Kojima’s next thing is Death Stranding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding

> In contrast I don't even know what Kojima's next thing is

Even after seeing both trailers, I also don't even know what Kojima's next thing is

Yes, this is exactly what I meant. I don't know what Kojima is driving at, but I'm willing to hear him out given his track record.

Kojima is a lot like Steve Jobs, in a way. He has a vision of what things could be, that often transcends the current genre categories. Or in other words he knows what we want even before we know what we want.

(hopefully less dying of treatable cancer because of fruitatarian beliefs though)

Although unlike Jobs he definitely does also have a track record of getting stuck in development hell too.

It's much too early in that project to publicly say anything substantive about it, because everything is still subject to change. All they can do right now is generate hype, which those trailers have done an admirable job of.

Can Kojima rein in his perfectionism and get that released before he runs out of money?

The guy has released quite a few games, so probably.

He doesn't have Konami's coffers anymore though.

It's being published by Sony though, who have much larger coffers than Konami, and from what I've read, Kojima has a very open agreement with them.

Sure, but a veteran of MSX titles certainly has experience working on much smaller projects than a typical modern AAA project.

Realistically?

Maybe I'm misreading your usage of the word "absolute", but in my country of residence the truth is NOT a defense in libel/defamation cases. Of course, that is an absurd situation, but it is what it is.

In my country truth is a defense but far from absolute. Truth taken out of context can be as damaging as lies. For example, saying "Mx.X is involved in an armed robbery case" when he is, in fact, the victim of said robbery.

> Zombie-survival alternate universe, really?

But spirits of enemies killed in combat, levitating psychics, phisically impossible robots and horseriders literally made of fire are okay with you?

Zombies are not OK with the guy who was the main creative force behind the entire series so you can try and argue the rest of the series is just as ridiculous but if Kojima says they have no place in it then they have no place in it.

This isn't a series like Assassins Creed, Final Fantasy or even Star Wars where countless people have had their hands on the lore this is a single creatives vison.

I mean, MGS5 effectively had zombies...

I get the point though. I'm also bummed out by the exodus. I love MGS and I want to see what he can do on that engine given enough time. MGS5 was great but felt like Konami told him to cut it short and GTFO.

To echo my point above, Fox Engine runs like a dream and looks fantastic. It's one of my few go-to examples of a one-off/scratch-built custom engine working out really well for a game, along with Witcher 3/RED Engine 3 (which also looks/runs great but is definitely slower).

It's a real shame that Konami is probably going to euthanize it after a few quickie moneygrabs from the handful of interns they have left from Kojima's team.

A lot of open-world engines have pretty severe stutter problems (examples: Fallout 4, GTA:V, etc), and Fox Engine's performance is fantastic. With MGSV I get 60 fps locked with 1440p and 1.4x DSR at max settings on a GTX 1080. And it actually does look really good too - a chopper extraction with a sunrise over the desert will startle me every now and then with how great it looks.

I have a few complaints but they're fairly minor.

* Some weird bayer-mask alpha blending effects (example of a similar problem in Witcher 3: http://i.imgur.com/8neiqOg.jpg ), which are solved by running at 1.4x DSR, which is easily doable with this engine

* 60 fps locked physics - c'mon, really?

* Clipping planes cause bullets to abruptly stop working at 250m range, which MGSV tries to hide with map design by breaking line-of-sight, but it's noticeable in some desert/plains areas with longer sightlines

* Online play has rampant cheating. Gotta design in security from Day 1 if you're going to do it... and FOB combat was obviously hacked in by a couple interns way after the fact as a money-grab.

Worth noting that the Fox engine somehow manages to pull of great performance on very terrible configurations too.

Yup. I could actually boot it on a Atom/Baytrail-M Celeron N2808 with integrated graphics although I was just using the menus and performance was still pretty rough even at minimum settings.

It's certainly not up to the graphical quality of Witcher 3, but it's not bad either, and performance is very good for the quality (especially given that open-world engines are tougher to do well).

With FreeSync or Gsync or Mobile GSync it would be very playable on an APU or a low-end discrete laptop graphics chip. Can't wait for consoles to start driving FreeSync adoption in the HDTV market as well.

That's not true. If you read the article Kojima even said he wanted to make a zombie style MGS game and pitched a zombie game based on nano bots before the development of MGSV.

Yes. That's creative. Zombie survival games have been old since 2010.

Well, Kojima's right that it doesn't really fit the universe. It's also just unimaginative to produce Zombie Game #3267 in TYOOL 2017, it's a played-out trope at this point and has been for 5+ years.

It would maybe have been fun as an alternate mode in MGSV (nonstop arena/free-roam mode plus zombies) but I don't think there's a whole game worth of content there.

Konami is blatantly salami-slicing their content. Ground Zeroes was $30 for a product the length of a demo (literally less than three hours of content). MGSV was rushed if not outright unfinished (you can clearly tell money fell apart and they pushed it out the door, 1/3 of the game is tacked-on bullshit "same mission as before but harder difficulty") and they wanted $60 for it anyway. If Survive is another full $60 title then Konami's total ask will have been $150 for content that adds up to maybe one $60 game in total.

Basically it's the same thing Bioware did with Mass Effect 3 DLC - except Konami is charging $30 a pop instead of $5 a pop.

Oh yeah and Konami tried to add in ludicrously-priced microtransactions too with the FOB system (it's like another $20 to get your online base fully set up so you can produce resources at full speed). Fortunately FOB online combat is terrible so you're not missing anything if you don't do it. It's like EVE Online had a baby with Destiny where the prize is grinding for S-rank soldiers for your FOB.

I know when I'm being milked. I waited for a Steam Sale and bought MGSV for $30 maybe a year or so ago. I didn't buy Ground Zeroes either until it went on a Steam Sale recently (I want to say it was $5).

I'm satisfied with what I got at those prices. I would pay another $5 for a zombie-survival-mode DLC, maybe $10 if it was nice and polished, not gonna pay $30 or $40 let alone $60.

(I would also pay another $5 for them to get rid of the numbered "special mode" missions and just allow me to toggle Extreme/Subsistence/Total Stealth modes on any mission in the game or while free-roaming, there's your easy money for the day, Konami)

That was my thought as well when they described the game in the article as "a realistic espionage game". I don't think they played the game at all.

> You know what one of the absolute defenses against libel is?

Will truth prevent Konami from using mobster methods to intimidate employees and other companies ? I really doubt it.