It has been nearly three and a half years since
Metal Gear Solid 4 was released. There has been surprisingly little talk about a sequel given how much time has passed and since then the only real MGS releases we've seen have been
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and last week's
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Later this month, series creator Hideo Kojima will discuss the subject many fans have been waiting to hear about: Metal Gear Solid 5.
Official PlayStation Magazine U.K. has
teased (via
GamePro) an issue it has coming at the end of the month. Inside is an interview with Kojima where he is said to open up on the future of the MGS series including "the latest
Rising and Metal Gear Solid 5 details." It's impossible to say just how much he'll divulge; whatever the case may be, it isn't the first time the subject will have come up (or been
teased).
Speaking with
1UP after the release of MGS4 in 2008, Kojima said he was interested in working on something new rather than the next MGS. MGS5 could then be delegated to his young staff which he noted he had "really high expectations" for.
"I have three concepts for MGS5 already," he admitted. "What would be ideal for me with MGS5, though, is that we don't do those. If the team picks one of those concepts, I have to get involved again, which I don't want to do.
"There are already so many good ideas from the staff, so if we select one of those, that would be really good. At that point I could really rely on them and take the step back to be the producer, which is the ideal situation, I think."
Also in 2008, (
now former) Kojima Productions assistant producer Ryan Payton said MGS5 could take the form of a
prequel.
"I'm happy we could wrap up Snake's story in MGS4," Payton stated, "because it gets to the point where if we continue on with Metal Gear Solid 5 with more Solid Snake adventures, we'll get to the point where the game has absolutely no basis in reality. I do like the idea that this character has had four or five big missions and then that's when it ended, rather than have 20 missions where there's no chance in hell a secret agent could ever survive. He's had four or five really big missions, and that seems a little more realistic to me."
As for the details
OPM promised regarding Rising, we do know the game will be
showing up at this year's Spike TV Video Game Awards in December. Meanwhile messages on Twitter have indicated producer Shigenobu Matsuyama has been replaced by Yuji Korekado.
Kojima Productions producer Kenichiro Imaizumi
tweeted (as translated by
Andriasang) this week that Matsuyama has moved to a different division. This statement came after Kojima referred to Korekado as the game's main producer, a role previously occupied by Matsuyama.
We're checking with Konami to verify the change in leadership on the project.
As it's been some time since we last heard from Rising, which was first
announced at E3 2009, it's possible it could be a good deal different from what we've seen previously. Between the
OPM details and the VGAs being set for December 10, it won't be much longer before we're able to see for ourselves.
