It should have been the fifth episode of this important video game saga, it ended up on a portable console: this episode is much more important than you imagine

Gaming News It should have been the fifth episode of this important video game saga, it ended up on a portable console: this episode is much more important than you imagine

Numbered episodes, changes in gameplay, more explicit subtitles… video games are always on the lookout Find the right formula to sell yourself, and the desires of developers sometimes clash with the ambitions of publishers or the needs of marketing. A bad title, a poorly implemented change or poor communication, and years of work can be forgotten due to commercial failure. The list of affected titles would be as long as a day without breadand that’s not quite what interests us today.

Fourteen years ago, when Sony was betting big on its PSP, gamers discovered Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, whose action takes place after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops and before Metal Gear Solid V, Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. If it doesn’t have a number, However, Peace Walker is far from a simple spin-off. This game took place in Costa Rica in 1974 and was intended for the Sony portable console actually intended as… Metal Gear Solid V. Yes you’ve read correctly. Directed by Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker should have been an important part of the famous series. It is the game developer himself who announced it in a series of tweets posted to mark the game’s anniversary.

It’s been fourteen years since PW started, when I was still in my forties. This was around the time that many gaming companies started developing apps for flip phones. After developing MGS4, we realized the need for a unique engine. The jump occurs as soon as the engine is ready. Until then, PW plans to offer an MGS that scales horizontally. It was originally called MGS5PW, but due to strong opposition from foreign markets the numbering was abandoned. Since this is a PSP game, the target audience was limited to elementary, middle, and high school students. The aim was to bring the license closer to young people and to win fans of both generations, parents and children.

An unloved episode?

The opposition is therefore International marketing venue, who wanted to attract a new audience by removing the number and softening the tone. While introducing mechanics that we will find later, including exfiltration through the Fulton balloon, Peace Walker takes on a tone similar to Shonen. He questions the existence of nuclear weapons and examines concepts such as deterrence and temporary peace. Mr. Mizushiro, Mr. Sugita and Yoshitada Otsuka took into account the opinions of their sons, who come from the “PSP generation”, when selecting the characters. The game received a T from the ESRB (13+) in the United States, but in Japan a torture scene was modified (replaced with tickling) to receive a CERO C (15 and over).

Limited by the PSP, Peace Walker offers short missions and animated still-frame cutscenes. Peace Walker was later released in the HD version for PS3 and met with great success (8.5 on Metacritic for the PSP version, 7.9 for HD), despite lower sales than the numbered MGS. Its unique experience, the result of technical constraints and a different target group, A remarkable and sometimes underrated episode indeed from the Metal Gear Solid saga. As you know, Metal Gear Solid V will come full circle later, and in a much more complex context. The title will never truly be finished and it will be Kojima’s last with Konami since Silent Hills was canceled.