Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes, the latest game in Hideo Kojima and Konami’s long-running military drama that debuted in a flashy demo last summer, may not come out at all according to the idiosyncratic director. At least not in its current incarnation, said Kojima. During a roundtable question and answer session recounted by Videogamer, Kojima elaborated on some of the subjects tackled by Ground Zeroes that may make it a risky proposition. Gamers might not buy it and Konami may be reluctant to publish it. It’s not because of grotesque violence, but what Kojima considers to be “mature” themes.
“Video games as a medium haven’t matured much at all in the last twenty-five years,” said Kojima, “It’s always about killing aliens and zombies. Not that I don’t like those kinds of games. They are fun, but I think games have a long way to go before they can mature. Over the past twenty-five years I have tried to work with the Metal Gear series to introduce more mature themes, but it hasn’t gotten there yet. Compared to movies and books it still has a long way to go.”
Ground Zeroes apparently will be the evolutionary step Kojima has been trying to take with Metal Gear Solid for some years.
“That’s precisely what I want to try and tackle with Ground Zeroes. Honestly I’m going to be targeting a lot of taboos, a lot of mature themes that really are quite risky. I’m not even sure if I’m going to be able to release the game, and even if I did release the game then maybe it wouldn’t sell because it’s too much.”
Metal Gear Solid is notorious for its bombastic melodrama. This is a game series where the president of the United States is a super solider clone wearing tentacle armor and one-handed Russian cowboys deliver soliloquies on the nature of war. It has dealt with serious issues within that silliness, though, tackling nuclear proliferation, the rise of private military corporations, genetic manipulation, and child soldiers. Kojima’s statements here suggest that he may be ready to step away from Solid’s more exaggerated characteristics.
Based on the footage of the game shown last summer, where a group of soldiers walk through cages housing what look like young boys, it would seem that Kojima may be returning to the subject of child soldiers in his new game. In a time when violent video games are being more closely scrutinized – and publicized – than ever, Kojima may be right that his game can’t release in its current incarnation.
He should keep it the way it is. Not that I know what the subject matter is… The world is way too p.c. If we can have movies and books on the subject, why not video games? It’s all just another way to tell a story after all. I say, f the critiques. Make a game that tells a great story! Don’t just make something for the sake of making it… that’s the way Hollywood is failing.
If you want to advance the medium, you have to push the envelope sometimes.
But, but… then all the kids who are below the ESRB-approved age to play the game (which is why it is illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase an M-rated game, in most places) will have some angry parents when those same parents blindly purchase the game for them anyway!
What are they supposed to do… actually pay attention to the rating?
You know what, we’d better just go ahead and outlaw sandwiches. Some people are allergic to sandwiches. I mean, if they were to walk into a sandwich shop, and order some food, then eat it, they’d DIE! That’s way more serious than mature themes in video games! We gotta tackle this problem, STAT! O_O
once again please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
come with this.. this is what us metal gear solid fans need right now.. of course metal gear rising is cool but ground zeroes is gonna be the icing on the cake.. trust me if this game were to be released it would do extremely well in the market sales.
That Hideo Kojima is hesitant to release a Metal Gear game because of concerns over maturity of content lends to speaking volumes about how ridiculous our society has become. Seriously. People need to wake up and grow up. Has anyone here seen the film Idiocracy… we’re living it.
People like Dianne Feinstein, and Michael Bloomberg would argue that you are not capable of making your own decisions. They have to make them for you.
From the games trailer, I can see child soldiers, black sites, nuclear weapons, UN army, stealth blackhawks (like the one in the Bin Ladin raid), Cuba, and we can assume some terrorist activities, and false flag activities (operation northwoods style) with XOF.
This looks like a game I want to play!
i agree it more real and we have more game that deal with dead people then war we should have more relisc games on war then dead people and aleins
This is what’s meant by the chilling effect that censorship and political correctness lead to; a stifling of our rights to free speech.
Video games have never, and will never, make people do anything other than want to spend an inordinate amount of their time playing video games (but that still is their choice).
It’s these same idiots that think inanimate objects “make” people do things or do things on their own that make me weep for the future.
I ask myself how can people be so epicly stupid; it’s called freewill for a reason.
You either choose to do something or you don’t choose to do something; either way it was YOUR decision, not a video games’, not a firearms’, not a movies’, nothing other than your own freewill making that choice. So if you do something you regret, you have no one to blame but yourself; be a MAN (or WOMAN) and own up to your decision.
This entire argument of blaming a video game for society’s ills is beyond moronic. In a free society, bad things are going to happen. It’s the price you pay for having a free society. If you can’t deal with that without forcing your will on others then you have no clue what a free society is.
Bloomberg and Feinstein are stellar examples of this. Feinstein, not only being an idiot but a hypocrite of the highest caliber.
Sorry for throwing a tantrum, but I love video games; they’re an art form unto themselves. As engaging as reading a thrilling story, as immersive as a movie, as beautiful to watch as the latest CGI movies, they have become a true art form. To have some two-bit political hack stifle that creativity is an outrage.