Is A Remake Of MGS3 On The Way?
In all honestly, I was actually rather hesitant to report on this latest rumour of an MGS3 remake, as we have been getting a good number of Metal Gear Solid remake rumours as of late. However, in the days since this latest rumour of a remake of MGS3 first broke, it has been followed with some more concrete information.
Specifically, this deeper level of info comes from an employee of Virtuos. For those of you not fully up to date, Virtuos are the studio that are allegedly working on this MGS3 remake. Whilst the employee didn’t name the Metal Gear Solid franchise specifically, they did confirm that the studio is indeed working on developing a remake of an as yet unannounced AAA action-adventure game.
This was initially pointed out over on Twitter by user Faizan Shaikh (and first reported by VGC.) The LinkedIn profile in question doesn’t just belong to a low-level employee or intern either. It in fact belongs to the lead programmer over at Virtuos; Zhiyang Li. The profile references the previously mentioned AAA remake, which is stated to have been in development since at least 2018 according to when Li started working on the project.
According to the breakdown of Li’s role at the studio, we can deduce that the in-development remake will feature; “4K support on certain platforms, AAA quality art production and set piece destruction.” While it this obviously doesn’t mean for sure that Li is indeed working on developing an MGS3 remake, it does line up with the previous rumour regarding Virtuos, as well as the plethora of recent rumours regarding Metal Gear Solid remakes.
In terms of Virtuos’ history and the precedent for them developing an MGS3 remake, the team are certainly not unfamiliar with working in the AAA sphere of game development, including remakes. In the past, the studio helped develop the Nintendo Switch port of Dark Souls Remastered. They have also contributed in projects such as; Uncharted 4, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Outer Worlds, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider over the last five years.
It should also be noted that Konami have yet to officially comment on this latest rumour at the time of writing. Again though, there is precedent for Konami to announce something of this nature, given that we have already recently seen them revisit one of their iconic IPs through the Castlevania Advanced Collection.
This along with the previously remade 4K cutscenes that were put together for Pachinko machines that fans went nuts over, as well as the aforementioned consistent rumours of a remake surely also shows Konami that the demand for a remake is well and truly there. At this point, not developing a remake would be Konami simply leaving money on the table and we all know they aren’t known to do that given their money-grabbing prior behaviour.
Another interesting detail regarding this rumour is the claim by self-proclaimed, “gaming industry analyst,” Millie A on Twitter that Hideo Kojima will apparently work as a consultant on this MGS3 remake in an advisory role.
Millie A claims that this decision was made, (despite the bad blood between the publishing behemoth and the auteur,) by the president of Konami; Hideki Haykawa. The reason for this surprising move is apparently due to the fact that Konami understands that an MGS3 remake will definitely sell better if the original creator of the game is attached to its remake.
Millie is quick to point out that Kojima will by no means be directly involved in developing the remake and will instead be present as an advisor to the developer of the remake. Frankly, this is the part of this rumour that I have the most trouble believing.
The reason that I don’t believe that Kojima is involved with this remake is threefold. First of all, it would be a complete heel-turn on everything that both parties have said in the past about working together again. Hideo Kojima is a proud man and I simply cannot see him going back to work with a company that milked him for content across three decades and then cast aside when they no longer had a use for him.
Second of all, Kojima has said multiple times in years past that he wants to be done with MGS. This is a guy with a ton of creatively unique ideas and going back to Metal Gear would somewhat feel like a step backwards. I would probably prefer to see Kojima put all of his focus and commitment into whatever new project he is planning to release next with Kojima Productions, rather than re-treading old ground from over a decade ago.
Finally, there was absolutely no mention in the original report that first revealed that Virtous were developing this remake, this additional facet of information only cropped up afterwards. This leads me to believe that this is more than likely the wishes of a Kojima fan, rather than being based in actual truth.
However, I could also be totally wrong and Kojima may well be involved. That said, it is my belief that whilst a remake of MGS is probably in development, I don’t think Kojima will be involved.
What do you think of this most recent MGS remake rumour? Do you think Kojima could be involved? Sound off in the comments below.
Buy tickets for BGCP Comic Con in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS
Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE
If you want to be part of the BGCP community, Join us on Discord, Twitter, Instagram etc then click HERE
