5 Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Metal Gear Rising 2

Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Hideo Kojima may be doing his own thing now, but Konami isn’t letting Metal Gear Solid as a franchise disappear, with Metal Gear Survive out now. This leaves Konami open to make tons of spin-offs in the series, some with ideas we’ve seen before, some we haven’t seen enough of. To start with, there’s the very obvious sequel to 2013’s fantastic Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Besides having made up words in its title, the game sports incredibly satisfying spectacle-fighting combat which still feels great today.

Raiden AKA “Jack the Ripper’s” story clearly isn’t over yet, with Revengeance ending with Raiden going rogue. Seeing the character as an independent character going on a rampage is an awesome sight to imagine and hopefully we’ll get to see more of his story, and his fun sword combat, soon. After all, the game takes place in 2018, so what better year to announce a sequel?

This post was originally written by Babak Abrishamchian.

Portable Ops 2

Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was an absolute blast, implementing the usual stealth gameplay of the series into a PSP title. The game would later be overshadowed by the phenomenal Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, also on the PSP. With the release of the Nintendo Switch, and Konami’s decision to branch out to consoles besides Sony’s with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, now seems like a fantastic time to make a sequel to the portable classic. The greatest issue with both Peace Walker and Portable Ops was the limited controls of the PSP, but with the dual-stick controls and mobility of the Switch, we can have controls as tight as every other Metal Gear game.

It may be easy to just ask for a portable version of Metal Gear Solid V, or rather a Peace Walker sequel, but those games focus on wide, sprawling levels. Portable Ops is much more condensed and focuses on short, but intelligently-designed levels which challenge the player in stealth. This would be much more fun on handheld because it doesn’t require as much of a time commitment from the player as a full narrative does, perfect for those daily commutes to work.

Portable Ops 2 would not need to center around Naked Snake (AKA Big Boss) as the first one did. In fact, it really shouldn’t. As seen in Metal Gear Survive, it’s very clear Konami has no problem adding tons of new characters to the games’ universe. If Konami can’t figure that out, there’s no shame in revisiting the concept behind VR Missions, which was a series of custom made levels made for the sole purpose of fun stealth gameplay instead of advancing the story.

Metal Gear Acid 3

Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Now you may be asking “why would anyone ever want this?” And the clear answer is: the other two were fun. Yes, they completely ignored the entire series formula of stealth games, but they were well made card-based strategy games which pre-dated modern mobile titles and their microtransactions. There are very few card-based strategy games available which don’t require hundreds of dollars in microtransactions, so why not set a precedent? The Acid games were very well-balanced and provided a great challenge, while also leaving the series’ canon be. Metal Gear Acid is one of the few high-quality card-based strategy games and revitalizing it as a series could potentially put Konami at the forefront of a genre’s revival.

Plenty of great card games have released in the past few years, like Hearthstone, Gwent, Duelyst and many more, but those are predominantly Collectable Card Games. Metal Gear Acid is its own beast, using cards to control characters rather than using cards to create characters who fight. This almost became a very popular style of gameplay in the early 2000s, with games like Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories using a similar system.

Just as a Portable Ops 2 doesn’t need to be canon in the series, Acid 3 could be complete nonsense, which is perfectly fine because this series is renowned for its complex and brain-melting narrative anyways. Plenty of people would welcome the fun, campy insanity the series is known for.

Metal Gear Ocelot

Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Revolver Ocelot is one of the most interesting characters in the entire Metal Gear franchise, because he’s constantly changing character. Throughout the series, he appears as a campy western cowboy, a bumbling kid becoming a rival for Naked Snake, and an extremely emotional character whose impact on the narrative is unforgettable in MGS IV. His appearance in The Phantom Pain left a massive plot-hole open in explaining what he did between the events of Peace Walker and the Phantom Pain. Sounds like the perfect narrative for a spin-off Metal Gear game if you ask us.

Imagine a whole narrative that puts you in the shoes of Revolver Ocelot. Just as Metal Gear Rising has unique gameplay with Raiden at the forefront, a Metal Gear Ocelot game could put complex shooting mechanics at the forefront.

If you want an idea of what this game could be, imagine the tight shooting mechanics of Call of Juarez: Gunslinger with the narrative of a Metal Gear game. This is a match made in heaven and it would allow Konami to fill in a lot of gaps in the franchise’s narrative.

The Adventures of Rat Patrol Team 01

Metal Gear Spin-Offs We’d Actually Want to Play

Don’t worry, you’re not crazy for finding that title ridiculous. Rat Patrol Team 01 is the team composing of Meryl Silverburgh, Ed, Jonathan, and Johnny Sasaki. The team shows up in Metal Gear Solid IV and has an important role in the game. There’s a decent amount of lore behind the team, enough for a whole game about them; and not just any game: A four-player co-op game. To put it simply, imagine Ghost Recon, but with Metal Gear gameplay and narrative that follows the work of Rat Patrol Team 01. This would let all four players have different purposes based on their skills.

A game like this would be able to maintain many of the mechanics behind The Phantom Pain as seen in its multiplayer mode, which means we already have a proof of concept behind a game like this. Imagine teams coordinating stealth gameplay through sprawling maps filled with enemies. Metal Gear games have always given players tons of ways to deal with enemies, but adding another three players to the mix would make things much more interesting.