Even though I finally stopped playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain over a week ago, I still haven't really been able to stop thinking about both the game itself and the franchise as a whole. I've been a Metal Gear fan for about ten years, hopping on the series with Twin Snakes, the GameCube remake of the first Metal Gear Solid. I instantly fell in love with the story, characters and gameplay, and immediately sought out a copy of MGS2 once I finished it, and then MGS3 after that. Over the years I've had my ups and downs with the series, but even at its most dire I've never considered myself a lapsed Metal Gear fan. It's always been a small part of my identity. Due to both personal disappointment and the resolution of the series' plot with MGS4 you would expect to feel a sense of finality with the series, but Peace Walker following shortly afterward never gave me the chance to feel like I could move on from this fandom. With each promise from Kojima that he was working on his final Metal Gear I scoffed, it was obvious that either Konami or himself were forcing him to continue to endlessly direct new Metal gear games. Ironically it was likely a combination of both that caused the series to finally end.

I didn't play Peace Walker at its initial release, (I didn't own a PSP, having bought one for Portable Ops and then selling it after fighting with the controls for several hours) but got around to it when it made its way to consoles via the HD Collection. After playing through and enjoying the hell out of it I was back to being positive about the franchise's future, and quickly became excited about "Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes" which was teased not too long after. I still remember being in LA visiting family when the gameplay demo of Ground Zeroes hit, and ignoring everyone to watch it on my phone the second I found out about it. I followed the "Phantom Pain" excitement, enjoyed the hell out of Metal Gear Rising, revisited the older games countless times and even played through the MSX games and most of the spin-offs for the first time. I bought Ground Zeroes on three different platforms and 100%ed the game on all of them, squeezing a combined 100+ hours out of a game most people chastised for its short length. I was ready and excited for what looked to be the ultimate culmination of both the evolving story and gameplay of the franchise I loved.

And then one day it was finally in my hands. I played through every mission and every side-op, found every optional cutscene I read about, listened to every second of every tape. The story might not have been what was sold to me in the trailers, and it was definitely limp in some spots, but I still loved most of what was there. In spite of a sloppy execution I instantly fell in love with the ending twist, and couldn't stop thinking about its ramifications on the franchise and characters for the rest of the day. I went on to complete all of the side-tasks, S Rank every mission, capture every stupid animal in the game. My completion rating eventually hit 100%, but I continued to unlock things that weren't counted like research items, emblem parts and sound effect tapes. About a week ago I'd exhausted everything to do in the game save for completing my FOB and developing/dismantling a nuke. There was nothing left for me to do but leave the game running at my base as resources accumulated automatically, so I could eventually hit a button and then leave the game running at my base while timers ran down. I still want to do new things, find new content, anything to let me play more Metal Gear Solid V... but there's no more Metal Gear Solid V left to play.

It was only recently that it finally hit me one of my favorite franchises of all time is now over. Over the years I've claimed I would love for Kojima to move on and do something that isn't Metal Gear again, but that was in a world where I felt like Metal Gear would never leave. "The story culminated with MGS4, we don't need more games to fill in the gaps." It's easy to say you don't need something when you're guaranteed it, but entirely different once that thing is actually gone. Since finishing the last mission I've been reading about fan speculation and cut content, trying to link implications from Phantom Pain to other Metal Gear games, and desperately wishing that Konami would announce DLC to add the content that was cut back into the game and give me more gameplay and story to consume. But the reality is none of this matters anymore. Nothing people speculate about will ever be confirmed, there won't be new games that expand upon these connections and create new ones, and the cut content will never be restored, the unfinished plot threads never completed. What caused the split between Konami and Kojima? Was it Konami having unrealistic expectations of game development? Or was it Kojima going overboard and spending far too much money on a single game? Whatever the reason, there's no doubt in my mind that this conflict was a huge factor in Konami's decision to get out of the video game industry, and leaving both Kojima and Metal Gear behind. Konami has gone on record saying there are no plans for story DLC for Phantom Pain, and though they claim Metal Gear games will continue with a new team we all know that's a load of bullshit. Solid, Acid, Rising, none of it will continue, not in any form we want them to at least. The story of Metal Gear is over, the gameplay will never be refined or iterated upon again, and the world will go on without Snakes.

For me, this truth is a much harder one to accept than the one at the end of The Phantom Pain. It's the reason I decided to write this blog post, to hopefully give myself a sense of finality to this fandom I've been a part of for so long. There's no way I can organize my complicated, disjointed feelings about this series into a coherent blog post with a clear purpose and structure, but I had to write something about all of this. Metal Gear has meant too much to me to let it simply pass by without saying anything. For the first time since I entered the world of Metal Gear over a decade ago, the Metal Gear series now lies entirely in the past. There's nothing complicated or hard to understand about this simple fact, and yet even as I write this I still feel this slight lingering sensation. Part of my brain feels like the series is still there, just like it always has been. But at the same time I feel the reality, that I'll never see any of these characters again. And it won't stop hurting.

You feel it too, don't you?

I feel ya. Metal Gear was one of those first games that made me really fall in love with it's wildly diverse cast of characters and completely bizarre world that had no qualms about stomping all over preconceived boundaries. Over the years all the catchphrases and signature moments became something of an outlier in a sea of sequels you could barely recall a few weeks after finishing them. Phantom Pain may not have been a game we necessarily wanted as the final entry in the franchise, but at least it went out the same way it originally debuted - completely unique and in a class of it's own. I will miss these characters and outlandish sense of humor, intentional or otherwise, and hope that Kojima and his team keep making games under a new label that continue to fall well outside the zeitgeist gaming bubble, redefining our expectations and bringing that silly grin to our faces in a way that only Metal Gear could.

It had a good run now let it retire before the programmed cell death sets in

Metal Gear is easily my favourite game series of all time. I don't think I'll ever see anything like it in my lifetime again.

One of the things that is so special about the series is that any fan could write a similar story talking about how and when they fell in love with the series, and how they followed it. Really glad to hear you've gotten so much enjoyment out of it.

I will say that we can't write it off completely. Konami have said they wanted to make more Metal Gear games in the future and were apparently even looking to hire new people to do so. So while it may be the end of 'Kojima's money sink' Metal Gears, I imagine we will get more games out of the series, because deep down companies like money. Although this is Konami we're talking about. The question is what a Kojima-less Metal Gear will be like. Either way, we've gotten a good run out of the series. We'll just need to wait and see what they do next.

I expect you'll become quite familiar with Google Alerts as you plan your next move. How and where you make it, well that's up to you.

I've definitely been down on Metal Gear for a little bit now, but that franchise will always have a place in my heart. And damn if it doesn't feel weird that a new MGS will never have kept me waiting again.

After all of these years, I thought that finishing MGSV would set me free of this obsession. That I could move on. It didn't. I thought maybe 100%-ing the game would do it. It didn't.

There's no escape.

I have been playing these games since MGS1 on PS1, and you sum up my feelings for the series perfectly. Since playing MGS1 near-release 16 years ago, it has since become my favorite game of all time, along with series. Seeing it end is both relaxing, and sad. My only hope is that whatever KONAMI is doing, it is some sort of Liquid based game (Metal Gear Liquid has a nice ring to it) with Cam Clarke returning for his role. Even if that doesn't happen though, I'll still love these games, as what they are, and what they stand for.

Peace

I don't know, they've been saying "no more metal gear" since metal gear solid 2 so i still don't really believe konami AND kojima are done. Either way, i was satisfied with the ending of 4 and 5 was amazing but didn't bring anything really significant to the plot to make me really desire a new one anyway. The story is done, and only thing really left to do is add a new side story or remake the MSX games.

"What caused the split between Konami and Kojima? Was it Konami having unrealistic expectations of game development? Or was it Kojima going overboard and spending far too much money on a single game?"

The number I heard was 80 million. Which is probably what every blockbuster costs these days.

@fnrslvr: Not in japan though! Most japanese games still look like slightly sharper ps3 games at best. I've heared that the cost is a big reason for why most japanese publishers avoid makin AAA console games altogether nowadays, they make way more money on smaller teams working on mobile/portable games without having to spent millions. 80 million is pretty much unheard of when it comes to a japanese gamebudget afaik

OP was a good read, had the EXACT same progression through the series. And yep we are all feeling the phantom pain too buddy!

As much as I hate the thought of this franchise coming to an end, it's probably for the best. I've been hooked on these games since I first played mgs 2 back in 2002,and my obsession grew with each game I played. No other series in any other medium has such a depth to it as Kojimas story does.

But starting with MGS 4 it lost its spark in the storytelling department. MGS 2 set it self up as the final ending to Solid Snakes story, with the main focus of the game being on the message, not the story itself. But of course fans wanted a real explanation to all of that Patriots nonsense.

I'm not really sure what Kojima was trying to do with MGS V, it's FANTASTIC game play wise, but the story, or lack there off, just feels so pointless and lacked any real punch. It repeated the twist MGS 2 did with Raiden,but didn't have the same impact. I would have much rather have seen a straightforward, fall from grace story for Big Boss, but Kojima being Kojima wouldn't have that. I seriously recommend watching Superbunnybops analysis of the game on YouTube.

Even with it most likely coming to an end, well at least with any Kojima input, you can still replay any of these games and get something new out of them,that's what's so great about Metal Gear.

MGS used to be my favorite series, but 4 and up were quite disappointing. I don't even want to play The Phantom Pain anymore. This series is already dead to me. I wish Kojima had just done worked on new IPs after MGS3.

They played my heart like a damn fiddle :(

@bigboss1911: 100% agree with all of this. Post-MGS3 games still had their moments, but there really never should have been a direct continuation of MGS2. It goes against that whole game.

I feel MGS5 was a tepid end to the series hence your lack of closure.

You had to end it some day and, judging by the way things went, Konami were the ones to finally pull the trigger. Given the butchered nature of Act 2, the prospect of an act 3 and a 51st mission that never came to completion, it just sounded like they were having to cram an awful lot into a time frame that was already past some internal deadline. Konami's management finally put the hammer down to Kojima and this is what we get.

As for the prequel games, none of them (beyond Peace Walker) felt like especially considered and well executed tales. You could argue Peace Walker, Portable Ops and Phantom Pain don't really need to exist because the motivations for Big Boss going on his path to villainy is set out there. You get some nice cult of personality stuff from Phantom Pain and Peace Walker but then you also get Paz's stupid arc and a whole re-appropriation of The Boss that wasn't really necessary.

As for the future of the series, I'm curious about it. With Kojima leaving in December it gives someone new to try their hand at it and, as far as gameplay goes, The Phantom Pain has that in spades. Those guys will still be on staff. What shape and scale a new Metal Gear game takes will be a mystery to uncover but I'd like to see what those names do next. As for Kojima, he's spent the last decade attaching his name to phantomware like Metal Gear Rising and P.T. Zone of the Enders had little lasting appeal and Lords of Shadow didn't take off. Its time to part ways and I suspect some of Konami's top brass have wanted that for years.

This.

It's also incredibly hard to explain to people who know nothing about the series as to why it's so important, on a personal level, for some of us who grew up with the series and hold it close to our hearts. 16 years attached to a franchise, completely unique unto itself. It's tough to let go.

To be brutally honest, I felt nothing but a sense of f***ing relief when I considered myself done with TPP back on October, 3rd, 2015 knowing that Kojima is not likely to put up another storm of madness with Metal Gear in its title.