Hideo Kojima reposts an article describing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as an 'unfinished masterpiece'
Hideo Kojima recently reposted an article by Inverse on X titled ”10 Years Late: Hideo Kojima’s Unfinished Masterpiece Is Still Influencing Games Today”, which detailed the incomplete nature of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, without any additional commentary. Kojima endorsed this game’s characterization as unfinished, a reality that has stuck with the gaming community for a decade.
The post garnered over thousands of likes and hundreds of reposts, rolling the ball about discussions of the game’s troubled development. This comes amid the fact that Kojima has been distancing himself from his former projects over at Konami, particularly his reluctance to play Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, while prioritizing his current projects like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and his collaborative project OD, with Jordan Peele on board, and being backed by Xbox Game Studios.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain hit store shelves on September 1, 2015, and garnered massive commercial success. The game moved 6 million copies by the end of the year and generated $179 million in revenue at launch, making it the best-selling title in the Metal Gear franchise.
But behind the scenes, the game’s development was troubled by a fallout between Konami and Hideo Kojima, leading to the game being rushed for release and resulting in cut content and stories left untold.
The game’s Collector’s Edition featured concept art and unfinished footage of a missing episode inspired by Lord of the Flies. Episode 51: Kingdom of the Flies was discovered in the game’s files and also detailed in the Collector’s Disc bonus content, which provided a bit of closure to the game’s story.
The episode featured Eli, a young Liquid Snake, who escaped Mother Base with the psychic child Tretij Rebenok, the Mbele Squad, the Sahelanthropus, and a third English strain of the vocal cord parasites.
Eli taunted Venom Snake with a cassette tape, demanding his body in exchange for Sahelanthropus and a nuclear weapon, leading to a confrontation amid an XOF strike. The mission supposedly steamed into a battle between Diamond Dogs, XOF, and Sahelanthropus, leading to Eli almost dying from the parasites as he reached puberty.
Kojima himself has regretted not owning the rights to Metal Gear. Furthermore, developers on the MGS3 remake wanted Kojima to engage with their work. However, it appears Kojima has left the series behind as the franchise continues to evolve without him.
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