I have always liked the level of detail the metal gear games had when in came to real life stuff but in V is this aspect is absent.

When you first meet Ocelot in metal gear solid he specifically mentions the name of his Single Action Army yet in V he inexplicably uses a fantasy shotgun revolver. Mgs3 had a optional codec call for every weapon in the game and one of Big Boss' characteristic where that he really likes guns.

This extend to the vehicle as well, there are no Hind moment only "Snake that a Gunship."

I know this is a minor thing but is still feels off.

Yeah to the point that it may be my biggest complaint about the game! For series that always prided itself in grounding itself with real weapons and vehicles, the titular Metal Gears excepted, it feels like a strange omission. Though I will say that I liked the Stinger replacement being the Honey Bee since it took me far too long to recognize that pun.

@syce300: I just got it!

It didn't bother me. I love the guns they included and they are realistic enough. Keep in mind the licensing costs with a lot of this stuff.

I do wish there was a bit more minutia (like the nerding out Boss did about guns and combat techniques in 3) though. That's pretty absent.

Yeah, they lost the rights or whatever happened exactly.

I think they omitted then to avoid paying licencing fees. Companies these days are pretty brand aware and will sue if you don't pay or get permission to use their products. Just look at the Ace Combat games and all the logos for the manufacturers for the aircraft when you boot up a modern version of the game.

Even if that isn't the reason, Konami probably wanted to avoid any possibility of that by just making up names.

If indeed using the real guns would require licensing them from from arms manufacturers, I feel like that would be a little hypocritical? Like, if ever a franchise with guns in it was critical of the military industrial complex, it's Metal Gear, and helping fund that, if only slightly, seems like something they shouldn't do!

Besides, with fake gun names, they aren't beholden to the expectation that the guns work exactly the same as real world guns.

Whatever happens when you run out of license-time for weapon names and models? Have any games?

Warhammer license expires = gotta kill the product 100%

After Burner Climax plane licenses expire = Lucky to be allowed to let existing owners continue downloading that great game

Marvel license expires after what seems half a year = lol

I don't know. having licensed guns in a game seems like a really minor detail and going to the trouble to get them seems like overkill and even a bit gross.

And Honey Bee pretty much makes it all justified cause that is a great name.

I used to play Counter Strike, so I'm used to playing games with fake gun names that are obvious stand-ins for real guns.

It kinda sucks that they aren't using real names anymore, but to be fair they aren't exactly using real gun models either. Each one of those guns in game is a combination of several different guns. For example the MRS-4 is actually based off of an Armalite AR-18, but has elements of the H&K G3, for example. It's kinda cool for me as a gun guy to look at those models in game and try to figure out what real life small arms they are based on.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not looking for strict realism in this game, I mean really, we're talking about a game where you can attach balloons to a main battle tank and have it float up and be carried back to your base in the Seychelles by a helicopter in seconds. Real weapons are the least of my concerns.

From what I know they couldn't license them while having the customization system they have in-game, so they opted to have the customization system instead. Seems like better reasoning than licensing being to expensive too, imo. Gonna have to look to see if I can find where I read that though...

@shiro2809 said:

I was wondering if the customisation had anything to do with it, because they do just let you swap out muzzles and magazines. So maybe gun brand owners would object to another manufacturers name attached to their product. Hmm.

That actually makes alot of sense.

I remember the early Tokyo Xtreme Racer games were controversial enough that they couldn't license real cars with the level of customization and how the game glorified street racing which was a pretty hot topic in japan in the early 2000s. But you could tell what car was what and they let you edit the names so you could just put the real name in if you wanted.

I was wondering if the second thing you bring up (controversy) played a role at all. I mean, there are child soldiers in this game. Can you actually shoot them with a lethal weapon? I've never tried and know it's game over if you do but yeah you might be able to. Seems like something gun manufacturers wouldn't be eager to participate in.

I didn't even notice it.

It was so all the parts would match up visually. Super accurate models of actual guns would start to look really ridicules the second you started trying mix and match and the animations would probably be a nightmare. No one is going to sue any one for using military weapon designations or visual representations of weapons produced for government contracts. There is not a copyright or trademark on "M16A1" and Colt's patents for the actual design itself lapsed decades ago. They would *maybe* run into trouble if they slapped Colt or FN logos on everything, but that would imply that those companies would even bother noticing, let alone have a problem with it.

By the time you get to Africa you can make a half decent FAL approximation so all is right in Eben Barlow simulator 2015.

Yeah this is all starting to make more and more sense.

Not to sound super cynical but I wonder if the game did have licensed guns what the Polygon article about it would have been like... "MGSV lets you murder women and children with a colt 45" And they would neglect to mention the instant game over when you do it.

Most of the "detail" in Metal Gear games is just shit that Kojima made up. Also, maybe it's just me but I'm fine with anything that avoids video game companies directly funding gun companies.

@devil240z: Technically there's no gun called a Colt 45, not that that would stop polygon, though.

Having the actual gun names does help with immersion for me, but with the state of Konami as this game was getting finished up, I imagine it was a pretty easy choice to cut it. Also the gun you start with in Ground Zeroes looks like some strange mutant Galil so I imagine a lot of the guns aren't even real. Wouldn't be the first time what with the Nikita Launcher.

There's definitely a tiny part of me that misses the gun porney nature of MGS4. Not that big a deal though.

The customisation system is most likely why. I doubt manufacturers would like you being able to "sully" their wonderful engineering with that of the competition. In the end, it doesn't really matter, a lot of MGS is fictional and having near equivalents is fine. It's less budget going towards licensing.

@slaegar: But its one of the most common knowledge gun names of all time.

Honestly, Spandau Ballet, Billy Idol, and Hall and Oates were far better uses of the licensing budget.

He researches a good amount of that stuff actually. Kojima brought on military advisers to help him nail those aspects That's one of the quirks of the series. It has always had interesting detail for military aspects that is pretty accurate. He is not just making that stuff up, that's for sure.

Hell yes.

@shiro2809: If that's true I would take that trade any day of the week.

Tbf Afroman taught me a colt 45 got you fuuuucked up.

Yeah boy.

Doesn't matter to me at all. A gun is a gun, whether based on a real design or not. So long as it looks halfway real I don't care.

Speaking as someone who was actually in the military, I have to say that most of the military aspects of Phantom Pain seem to me like Kojima just watched a lot of military and action movies and documentaries and based the game on all of that stuff. Phantom Pain is very video-gamey in it's representations of military related things. I'm sitting here thinking about it, and even after 120+ hours in the game I can't think of a single thing that it seemed like someone with real military experience actually consulted on.

Well sure as far as day to day. But I'm talking as in he researched aspects of CQC (you can find lots of breakdowns that show the way CQC moves work in judo principles, and even details like how Snake pushes back the slide of a gun an enemy is holding so they can't fire said gun), the way guns are held and fired, the equipment that is used, etc. Like EVA firing her pistol sideways in 3 because that's how the gun was used by the Chinese (which the Cipher soldiers do in V). Like that's not an every day military thing but it was something researched that they came across. I'm not saying it's ARMA but that stuff isn't just made up.

He has military advisers listed since at least 2 working on the game. And prominently featured in the credits. I'm not saying it is 100% thorough but he does research things he includes. It's obviously anime as hell and all that but it is based on something.

i dont really care, but man do i love that the tranq pistol is the WU SILENT PISTOL. I love the Wu Tang Clan.

The hell do I care as long as they shoot? I'd rather have a sword anyway.

The customization opinion would make sense but MGS 4 already had a pretty deep system in it already. It is pretty jarring seeing how every previous metal gear had real world weaponry and vehicles, but it's not that big of a deal.

I don't get immediately excited when the game announced a new weapon can be developed, because their all made up. I miss Oceloot's SAA, the greatest and best gun in the world. Mostly just when looking at the development screen, once their in my hand I could careless.

I wish the Metal Gears were licensed too, it's a load of BS.

@core1065: Implying you don't want to drive a Kuratas.

Yeah I don't really think a weapon manufacturer is going to get butthurt because you swapped out the muzzle break for a suppressor or co witness the sights with a red dot. Especially considering the AR15 is more or less the Lego of the gun world.

@bigboss1911: I've heard that that was relatively realistic in terms of attachments (only certain things could be attached to weapons and everything), but MGSV almost every part of a gun can be swapped out to make it nearly however you want. If you can attach a silencer to a gun irl, that's a-ok w/ the weapon manufacturers, if you switch the barrel w/ one that wouldn't work irl, that's not ok and is not allowed. That's the reasoning I've heard at least.

Also, my google-fu is bad so I can't find the source on the 'fake guns for the customization', just a lot of people speculating it was because the cost :(

While what's posted is absolutely correct and I've noticed some things myself (I was, for example, slightly bemused seeing Snake jump up to the helicopter with relative ease while wearing his Battle Suit - with that much, assuming ceramic plates, he would have a hard time doing that. Also the tucking in of the trousers is something that stood out.)

However, aesthetics still matter that's why judging to military standards is going to be difficult; tacticool rather than tactical, hence no helmet in the Battle Suit, scarf looking more like a cloak, weird face-paint patterns, etc. Still the comparison is really interesting.

OT: Names don't matter much, especially since the guns don't seem to be modeled 100% after an existing weapons and you being able to pull a Dr. Frankenstein on them.

As a series of games that preach a very anti-war message it was always weird that they presumably paid gun manufacturers money to license them. I don't really know gun names anyways so it's fine by me.

Regarding the Mi-24 (Hind) it's especially strange because that thing played a huge role in the invasion of Afghanistan. It's also very iconic for the Soviet military. Atleast the fake AK-74 mostly looks like an AK-74.

Not really, i mean you can make a horse poop......that's all i need

The reloading, drawing, and holstering is spot on

I think a lot of people take this kind of stuff for granted in the MGS games. Most games get these aspects wrong. Even like when MGS2 came out the way enemies cleared rooms and stuff was a revelation and a level of detail and accuracy that wasn't in other games.

Even if you feel like Kojima makes up a lot of "details" in the games, the real-life guns are clearly not made up. I'm not bothered about not having authentic weapon names mainly because in every other game Konami has been paying licencing fees to weapons manufacturers, which goes against the clear anti-war message of the games. Also, if they saved some money by not paying the fees, and instead were able to pay some poor Konami worker's salary.

I imagine if I was a gun nut I'd totally agree with you because it's an element you expect the game to get right. Since I'm not one, I'm gonna say no because it doesn't matter. I won't trivialize your point by contrasting the realism of magic death squads and psychic floating boys, but in the grand scheme it's irrelevant.

I want to say it was around the time Spec Ops was coming out that the topic of realism was brought up. The consensus was while Call of Duty went down the real-guns road, Spec Ops went down the real-emotion-and-experience road, and I agree the latter is a worthing endeavor.

That kind of ties into my point. The stuff that can be watched on YouTube is pretty close. Otherwise, the whole military consultants thing seems like a bit of a stretch.

Here is the guy who has advised the whole series, Motosada Mori. He has a background in the military, as a SWAT and counter terrorist trainer, and development of close quarters fighting techniques.

Also an interview on CQC from MGS3 here.