario Brothers 3. Was Paper Mario an ‘unworthy’ spin-off? The opposite: it was one of the best bloody titles in the franchise.
Mario doesn’t have single universe imo. Even the story is so simple there is literally no story.
Not sure what you are trying to compare. Maybe Zelda is better reference?
Well, this is why it’s relevant. What’s ‘Metal Gear’ish’ about MG:S, compared to MGS:V? Same universe, tangential relationship to the characters, sets a familiar time-line, technology, systems, and overall expectations for how crazy to expect shit to get with portals and nanomachines. Different type of story being told (though with similar levels of world-manipulating conspiracy theory stuff), with different characters, but the same world, and with the same engine. Characters in the Metal Gear series itself come and go.
Think of Borderlands’ “Tales” spin-off, which brings in an entirely new cast, relegating past games’ characters to mere cameos (with one notable exception). Entirely new developer, mechanics, but it’s still a worthy entry in the franchise. Might and Magic – the party-based RPG – spawned Heroes of Might and Magic. Crusaders, Legends. Divinity has ample spin-offs, some better than others. Shin Megami Tensei vs Persona. Harvest Moon vs Rune Factory. Sim City vs the Sims.
Sometimes the point of commonality is the developer, sometimes it’s the mechanics (see: Every ‘Warriors’ game that isn’t in the 3 Kingdoms setting – Hyrule Warriors is still a Warriors game), sometimes it’s the characters (Mario/Zelda notorious for all being in alternate universes), sometimes it’s the Universe/setting (see: Final Fantasy’s fabula nova crystallis setting, vs its others, which are still all Final Fantasy games).
Sometimes it works (Halo: ODST), sometimes it doesn’t work (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars). But there’s nothing inherently wrong with a franchise doing spin-offs in the same universe, with different characters or directors.
I don’t think you get the difference between Metal Gear and those titles you mentioned which I have tried to explain so let’s drop this discussion. It will go nowhere.
Oh, I absolutely get the difference and I already laid out very clearly the different core factors (director/developers, characters, universe, mechanics) between all those different franchises and their spin-offs.
Yeah, @letrico, it’s pretty clear this is going nowhere, because apparently Metal Gear is ‘different because… because it’s special’, which is essentially emotional rather than logical.
It can’t be because it’s always had the one Director, because that was the case for Mario too… until it wasn’t. It can’t be because it’s always had the same characters, or mechanics either, because it hasn’t.
Brass tacks, the fact is this: Metal Gear Survive is a spin-off of Metal Gear in the same universe. It has different characters, somewhat different mechanics, and doesn’t have the same director.
Thinking that there’s something wrong with that is weird, because that’s the entire fucking point of a spin-off: to change one or many those core factors I listed. (Developer, universe, characters, mechanics.) Per the example of every spin-off ever.
There have been some pretty awesome non-Kojima Metal Gear games in the past though. I particularly liked the Metal Gear Acid games on the PSP.
If this game is horrible, it isn’t just because Kojima wasn’t working on it.
Kojima is actually involved in all the metal gear games. Either as director or producer or both. That is why all the game has the line “a hideo kojima game”.
Survive is probably decent or else it won’t make it to market.
Given this is Konazi I wouldn’t be surprised if it read “Special Thanks Metal Gear Solid V all staff EXCEPT Hideo Kojima”
No, because then they would have had to write ‘Hideo Kojima’, causing them to hiss, shriek and writhe in agony, as the sight of Kojima’s name seared their eyes and burned their black souls.
right that made me laugh more than it should have
Hes probably glad not to have his name on this garbage