Whenever a new console is out, it's traditionally a celebrated move. Not just by the gamers mind you, but by game developers as well, who have the consoles' new tech to thank for allowing them to finally make the games they had envisioned for years.
Such is the insight from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, who said as much recently to IGN concerning the leviathan that that makes up the remainder of Metal Gear Solid V, the behemoth that is The Phantom Pain.
"This is the game I really wanted to make," he said taking a page out of director James Cameron's "Avatar" musings.
"Because of hardware limitations, I was not able to do that until now. I've wanted to create a game like this for a long time, but due to hardware limitations, I wasn't able until now. I wanted to add as much freedom as possible, and that wasn't possible technology-wise."
The fifth entry in the franchise, both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain represent a distinct change for the series, providing an environment that's considerably more open ended, affecting not only missions, but how the story unfolds as well.
Prior, "I had to make linear games, with cutscenes to make it more dramatic. But now, I can give the player as much freedom as possible," Kojima added.
The MGS mastermind has touched on this notion before, telling fans back in October, "up to now, we could only build the interior of wherever you were infiltrating. How you got there was shown in a cutscene, and the player would just suddenly be in front of the entrance. Once you finished the mission, there'd be another cutscene, a helicopter or whatever would come by, and you'd escape."
After a while, the dramatic cutscenes got to be something of a hallmark for the series. The fourth game, Guns of the Patriots, even holds two Guinness World Records for two lengthy cutscenes.
The Phantom Pain's Art Director Yoji Shinkawa threw in his own two cents on the affability of development, saying that, despite facing a few problems working across different systems, things are made all the easier thanks to the Fox Engine, which "allows us not to be too reliant on specific hardware. We focus on what feelings we will convey to the player."
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is due out later this month in North America, March 18, for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The Phantom Pain is set to release on the same platforms sometime in 2015.
