Metal Gear Survive
Worst Games of Q1 2018
Metal Gear Survive was doomed from the outset. Fans were not happy, angry even, when the game was announced, due to the way series creator Hideo Kojima had seemingly been treated by publisher Konami. Many labeled Metal Gear Survive as ‘money-grabbing’ and ‘the answer to a question no one had asked,’ meaning that the game was already set up to be dead on arrival.
It’s hard to argue that all of this backlash was unfairly detracting from the game when it ended up being this poor. The links to the excellent Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain are tenuous at best, adding crystal-headed zombies and other dimensions into the mix. There’s a solid gameplay experience buried in there somewhere, but honestly, with the mood surrounding the game being as hostile as it was, not many people wanted to give it the time of day.
Metal Gear Survive also couldn’t have released with its grubby approach to microtransactions at a worse time. Even a year ago, Konami could have gotten away with it, but in the current climate, charging $10 for an extra character slot is simply egregious. There’s some mindless fun to be had with Metal Gear Survive, but it’s carried completely on the shoulders of a franchise built on an entirely different experience. It’s our worst reviewed game of 2018 so far for a reason, we concluded that ‘Survive is a serviceable game, but its story and writing lack the one thing that drew fans to the series in the first place: heart.’
