Grave Gamer News & Views — kojima productions

“I’m committed to be involved in creative activities for as long as I live.”

- Hideo Kojima

Disturbing Imagery, Creepy Music, Endless Hallways… Must Be a New Silent Hills Trailer!

Hell has hallways. Who knew?

MGS: Ground Zeroes Lands a Date

Today, I have the privilege of announcing that Metal Gear Solid V… is nowhere near coming out. Them’s the breaks.

But! That’s precisely where Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes comes in. Kojima Productions, knowing full well that MGSV is not even a little close over the horizon, decided to put together a playable prologue that both sets up the events of The Phantom Pain as well as indoctrinating players to Snake’s new brand of tactical espionage action.

Airdropping to both current and next-gen PlayStation and Microsoft consoles, Ground Zeroes releases March 18th, 2014. Fun bonus: PS consoles will be privy to exclusive content by way of the “Deja Vu” mission – in which you play as Classic Snake (lookit him)  – while MS systems get a dosage of everybody’s favorite cyborg ninja (not named  Gray Fox), Raiden, in the “Jamais Vu” bonus mission.

The Ground Zeroes precursor doesn’t feature a full blown retail price tag, but there is a generational pricing discrepancy: current-gen copies will run you $29.99 whereas the spiffy next-gen editions cost $39.99.

Got fifteen minutes? Set your eyes upon this gameplay trailer, friends.

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Deploys in the Spring

Konami has announced it expects Ground Zeroes, the playable precursor to Metal Gear Solid V, out by Spring 2014.

Kojima Productions has been pretty damn coy about Ground Zeroes, Hideo himself only offering up that it’s a prologue, and keeping quiet on how it’d be delivered to fans. Officially, the game is a separate, and smaller, installment being released ahead of MGS V.

Set nine years before The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes centers around a lone mission – a Cuban rescue operation. The title contains all of the new features found within the upcoming sequel, namely open-world action, but demonstrated in a environment meant to ease the transition between old Metal Gear and this new era.

“There will be a significant difference in what The Phantom Pain brings to the series,” said Kojima, “so we want to ease players into the new open world environment and its potential. As such, Ground Zeroes has been designed to introduce key elements, allowing them to fully benefit from all that the new game will offer.”

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes will release for the PS3 and Xbox 360 at $19.99. Next-gen versions, for the PS4 and Xbox One, come in at $29.99 (I guess 60-fps ain’t cheap).

“I’m already exhausted from being involved in the console war (laughs). Metal Gear Solid V is being basically developed on PC. That’s the meaning of multi-platform, multi-generation, multi-device. It was originally planned to be made for the current machines.”

– Hideo Kojima, translated from Dengeki Online

This early out, more than several third-party titles slated for both the PS4 and Xbox One are being developed on high-end PC’s first. Some publishers, like Ubisoft, say the PC counterparts of PS4/Xbox One games will undoubtedly house “next-gen features.”

In Metal Gear Solid V’s case, Kojima admitted the game’s presence on both current and next generation systems may cause the game to look somewhat…dated. “Fox Engine was created with the current generation in mind,” said Kojima. “Maybe with other games that are being created exclusively for next-gen it might look a little behind.”

Kojima Productions still managed to squeeze out 60fps for MGSV on next-gen, so high fives all around.