No one likes Konami these days. In fact, no one has liked Konami for a years. While there was a period last decade when Japanese video game companies struggled, its contemporaries such as SEGA, Capcom, and Square Enix, among others, have since recovered. As for Konami, it remains in the gutters, hoping for a way back to the table with the big boys with its next big hit. Since the company owns Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and Castelvania, it’s within its rights to do whatever it wants with its franchises. But, we’d be lying if we said that its recent string of decisions inspired any confidence.
Konami generated a ton of hype last year with its Silent Hill Transmission event, when it finally confirmed that a Silent Hill 2 Remake is coming. It’s hoping to ride the same wave of nostalgia Capcom did with its lineup of remakes. A big issue here is Silent Hill doesn’t carry as much weight. In fact, Silent Hill never really moved the needle much outside of the first two games. What’s worse is that Bloober Team is helming the remake, which hasn’t exactly made any game as notable as Silent Hill before – nobody really remembers The Medium.
Thus, this begs the question, with Konami fully invested on reviving its oldest and most popular franchises, does it have a chance at being successful, especially with Metal Gear?
Metal Gear is a storied franchise. It’s three decades old with calls for a live-action adaptation for as long as anyone can remember. Commercially, it’s one of the best-selling video game properties, outselling the likes of The Elder Scrolls and Battlefield. However, it’s in terrible shape. It’s an IP held hostage by its publisher, a company that has seen many of the individuals responsible for its success leaving in recent years.
So in theory, while the latest gameplay trailer for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the long-awaited remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which isn’t exclusive to the PlayStation 5, is a cause for celebration, there’s this expectation of failure from Konami. And yeah, there’s historical proof of this. From Metal Gear Survive to Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1, Konami’s attempt to steer the ship is akin to Captain Ahab’s quest to find Moby Dick.
There’s no getting around this. Many companies want to bring back their old, popular games, but most prefer to put in the least amount of work. Konami isn’t the only company trying to cash in on the nostalgia. Rockstar Games’ recent Red Dead Redemption port for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch weren’t significant upgrades although they did add a new-ish feature to the decade-old game. Also, Naughty Dog, as much as it would deny it, milked the hype with The Last of Us Part 1 and it bit them. While those outings are noteworthy, Konami is the worst of the bunch. Its attempt to bring the first three Metal Gear Solid games to modern platforms somehow runs worse on a new console with a blatant disregard to attempt to do any kind of optimization work.
Back in 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2 ran at 60 fps on the PlayStation 2. It even runs on 60 fps on the NVIDIA Shield. Yet, for some reason, it can’t do the same on the Switch and the performance on modern PlayStation and Xbox consoles isn’t any better.
Let’s say the whole thing wasn’t a priority. Even if it was, the second volume is a chance for redemption. If nothing else, because the games are newer, perhaps they’ll all play better. But, expecting Konami to do more than the bare minimum, when Kojima settled for nothing short of perfection, is a problem. What’s worrying, however, is modders have already somewhat fixed the collection (they still run awful but at least they got 4K mods), which might lead Konami to believe that all is good. The only saving grace here is is that these are still good games at a foundational level.
Now, if the Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake is a faithful adaptation, like Konami says it is, the best case scenario is that it will give Resident Evil 4 a good run for its money. It’s just that Konami has given us no reason to hope this would happen.
Until proven otherwise, it’s hard to hold out hope that Konami isn’t just trying to squeeze the most out of Metal Gear’s glory days – back when Kojima was still running the show.
