If the people who make games didn’t listen to their fans’ feedback, they wouldn’t stick around in the industry for too long. Listening to player responses, responding to changing tastes, and adapting to new market circumstances is how developers and publishers thrive and survive. But not all of the changes that are made as a result prove to be popular among fans. Some of them turn out successful, while others don’t, and here, we’re going to speak about a few times that developers have made controversial changes based on responses from fans.
METAL GEAR SOLID 5 – DE-EMPHASIZING STORYTELLING
Metal Gear Solid has always been focused on storytelling, and that only grew with each new instalment in the series. Thanks to Hideo Kojima’s love for films, that generally materialized as stylishly directed and cinematic cutscenes- which only grew longer and longer as time went on. By Metal Gear Solid 4, these cutscenes had expanded to ridiculous lengths, with some that could stretch on for thirty minutes, if not twice that, and for many, that was a bit much. Large numbers of players hoped that the series would reel it in with the cutscenes going forward, but with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, it’s fair to say that Kojima overcorrected. There’s a severe lack of cutscenes in MGS5, to the extent that many parts of the story that should been crucial cutscenes were relegated to being missable audio logs. It’s on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from MGS4.
