Known as the most ambitious Metal Gear game in the series, Metal Gear Solid V allowed players to explore a vast world of desert and grasslands as the mysterious protagonist, Punished ‘Venom’ Snake. Before the full game was released to the public in 2015, fans were given a taste with the prequel entry of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, which only gave a small look into the giant map that was to be released with the full title game of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Due to Metal Gear Solid V taking an entirely different path from previous Metal Gear entries, the game was not without its roadblocks. The game took many years to finish and still had much more that Hideo Kojima wanted to add to it.
10/10 The Game Is 200 Times Larger Than Ground Zeroes
In an interview from 2014, Hideo Kojima stated that the game was more than 200 times bigger than the previous Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Unlike previous Metal Gear games, Metal Gear Solid V was meant to be completely open world and allow players to traverse a large map in any way they preferred. It also allowed players to replay missions and take different approaches to complete them.
The game offers hundreds of hours of content and new ways to complete missions and items to unlock. Even if you have completed the main story, there is bound to be something left for you to discover.
Metal Gear Solid V was the first game in the Metal Gear series to offer microtransactions to players. Luckily, these were not the kind of microtransactions that gave you an advantage or sold you a cosmetic for a ridiculous price but instead were used to allow those who didn’t have the time to complete the whole story to jump ahead.
You were able to spend MB Coins, which could be bought with real money, to speed up development on items or create Forward Operating Bases on Mother Base.
8/10 The Development Cost Over 80 Million
The making of Metal Gear Solid V was one of the priciest ventures Konami had invested in. It is said that by April 2015, the game had already cost around 80 million to produce and develop, with even more money likely being added before its release.
This apparently caused issues between Konami and Kojima, as Konami believed the game was becoming too expensive. They decided to make the release date sooner in order to cut back on spending.
7/10 The PC Release Was Originally Supposed To Be Delayed
While Metal Gear Solid V was always meant to be released on PC, Kojima said that it was not their number one priority. The original trailer of the game even depicted Metal Gear Solid V running on a PC rather than a next-generation console.
Despite this, Kojima’s priority was the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. However, due to popular demand from PC fans, the game ended up being released on PC at the same time as other platforms.
As Kojima had stated many times in the past with Metal Gear entries, he expressed that he intended Metal Gear Solid V to be his actual last Metal Gear game that he was involved in. This ended up being true, even though it was in a way that Kojima did not plan.
The game was to be Kojima’s Magnum Opus and his most ambitious Metal Gear game to date. The amount of work put into this game was most likely due to the fact that it was supposed to be the last, which ended up being the case as there have not been any main story Metal Gear games since.
5/10 Kojima Parted With Konami Before The Release
Before the release of Metal Gear Solid V in September 2015, Konami announced that it had parted ways with Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions in March 2015. Because of this, Kojima Productions was no longer together and dissolved. However, Kojima Productions later came back as an Independent Studio that produced games such as Death Stranding and the future Death Stranding 2.
This break from Konami most likely occurred due to disagreements between Kojima and Konami on the development of Metal Gear Solid V and the amount of time and money spent on it. Konami even removed Kojima’s name from the cover of the game as well as any future releases.
When Kojima’s departure from Konami was originally announced, Konami assured fans they would continue with Metal Gear in a new series. Despite this statement, though, Konami only went on to create one Metal Gear game afterward, Metal Gear Survive, in 2018.
While this game uses the Fox Engine developed by Kojima Productions and falls under the Metal Gear series, it was poorly received and did not follow the main story. It is, instead, a survival game mostly intended to be multiplayer. The game received generally negative reviews, which might be why Konami has not pursued any new Metal Gear titles since.
3/10 The Game Appeared To Have Missing Or Unfinished Content
Through extensive data mining by fans, a lot of possible removed content was found in the game’s files, including audio and gameplay features. Some fans found a story chapter titled ‘Chapter 3: Peace’ that was not included in the final game, as well as an unreleased mission, ‘Episode 51: Kingdom of the Flies’.
Many believed the missing content was due to the rift between Konami and Kojima, but this was never truly confirmed or denied. Despite all these findings, though, we most likely won’t get to see this removed content in future versions of the game.
2/10 Chico Was Originally Supposed To Survive
First introduced in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP, Chico originally died in the plane crash that also killed Paz and put Big Boss into a coma for nine years. However, early artwork from Metal Gear Solid V shows that Chico was originally intended to survive.
The artwork depicts Chico wearing a large red cape with a peace sign on the back and a mask over his face to most likely cover extreme scarring. It would have been interesting to see this character in the future, but alas, we can only imagine what was originally planned for Chico.
1/10 Kojima Wanted To Open The Game With Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs’
The Diamond Dogs in Metal Gear Solid V serves as the mercenary group under Venom Snake and Kazuhira Miller. The name of this group was surely based on the song ‘Diamond Dogs’ by David Bowie, as Kojima has stated in the past his love for Bowie.
Kojima had hoped to take this a step further and open the game with the song ‘Diamond Dogs’ playing, but other developers convinced him against it. Instead, players can hear ‘The Man Who Sold The World,’ covered by Midge Ure, at the beginning of the game.
