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Chicken out, take the easy route in Metal Gear Solid 5
Being scared in a war zone? Totally understandable! We can think of plenty of things that are more relaxing than persevering through fields of soldiers, artillery and landmines. So should Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain's threats stress you out, know that a safe(r) state of being is just a chicken hat away. Phantom Pain director Hideo Kojima took to a holiday livestream to introduce the headgear seen above, which Kotaku explains will be offered to players that are repeatedly caught or killed. Once equipped, the chicken hat will make enemies notice Snake a bit more slowly (and make story moments more ridiculous, as it will be perched atop Snake's head during cutscenes). We don't have an idea of when exactly we'll be able to sneak through The Phantom Pain in style, but at least we have an idea of what to expect based on an extensive chunk of gameplay Kojima demonstrated last year. [Image: Konami]
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes zips onto Steam today
"Steam, are you okay? Steam? Steaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!" Calm down, Colonel. Steam is still safe and secure ahead of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes' arrival later today. The Windows PC port of the prologue to MGS 5: Phantom Pain is cleared for landing at 10AM PT/1PM ET, and with a price tag of $20.
Say cheese and die - Watch Metal Gear Online's premiere
Selfies, cardboard boxes, cuddly toys, balloons, robots, Kiefer Sutherland and tons of violence. No, it's not the 24 Christmas party but in fact the video premiere for the new Metal Gear Online, as showcased during last week's Game Awards. If you missed it over the weekend, you can check it out now below the break. And yes, that is who you think it is in the photo above. Konami also released a bundle of new screens this morning which you view in the gallery, along with some info about MGO. As per last generation's edition and Metal Gear Solid 4, MGO is Konami's name for the online multiplayer mode in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. While it gets its own fancy title like Grand Theft Auto Online, like Rockstar's offering it's included with The Phantom Pain at no additional cost. Konami also revealed players can expect a class system in the new multiplayer mode, along with appearances from familiar faces like, yup, Ocelot. Also, it's confirmed MGO is going live and online with the launch of The Phantom Pain, which remains due for sometime in 2015.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes gets permanent price cut
Konami announced a permanent price drop for Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes this week, cutting the game's cost down to $19.99 on all platforms. Ground Zeroes is now priced at £19.99 and €19.99 in Europe as well. The game will reach Steam on December 18. Acting as a prologue to Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and also set after the events of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes took players through a rescue mission as series hero Snake. Ground Zeroes launched in March for $30, and according to our review was "also 30 bucks for one hell of a cliffhanger" as the game wound up "teasing more than it satisfies." The next proper entry in the series, Metal Gear Solid 5, will launch in 2015. [Image: Konami]
MGS 5: Ground Zeroes infiltrates Steam in mid-December
To prepare PC players for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, Konami has revealed plans to launch its interactive preface, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, on Steam on December 18. According to the publisher, the game will feature enhanced graphics, including support for 4K resolution and an enhanced number of on-screen models and light sources. While it's easy to argue that Ground Zeroes is diminutive - content-wise it sits somewhere between a demo and a proper game - Metal Gear Solid fans should enjoy the series' most intuitive, functional controls and most detail-packed environments. Our review awarded the game's console incarnation 3.5 of 5 stars while describing the game as "too good to be a cash-in, too calculated to be satisfying and too intriguing to spurn." [Image: Konami]
Watch 20 minutes of new gameplay from MGS5: The Phantom Pain
Hopefully witnessing 20 minutes of new gameplay footage direct from Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain can alleviate the sting of learning that Metal Gear maestro Hideo Kojima refuses to commit to a release date any more specific than a nebulous "2015." [Image: Konami]
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes coming to Steam
Update: In a video featuring Snake sneaking around in a box stamped with the Steam logo, Hideo Kojima has officially announced Metal Gear Sold 5: The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes is coming to PC. The announcement was made during Konami's special Metal Gear Preview Party, broadcast on Twitch. No release date was revealed, only that Ground Zeroes would release first. Original Post: Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes are coming to Steam. The news comes by way of Konami's official European site, which seems to have accidentally revealed the announcement prior to tonight's planned Metal Gear preview event. Though the press release Konami Europe's site is pointing to is no longer found online [link], we've discovered a text snippet of the announcement: Tonight's MGSV:TPP Preview Show revealed; with a twist of METAL GEAR SOLID humour, that MGSV: THE PHANTOM PAIN and GROUND ZEROES will be available on Steam, release date yet to be disclosed. The event featured a surprise message from Kiefer Sutherland; the voice of 'Snake', announcing an exclusive gamescom pre-order deal. Fans who attended received vouchers offering a 5 EURO discount on the PlayStation®4 and Xbox One versions of MGSV:TPP. This pre-order deal is also available at the KONAMI booth (Hall 7.1) – so if you're planning to visit gamescom, be sure to swing by! We'll be announcing more pre-order deals over the next few months, stay tuned. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain had previously only been confirmed to arrive for Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360. Ground Zeroes, the prologue to The Phantom Pain's story, was released earlier this year.
Old box learns new tricks in Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain
The cardboard box has been a Metal Gear mainstay for decades, but in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain the corrugated gadget has picked up a few new tricks. Metal Gear Solid director Hideo Kojima took the stage at Sony's Gamescom press conference to demonstrate a few of the new tactics Snake can employ with the help of his cardboard pal. Not only can Snake use the box to crawl around without attracting attention, he can also maneuver into position, pop out of the box, fire off a few shots, then duck back into cover. Instead of killing foes, pacifist soldiers can opt to use the Fulton device to kidnap them directly from the battlefield like so many hapless goats. If you'd rather avoid enemy soldiers, the box also offers a new suite of distraction tools. Snake can now attach photographs to the sides of the box, including a saluting soldier that will fool enemies into thinking you're one of them, and a picture of a bikini model that will draw lecherous troops in a hurry. Once they're within range, you can leave the box in place as a decoy or use CQC techniques to repay their devotion to a photograph with a series of rapid strikes. For a full demonstration, see the trailer below the break. [Image: Konami]
Catch the Metal Gear Solid 5 preview at the Gamescom gala
In a powerful demonstration of the mantra "go big or go home," Konami will be previewing Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain not on a show floor, but at a special gala event in Cologne, Germany, the company has announced. The celebration will take place at the Cologne Musical Dome at 8 p.m. CET on August 13, coinciding with Gamescom 2014. The event will also be streamed via Konami's Twitch page, meaning you won't have to be a globe-trotting super-spy in order to attend. Simply tune in at 11 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. Eastern to catch the preview as it happens. A related Konami press release promises a live Q&A session with Metal Gear Solid series creator Hideo Kojima, as well as "a few surprises." Considering the last "surprise" turned out to be a massive fake-out revolving around a fake company and a Swedish pseudonym, we can't even begin to imagine what Kojima has in mind. [Image: Konami]
Watch Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain's E3 demo
Snake? Yo, Snake? Snake! Oh, there you are. Hey Snake, check it: You've read our E3 preview of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and its animal-ballooning hijinks. Now watch all 30 minutes of the E3 demo for yourself in this recorded Konami stream. [Image: Konami]
Seen@E3: A visual history of Metal Gear
The walls outside the theater of Konami's E3 2014 detail a visual history of one of the company's most famous franchises. One poster showcases the evolution of Snake from his days as a bundle of pixels on the MSX to the gruff, high-res hero in Kojima's upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Another poster gives players a history of its various weaponized tanks, the titular Metal Gears. A third poster breaks down the environments Snake has infiltrated over the years. For fans, it's a wonderful display of the stealth-action franchise's history and something we had to try very hard not to steal to put on our walls at home. Thankfully, Konami released high-resolution images of each poster. Time to go to the printer!
Recruiting goats and researching cardboard in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
The in-game demo of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain features an impressive array of technology, from Fox Engine's fantastic character models and dynamic weather effects to its day and night cycle and open-world locales. Oh, and also, you have the ability to attach a surface-to-air recovery balloon to a goat and send it flying toward your home base. Clearly, the engine's most impressive feat.
Metal Gear Solid must reflect the era in which it's made, Kojima says
Following a demo of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, prominent game designer Hideo Kojima told Joystiq, through a translator, that it's important for media to reflect the era in which it is developed. Games with authorship tell a story beyond what appears within the product's narrative, he said; they give players a perspective on the state of the world at the time of a game's development. Some games lack that authorship, he said.
Sony 'in talks' with Metal Gear Solid movie director
Sony Pictures has finally infiltrated movie development hell on a sneaking mission to make its Metal Gear Solid movie. A Tuesday report in Deadline said the studio is in talks with director Jordan Vogt-Roberts to bring Hideo Kojima's tale of espionage and nuclear missile firing bipedal tanks to the big screen. Vogt-Roberts last movie was The Kings of Summer, a coming of age movie about teenagers building a house in the woods. The teenagers were not part of an elite soldier squad with crazy animal names. Sony Pictures has been trying to get its Metal Gear Solid movie in production since 2007. Last word about the project came in 2012, during the series' 25th anniversary celebration. Kojima and Konami announced that it was partnering with producer Avi Arad on the adaptation. Arad is largely responsible for the current boom of superhero movies, having produced early hits like Blade, X-Men, and Sony Pictures' own hugely successful Spider-Man series. While he's long held ambitions to bring the same success to video game to film adaptations, having been attached to properties like Mass Effect and Uncharted, he's yet to bring those plans to fruition. The one and only completed video game movie Arad produced was 1993's Double Dragon. [Images: Konami]
Konami net income half of last year's despite 'solid' game sales
Konami has released its financial report for fiscal year 2014, which ended March 31. The company's overall net income for 2014 was 6.2 billion yen ($60.9 million), down from 13.2 billion yen in 2013. Net revenue also dipped, though not as much: 217.6 billion yen ($2.1 billion) in 2014, down from 226 billion yen in 2013. The company's Gaming And Systems business segment was the only division to improve its operating income, but before you get your hopes up, know that this section of Konami actually handles casino games. Video games fall under the Digital Entertainment segment, which fell from an operating income of 11.7 billion yen ($114.9 million) in 2014, down from 21.2 billion yen in 2013. These numbers are despite what the company called "solid" sales of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. We'd make a joke about Konami's choice of words matching nicely with the name of Ground Zeroes' protagonist, but as we all know, the game doesn't star Solid Snake, it stars his father, Big Boss, AKA Naked Snake, AKA Punished Snake, who isn't really his father but is instead the person from whom Solid Snake was cloned, who died but wasn't dead, and was rebuilt using pieces from his other cloned "sons" and ... whatever. Nanomachines. For more numbers, check out Konami's full report. [Image: Konami]
Joystiq Weekly: GDC 2014, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. We saw many great games and met with many great people during this year's Game Developers Conference in sunny San Francisco. Or did we? One of the biggest announcements of the show was undoubtedly Project Morpheus, the upcoming virtual reality headset from Sony, and during our hands-on demo, we felt pretty darn virtual. So now the question is: What if we didn't really attend GDC 2014? What if it was all virtual reality? Whoa, dude. Sony also gained news traction this week thanks to the release of PS4-exclusive, Infamous: Second Son. Meanwhile, Snake/Jack Bauer has come out of retirement (again) to save the world in Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, and a new cyborg ninja came to town with the release of Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. You can read all about these games and more of the week's biggest and best after the break. [Image: Joystiq]
Metal Gear creator Kojima talks Snatcher, potential mobile adventures
Though it's not likely that we'll see a Hideo Kojima game on mobile devices in the near future, it is a possibility that the Metal Gear Solid creator has put some thought into. In a interview broadcast via Twitch, Kojima sat down with Geoff Keighley to field questions from the public. When asked if he'd ever develop a game for the mobile platform, Kojima stated that he has no desire to create the short, replayable diversions that constitute most mobile games. Instead, he cites indie hit Papers, Please as a personal favorite and claims that he would eventually like to develop "a practical, easy to play adventure game that is quite deep." "[I have] no idea when I'll be able to do this, but I'll ask," Kojima added via translator. "[H]opefully someday in the future I will be able to develop one of those, but unfortunately, right now, my full time is devoted to The Phantom Pain." A later question centered on the future of Snatcher, Kojima's cult classic adventure game that, while highly regarded, has been overshadowed by Metal Gear Solid. While Kojima would like to see Snatcher return, he has no time to develop a sequel himself, but wouldn't be opposed to someone else reviving the sci fi epic. "If someone wants to adapt those games ... I would definitely support that person, I would help out that person, but I don't think there are too many people like that."
MGS5: Ground Zeroes transcends generations in platform comparison video
You've seen the frame-rates and resolutions for Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, now see the frame-rates and resolutions in Konami's new comparison video. Rather than dwell on the differences in p between Xbox One and PS4, it focuses on cross-gen enhancements between PS3 and PS4, and Xbox 360 and Xbox One. One thing it doesn't touch on is the price difference. When the prologue to MGS5: The Phantom Pain hits on March 18, a download version will set you back $20 on Xbox 360 and PS3, and $30 on PS4 and Xbox One, with physical copies priced at $30 and $40 respectively.
Report: MGS5: The Phantom Pain could launch as late as 2015
Translating a conference call from Japan this week, analyst David Gibson reports that Konami's Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain could launch as late as December 2015 or as early as October 2014, depending on how development progresses over the coming months. Konami is currently focused on launching The Phantom Pain's prologue episode, Ground Zeroes, in March. Konami released its consolidated financial results for the first nine months of its 2013 fiscal year, revealing a 2.6 percent drop in net revenue compared with its earnings during the same period in 2012. Year-on-year losses in Konami's Digital Entertainment and Health and Fitness divisions are buoyed by gains in its casino and pachinko businesses. The company additionally notes a shift in consumer preference, resulting in lowered social game earnings and an increase in demand for native game apps, which take comparatively longer to develop. The majority of Konami's remaining console software lineup this quarter is slated to debut exclusively in Japan, with only Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes scheduled for worldwide releases. [Image: Konami]
Hideo Kojima defends MGS: Ground Zeroes' reported two-hour length
Metal Gear Solid series director Hideo Kojima has issued a statement addressing concerns over the length of the coming Metal Gear Solid 5 prologue chapter, Ground Zeroes, assuring that the final product will encourage replay due to its "freedom of approach and play style." A report from the latest issue of Game Informer pegged Ground Zeroes' campaign at around two hours in length. Kojima explains that the game's breadth of content, which includes a collection of side missions and an online-ranked trial mode, will keep players occupied long enough to justify its $40 retail price point. "This is not a linear game like the past," the statement reads. "[Ground Zeroes] offers freedom of approach and play style, which we hope players will enjoy over and over without [becoming bored]. I believe people will be satisfied with the 'Play Time' of Ground Zeroes and not stress the 'Clear Time,' which is a standard for linear games." Kojima Productions' Jordan Amaro backed up Kojima's statement, comparing Ground Zeroes to brief but satisfying indie experiences such as Journey and Dear Esther. "I want people to celebrate the new MGS like we used to," Amaro told GameSpot. "I'm not dismissing their concerns. But this [issue] has been trumped-up." Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes will launch on March 18 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One. [Image: Konami]
