As a long time Metal Gear Solid fan I was among the minority when I decided to keep an open mind about Metal Gear Survive. After Hideo Kojima left Konami, I was uncertain about the future of Metal Gear Solid but then a Konami social media executive claimed that the company wants to earn back fans.
I was really looking forward to Metal Gear Survive’s gameplay and in all fairness, the game does seem to play fine with the survival elements. Crafting, making defences, the return of MGS3’s healing system and the co-op mechanics does make Survive slightly different from The Phantom Pain, although the latter’s already perfected gameplay really made matters easier for the team working on this so called spin off. After watching through the gameplay footage, it became painfully clear that the demo took place in Afghanistan, one of the maps in The Phantom Pain. What makes matter worse is that the entire map has just been lifted and pasted into Survive with minimal changes. As you can see in the video below, there is very little difference between them, except the addition of watch towers, fences, walls and some other minor adjustements. As far as assets go, Metal Gear Survive seems like a complete rip off of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
Konami are claiming that Survive is a spin off story, one that acts as an add on to the Metal Gear Solid 5 universe. I am sure the concept of alternate dimensions sounds intriguing and many players expected that Survive will use a different map. That expectation is fair since Konami are marketing it as a new Metal Gear game. Even Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was a spin-off but Platinum Games just did not ripped off assets from previous Metal Gear Solid games.
The core concepts of Survive are intriguing, the game’s price may not be $60, the team may be working under strict deadlines but simply copy pasting ENTIRE levels is downright unacceptable. If Konami wanted to push this out as MGS5 DLC, then may be such a practice can be considered reasonable and understandable.
I was really looking forward to Survive. I honestly kept an open mind towards it but now the entire concept of Metal Gear Survive reeks of blatant cash grab at this point. May be Konami will surprise players with new maps in the future…but what is that famous saying? “First impression is the last impression.”
Thanks, Youtube user rensehin for the video.