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Metal Gear Solid 4: The Flawed Masterpiece Kojima Didn't Want to Make IGN ser tilbage på Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, som nu bliver tilgængeligt på moderne konsoller med Master Collection Vol. 2. Kommentaren argumenterer for, at spillets lange mellemsekvenser, ujævne struktur og aldrende hovedperson samtidig er dets svagheder og en del af dets særpræg. Artiklen vurderer det som en ambitiøs og følelsesladet afslutning på Kojimas oprindelige saga.

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'Confirmed!' — CD Projekt Red Dev Says The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past Expansion Will Add More Gwent CD Projekt Red har bekræftet, at den kommende udvidelse til The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Songs of the Past, kommer til at indeholde mere Gwent. Udvidelsen ventes lanceret i 2027 og fungerer som en forløber til spillets historie. Studiet vil præsentere flere detaljer under gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live, mens The Witcher 4 efter planen udkommer i 2028.

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Persona Comes to Beard Papa's With Special Cream Puff Collab, Gift Sets, Merch, and More Beard Papa’s indleder den 4. september et tidsbegrænset samarbejde med Persona i udvalgte amerikanske butikker. Kampagnen byder på Persona-dekorationer, specialsmage på cream puffs, gaveæsker med merchandise og koder til Persona 5: The Phantom X. Samarbejdet varer til 4. oktober og lanceres op til udgivelsen af Persona 4 Revival i februar 2027.

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'That Ain't Captain Price, That's Lieutenant Cost' — Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Devs Vow to Update Captain Price After Botched Haircut Goes Viral Activision og Infinity Ward vil rette Captain Prices fejlagtige frisure i Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 efter virale billeder på sociale medier. Problemet opstår, når spillet vises med det laveste detaljeniveau, hvor figuren mangler både hår og skæg. Udviklerne har føjet fejlen til spillets liste over kendte problemer og lover en løsning i en fremtidig opdatering.

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Canceled Iron Man Game Footage Leaks Online, Showing Destructible Environments, Flying, and More Ufærdige gameplayoptagelser fra Avalanche Studios’ annullerede Iron Man-spil er dukket op online, angiveligt fra et PlayStation 3-udviklerkit. Videoerne viser blandt andet flyvning, kamp mod soldater og fly samt delvist ødelæggelige miljøer. Spillet blev udviklet i begyndelsen af 2010’erne, men blev aldrig officielt annonceret. EA Motive arbejder fortsat på et nyt Iron Man-spil, selv om der endnu er få detaljer.

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This Legend of Zelda Brain Teaser Recreates One of the Best Side Quests From Tears of the Kingdom En ny metal-hjernevrider genskaber sidequesten fra The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, hvor spilleren hjælper Addison med at holde præsident Hudsons skilte oppe. Puslespillet indeholder en metalfigur af Addison, et skilt og fire metalstammer, der skal samles i en bestemt løsning. Producenten beskriver udfordringen som niveau 6, og det færdige resultat kan udstilles.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Lets You Remove Ghost’s Mask, But There's a Catch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 får en ny funktion, der lader spillere ændre bestemte operatørers kosmetiske udseende under en kamp. Ghost kan blandt andet tage sin maske af, mens Captain Price kan ryge en cigar, der bliver synlig i førstepersonsperspektiv. Funktionen er blevet opdaget i spillets beta, som samtidig har fået blandet modtagelse på grund af højt tempo og meget kort tid til at dræbe modstandere.

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Pokémon Collector Sets Up His Own Sting Operation to Recover $4,000 in Stolen Cards After Lackluster Police Response En canadisk Pokémon-samler fik stjålet kort til en værdi af omkring 4.000 dollar efter et salg med falske pengesedler. Da kortene senere blev sat til salg online, udgav han og nogle venner sig for at være købere og tilbageholdt to mistænkte, indtil politiet ankom. Politiet advarer dog mod selvtægt, da konfrontationer kan føre til personskader eller sigtelser.

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The Long Game: The 4 Best Crops to Invest in Early in Stardew Valley - IGN En IGN-guide gennemgår de mest rentable afgrøder at investere i tidligt i Stardew Valley. Pastinakker, kartofler, blomkål og især jordbær fremhæves som gode indtægtskilder i forårets første sæsoner. Artiklen giver også råd om fugleskræmsler, sprinklere, vejrudsigt og planlægning, så afgrøderne kan udnyttes bedst muligt gennem sæsonskiftene.

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"By the Power of Grayskull!" Magic: The Gathering Teams Up with He-Man for a Meme-Filled Masters of the Universe Secret Lair Drop Wizards of the Coast har offentliggjort fem nye Secret Lair-udgivelser til Magic: The Gathering med figurer og temaer fra Masters of the Universe. Sættene indeholder blandt andre He-Man, Skeletor, She-Ra og Battle Cat og kan købes fra 14. september. Hvert sæt koster 29,99 dollar i non-foil-udgave og 39,99 dollar i foil-udgave.

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You Can Save 23% Off Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 for PC – But the Offer Ends Soon Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 udkommer til pc via Steam den 27. august 2026. Forudbestillinger hos Fanatical sælges til 38,49 dollar, svarende til 23 procent under normalprisen. Samlingen indeholder Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Peace Walker og Game Boy-spillet Ghost Babel samt digitalt bonusmateriale. Det er første gang, Metal Gear Solid 4 bliver officielt tilgængeligt på andre platforme end PlayStation 3.

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I Played Two Brand New Control Resonant Missions, And Feel Foolish For Ever Doubting It — IGN First IGN har prøvespillet to nye missioner i Control Resonant og vurderer, at spillet kombinerer action, udforskning og Remedy Entertainments særprægede verdensopbygning overbevisende. Forhåndsvisningen fremhæver blandt andet tyngdekraftsbaserede platformspuslespil, fleksible kampmuligheder, nye fjender og åbne områder med udfordringer, der ikke kun handler om kamp. Spillet bygger videre på relationen mellem Dylan og Jesse i et surrealistisk New York.

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The Witcher 4 Confirmed for 2028 Release in Official CD Projekt Gamescom 2026 Announcement CD Projekt Red har bekræftet, at The Witcher 4 sigter mod en udgivelse i 2028. Spillet vises ikke på Gamescom 2026, men udvikles af over 500 medarbejdere som begyndelsen på en ny saga med Ciri i centrum. Samtidig lanceres udvidelsen Songs of the Past til The Witcher 3 i 2027 og vender tilbage til Geralt som hovedperson.

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Why Does Everybody Love Zork, The Duskbloods' Weird Robot Chicken With A Jetpack? Zork er en af figurerne i FromSoftwares kommende multiplayer-spil The Duskbloods, hvor han skiller sig ud med dybhavsdragt, jetpack og raketkaster. Spildirektør Hidetaka Miyazaki fortæller, at figuren blandt andet er inspireret af Ultraman og Ultra Seven samt monstre fra havets dyb. Zork er en af Miyazakis favoritter i spillets netværkstest.

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Amazon Just Slashed the Price on the Magic: The Gathering's Marvel Super Heroes Bundle, Making It Cheaper Than Buying the Play Boosters Alone Amazon har midlertidigt sat Magic: The Gathering – Marvel Super Heroes Bundle ned med 15 procent, fra 69,99 til 59,31 dollar. Boksen indeholder ni Play Boosters, 30 landkort, et eksklusivt foliepromokort, en opbevaringsæske og en eksklusiv terning. Gift Edition-udgaven med en Collector Booster er fortsat tilgængelig, men uden tilsvarende rabat.

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GTA 6 Leaker Calls For Fans 'Dressed as Leeks' to Protest Outside Rockstar Offices While Dropping New Nudity-Filled Gameplay, and Suggests Story Spoilers Will Be Posted Next En lækkergruppe har offentliggjort nyt GTA 6-spilmateriale med omfattende nøgenhed og antydet, at kommende lækager kan indeholde større historiespoilere. Gruppen opfordrer samtidig fans til at protestere foran Rockstar Games og Take-Two Interactives kontorer, mens afstemninger om nye lækager kræver betaling i kryptovaluta. GTA 6 udkommer efter planen til PlayStation 5 og Xbox Series X/S den 19. november 2026.

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Nautus Hands-On Preview: A Delightful Mash-Up of a Cartoon-Inspired Survival Crafting Game and an Underwater Adventure IGN har prøvespillet Nautus, et kommende eventyr fra Magic Design Studios, der kombinerer et hyggeligt øsamfund med undersøisk udforskning og overlevelse. Spilleren samler ressourcer, hjælper farverige øboere og opgraderer en miniubåd for at nå dybere ned i havet. Under overfladen skifter spillet til en Metroidvania-inspireret oplevelse med fjender, begrænset energi og ilt.

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As Hideo Kojima Turns 63, The Metal Gear Solid Creator Says He Has More Ideas Than Ever But Less Time Left to Make Them Hideo Kojima har på sin 63-års fødselsdag skrevet, at han har flere idéer end nogensinde, men mindre tid til at føre dem ud i livet. Han vil fortsat prioritere spiludvikling trods andre tilbud og muligheder. Kojima Productions markerer samtidig sit 10-års jubilæum, mens arbejdet på det Xbox-eksklusive horrorspil OD fortsætter uden en offentliggjort udgivelsesdato.

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Black Myth: Zhong Kui Doesn’t Look As Epic as Wukong – and I Love That It’s Pushing for a More Ambitious Story IGN vurderer, at Black Myth: Zhong Kui ser mindre storslået og mere jordnært ud end Black Myth: Wukong. Den første gameplay-trailer fremhæver blandt andet en grå skov, parering og små interaktioner frem for spektakulære bosskampe og store landskaber. Ifølge vurderingen kan det dog pege på et mere historiedrevet spil med større fokus på karakterer, stemning og kinesisk folklore.

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I Reviewed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Over 44 Hours in 4 Days from Bethesda’s Basement and it’s One of My Favorite Gaming Memories Ever En tidligere IGN-redaktør fortæller om de 44 timer, han brugte på at gennemspille The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion i Bethesda Game Studios' kælder i 2006. Spillet blev gennemgået på en Xbox 360-udviklingsmaskine over fire dage, mens mad blev leveret til studiet. Artiklen beskriver samtidig Oblivions betydning som en af Xbox 360's store titler i konsollens første måneder.

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With Hasbro Teasing More "Fantasy-Adjacent" Universes Beyond Sets for 2027, Could Game of Thrones or Elden Ring Join Magic: The Gathering Next Year? Hasbro har antydet, at de tre kommende Universes Beyond-sæt til Magic: The Gathering i 2027 vil være mere fantasyprægede. Artiklen gennemgår en række mulige crossover-samarbejder, heriblandt The Legend of Zelda, The Witcher, Marvel, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, Game of Thrones og Elden Ring. Der er tale om forudsigelser og ønsker, ikke bekræftede udgivelser.

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'Calm Down Everybody' — Former Rockstar Dev Calls GTA 6 Leaks 'A Nothing Burger,' Insists Hot Coffee Was Much, Much Worse En tidligere teknisk direktør hos Rockstar Games kalder de omfattende GTA 6-lækager for en mindre forstyrrelse sammenlignet med Hot Coffee-skandalen fra 2005. CyberLeek har offentliggjort gameplayvideoer og et kort, mens Take-Two forsøger at finde de ansvarlige. Lækagerne ventes ikke at påvirke spillets salg væsentligt, men de kan svække den planlagte Netflix-afsløring og påvirke medarbejdernes moral.

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Level Infinite Unveils Its Massive Gamescom 2026 Lineup, Featuring Playable Demos of Control Resonant, Dune: Awakening, and an Exclusive Hunt Reveal Level Infinite tager fire spil med til gamescom 2026, hvor besøgende blandt andet kan prøve den første time af Control Resonant og konsoludgaven af Dune: Awakening. Spillet udkommer til konsoller 22. september med en ny solotilstand. Derudover har Hunt: Showdown 1896 en eksklusiv annoncering planlagt til 26. august, mens spillere kan teste spillet sammen med udviklerne på messen.

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Target Just Restocked This Pokémon TCG Premium Collection at MSRP, Offering One of the Best Pack-For-Pack Deals We’ve Seen in Months Target har igen Mega Zygarde ex Premium Collection fra Pokémon TCG på lager til den amerikanske vejledende pris på 44,99 dollar. Pakken indeholder blandt andet otte Perfect Order-boosterpakker, to promos og et klistermærke, hvilket giver en lavere pris pr. pakke end flere af de tilsvarende produkter. Perfect Order-udvidelsen består af 124 kort og har fået en mere afdæmpet modtagelse end større udgivelser.

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I Didn't Expect the Narrator of My New Favorite Warhammer 40,000 Audiobook to Read Out an AI Training Warning, but It Shows Just How Serious Games Workshop Takes Protecting Its IP En ny lydbog i Warhammer 40,000-universet indeholder en oplæst advarsel mod at bruge optagelsen til tekstudvinding eller træning af kunstig intelligens. Games Workshop fastholder sin modstand mod AI i virksomhedens indholdsproduktion og undersøger samtidig, om værker er blevet brugt uden tilladelse til at træne modeller. Artiklen peger også på piratkopierede og AI-genererede Warhammer-bøger som voksende problemer.

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Target Has Already Sold Out of the Marvel's Wolverine-Themed PS5 Controller, But It's Still Available Elsewhere Sonys begrænsede DualSense-controller med Marvel’s Wolverine-tema kan fortsat forudbestilles hos flere forhandlere, selv om enkelte allerede melder udsolgt. Battle Yellow-udgaven koster omkring 85-90 dollar og udkommer 15. september 2026, samtidig med spillet. En hvid Adamantium-variant og flere matchende PS5-covers er allerede udsolgt eller kun tilgængelige i begrænset antal.

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Metal Gear Solid 4: The Flawed Masterpiece Kojima Didn't Want to Make

IGN ser tilbage på Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, som nu bliver tilgængeligt på moderne konsoller med Master Collection Vol. 2. Kommentaren argumenterer for, at spillets lange mellemsekvenser, ujævne struktur og aldrende hovedperson samtidig er dets svagheder og en del af dets særpræg. Artiklen vurderer det som en ambitiøs og følelsesladet afslutning på Kojimas oprindelige saga.

Fra IGN

This is an IGN opinion piece from Charlie Lopresto, who believes that love can bloom, even on a battlefield. He first encountered Metal Gear Solid on a demo disc from Pizza Hut and has since completed three hundred missions in VR– the kind that’s indistinguishable from the real thing.

Like Old Snake, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a fossil. A genetic dead-end of gaming evolution, the unhinged and overflowing masterpiece that barely left a mark on the artform. Despite its commercial and critical success, MGS4 is rarely regarded as top tier Metal Gear. But is that actually fair?

Trapped on dead console hardware for the better part of its hard life, thanks to the new Master Collection Vol. 2 it’s finally possible for everyone to experience MGS4, from series diehards who first fired it up in 2008 to people completely new to Metal Gear who have absolutely no idea what they’re in for.

All of them will reckon with the many, many questions MGS4 brings to mind, like: Will we ever see a game like this again? Why did we stop talking about it? And, perhaps most importantly: MGS4 is really good, isn't it?

“The Lightning in That Rain”

Hideo Kojima did not want to make Metal Gear Solid 4. He publicly declared his desire to end the franchise as early as MGS 2, then proclaimed that he was finished with the saga after Snake Eater. Kojima’s words were weary but his deeds said otherwise. He wasn’t really ready to move on– both of those games ooze with a sense of momentum and life.

Guns of the Patriots feels different. There’s a gloomy weight to the game, like a funeral – the raucous kind where friends, grudges, and flames gather to settle scores, awkwardly hook up, and celebrate the end.

Prior to MGS4, we’d last seen Solid Snake in 2001, when he dropped a prophetic monologue and vanished into the streets of lower Manhattan shortly after the former President of the United States crashed into the city with a giant sci-fi submarine. As situations go, it’s certainly one that begs for some followup, and after years of fans demanding the return of the Legendary Mercenary, Kojima obliged in trademark trolling fashion.

You don’t get the cocky, mech-smashing super soldier who slays Tengu by the dozen with a metafictional bandana. Kojima, who reportedly received death threats over his reluctance to move the story forward with MGS4, instead delivers a feeble, actively decomposing relic. Old Snake grunts, screams, coughs and gags wetly as he crawls in agony through his final mission, all for the privilege of being allowed to die before his poisoned blood wipes out humanity. Old Snake was punished before Punished was cool.

It’s a trope we’ve seen a lot lately: the beloved hero of a bygone age, bitter, broken down, and humbled, all in service of passing the torch to a spunky new recruit before the credits roll. But there is no Rey to don the cardboard box here, no Adonis Creed, no Robin, nor any kind of chipper next-gen protagonist queued to continue Snake’s legacy by selling some video games. Nearly everyone in Metal Gear Solid 4 is old, dead, or extremely married by the end of the story, a bittersweet and beautifully conclusive eulogy to a deeply heroic and thoroughly decrepit old man who reeks of cigarettes.

Modern media is designed to protect itself, to keep mythology marketable and leave endings open for future exploitation. Kojima does the exact opposite with MGS4, performing peaceful euthanasia on his life’s work to that point. It’s a brave move delivered with a lot of love and earnestness, and anyone upset at geriatric Snake were too busy feasting on a buffet of fanservice to stay mad for long.

Guns of the Patriots was Kojima ending things on his own terms; a bombastic epic that bursts with unfiltered honesty.

Rarely do sprawling stories wrap up as neatly as Metal Gear Solid’s, even if “neatly” here means bursting at the seams and slightly slapdash. Kojima didn’t have a decades-long master plan when he made Metal Gear for the MSX in 1987, but managed to B.S. his way into satisfying answers for nearly everything. It’s an ambitious, messy, and sincere sendoff to Snake and the series. There’s really nowhere else to go from here.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room, dangling precariously from a Fulton balloon over this discussion: Guns of the Patriots is not the last Metal Gear Solid game. Despite his protestations, Kojima had two more Metal Gears in him: the portable Peace Walker, a numbered entry in all but name, and the tragic MGS5. Both respect the brick wall he built at the end of the timeline and tread water safely in the past instead of pushing forward. Kojima decided to move the series horizontally instead, experimenting with tech and form until Konami kicked him out.

Kojima’s actual final chapter, when it came, was compromised and ignominious, a casualty of his ugly exit from Konami and a sour note on which to end. Guns of the Patriots was Kojima ending things on his own terms; a bombastic epic with a massive budget that bursts with supreme confidence and unfiltered honesty. It would be the last time he ever made a game like this.

“War Has Changed”

Guns of the Patriots, like every mainline Metal Gear game before it, is structured like a linear, cinematic action-adventure story. It’s almost quaint from a 2026 lens, when half the industry runs on open worlds and the other on live-service menuslop, but this was Kojima’s M.O. throughout the early part of his career.

And yet for something so committed to telling one continuous story in agonizing detail, MGS4 feels oddly episodic. Each of its five acts is practically a different genre. One minute you’re scooching across a battlefield, then next you’re skulking through the streets of Eastern Europe in a trenchcoat. Kojima drops us into warzones and weapons facilities across the globe, introduces new ideas, and moves past them just as quickly.

A much-hyped faction loyalty system stops mattering after Act 2, and the mechanic to manipulate enemy emotions isn’t really a factor until New Game Plus. There are a whopping 70 guns available for Snake that are largely superfluous, while the omnipresent Psyche meter quickly fades into the background outside of some perfectly-timed comedy. It’s like Kojima is cramming every single cockamamie “Metal Gear” idea he had left into the game as if it were his last chance, or so he hoped.

Kojima’s Hollywood aspirations run wild here, and while some of the sloggier cinematics are a chore, I’d sit through a thousand torturous mission briefings to relive MGS4’s queasy, white-knuckle fusions of story and mechanics, like the sicko mode split screen action setpieces and the tactile desperation of the microwave hallway.

The game’s linearity is a huge strength. We embody Old Snake through every second of his grueling ordeal. We wince with every injury and every brutal negging. Solid Snake was our stand-in from the moment he infiltrated Outer Heaven, detours aside, and we feel every moment of the long journey as he slugs it out with “Liquid” one last time. That sense of embodiment, being inside Snake, a part of him… you can’t get that from a mission select screen. But Kojima’s next and last games in his Metal Gear Solid saga would be built with these impersonal menus in mind.

MGS4 made Snake’s suffering feel like ours, and the series never approached that level of pathos again.

Frustrated with the PS3’s limitations for his grand scale vision, Kojima went small instead. Also available in Master Collection Vol. 2, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was originally built for the handheld Playstation Portable, so a sprawling linear opus was pretty much off the table without the luxury of blu-ray discs and Cell processors. Instead, he designed for the handheld system’s strengths: short, snackable stealth missions selected from a menu, perfect for a train ride or waiting room.

Previous Metal Gears relied on blockbuster storytelling to keep you coming back, but Peace Walker leans on moreish base-building, optional challenges, and RPG systems borrowed from Monster Hunter to keep you hooked. Seven years after Snake bluntslid across the Big Shell, grinding was back in Metal Gear, and this time it was here to stay.

Kojima is clearly fond of the results. He considers Peace Walker the fifth mainline MGS game, and thanks to rereleases it’s had far more staying power than the average PSP game. He liked the formula so much that he made it his default going forward: both MGS5 and the Death Stranding games run on the same skeleton, embracing timers and stats and judging your performance in isolated missions chosen from a list. At this rate we’ll probably be chasing S-ranks in OD.

It works beautifully for a handheld, and for a taciturn cipher like Sam Bridges, but it really doesn’t suit traditional Metal Gear Solid. MGS5 was free from the shackles of a 272p screen, but even with the full glory of the Fox Engine, the menu-driven mode of interaction keeps us at arms length from Snake.

The story becomes another checklist item, grinding through side ops until an actually important mission appears on the list. We’re watching from a more omniscient remove as Snake sizes up the stats of future subordinates and navigates a tech tree. For a series that loves to mess directly with the player and collapse the space between them and the character, losing that intimacy comes with a cost. MGS4 made Snake’s suffering feel like ours, and the series never approached that level of pathos again.

Being inside Old Snake’s head for dozens of hours is genuinely unpleasant at times, to the point it makes the game almost hard to revisit, and it’s one of several reasons why MGS4’s legacy is so quiet.

“Zero Becomes One”

It’s hard for a game to have an ongoing influence when nobody can play it. Metal Gear Solid 4 has been unavailable for years, buried alive on hardware that Sony hasn’t sold for nearly a decade. Countless classic titles are trapped on ancient tech, but it’s rare for a numbered entry in a massive, triple A series.

The PS3’s Cell Processor was notoriously miserable to develop for, with bizarre architecture far removed from industry standards that made porting anything off it a nightmare. It’s also why emulation, so vital to keeping commercially abandoned games alive, couldn’t save Old Snake either. Strides have been made recently, but MGS4 remains a genuine bear to run outside of its native hardware.

None of these technical woes were insurmountable, and neither were the super specific Sony references or the licensing entanglements from MGS4’s frankly ludicrous product placement. It just needed a publisher that cared enough to devote the resources to porting it and had the courage to get Uniqlo, Apple, and Playboy back to the negotiating table.

Konami was content to let the series languish for a long time as it explicitly abandoned video games for pachinko parlors. It only once really wrestled with following MGS4 in the timeline, in Platinum’s audacious spinoff Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Otherwise, it didn’t matter to Konami if nobody could buy or play MGS4.

Thankfully, that’s changed. Konami’s prodigal return to video games has gone well enough so far, and now MGS4 is enjoying an immaculate rebirth, iPod and all. How will modern gamers receive it after so many years in the wilderness?

Guns of the Patriots is an aggressively unfriendly game by modern standards, and the cutscenes are completely out of control. A common Kojima criticism is that he’d rather make movies than games, but it’s hard to think of any film that’s nine hours long, built largely out of static codec calls, and features extended scenes of people drinking soda and smoking around little girls while weeping about nanomachines and infectious diseases. Whatever MGS4 is, it’s not a movie, and it’s certainly not made for newcomers.

MGS4 isn’t spoken of in the same breath as the first three games, and when it does come up it’s rarely for what it actually accomplished. And since almost nobody’s been able to play the game for so long, its reputation as an uncomfortable cutscene parade is all that remains. Opinion calcifies when there’s nothing around to contradict it.

That’s not to say nobody’s tried to pick up what MGS4 put down. Resident Evil Requiem almost feels like a tribute at times, a last ride for a long-suffering hero who makes a pilgrimage back to where his story started while dying from a sci-fi disease that makes him cough a lot. By the end, Leon is upgrading his weapons with counterfeit Drebin Points, dueling hand-to-hand with his longtime rival, and dragging himself inch by agonizing inch through a high-tech hallway.

Without spoiling where it lands, Requiem doesn’t have the nerve to go out on a limb like MGS4. Its tribute to Raccoon City sent us on a nostalgic trip through a place we’ve already walked through twice in HD, stopping far short of the wobbly PSX vertices in MGS4’s homage to Shadow Moses, another holy gaming space introduced in 1998. The ending stops short as well, a clean cut affair that leaves plenty of room for further adventures and profitable sequels.

Triple-A gaming didn’t go in an MGS4 direction in the intervening years. Budgets are too big and bosses too demanding to allow a freakazoid like Kojima off the leash again– unless you’re the man himself, of course. But Kojima only gets away with that because he had the power to leave the system that made MGS4 possible. Everyone else is still answering to a spreadsheet and, understandably, gunshy about unfettered visionaries.

Modern gaming’s play-it-safe instincts could do wonders for MGS4’s reputation. George Lucas and his Star Wars prequels suffered a similar rap over the years, dismissed as the bloated self-indulgent work of an auteur no one could rein in. But a decade of focus-tested corpo Star Wars sequels has sparked a genuine re-evaluation of the much-maligned Episodes I, 2, and 3, and now that it’s available again, MGS4 deserves the same treatment. Both the prequels and MGS4 are messy, overstuffed, and often embarrassing, but they are never once indifferent. Sincerity ages a lot better than caution.

Ultimately, everyone has to judge Metal Gear Solid 4 for themselves, to witness the grandiosity, endure the hour-plus uninterrupted cutscenes, and gaze hypnotically at Old Snake’s buttcheeks amidst a bombardment of jargon and lore. At least now you’ll get the chance to, and when you do finally sit with Kojima’s wayward masterpiece, you might like it more than you’d think.

Charlie "Moose" Lopresto graduated law school, passed the bar, and made a financially questionable decision to write about games and movies instead. Contributing to IGN since 2021, he collects solo board games and transforming robots.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Hideo Kojima Master Collection Vol. 2 Konami Solid Snake PlayStation 3

Læs artiklen på IGN.com Artiklen er på Engelsk

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Metal Gear Solid 4: The Flawed Masterpiece Kojima Didn't Want to Make

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