Whether or not Hideo Kojima is leaving the Metal Gear series behind, Metal Gear Solid 4 is not the end of the series. Associate producer Ryan Payton clarified the misunderstanding about where the series stands with MTV Multiplayer, explaining that this isn’t the last Metal Gear game.

“This is really just the last chapter of the saga of the Solid Snake story,” Payton said.

“[Solid Snake] was a burden [for Kojima] because of all those loose ends,” he continued. “So when you play Metal Gear Solid 4 and when you get to the end, I think you’re going to feel that ‘wow, this is a nice closure.’ All of the weird stuff that’s gone on in the past, it’s all coming to an end. All those weird questions — everything is answered.”

As for that Assassin’s Creed-Metal Gear Solid 4 crossover, it began as a mutual admiration between Kojima and Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond last year. From there, talks of a collaboration took place, and that ended up coming in the form a bonus Altair costume in MGS4.

It’s strange that you’d see such a thing happen between two rival companies — Konami and Ubisoft — but they somehow managed to work it out, which Payton attributes to the efforts of Ubisoft Montrael.

Payton assures us that MGS4 will close things up nicely for the story of Solid Snake, with all of the loose ends being tied up and all those questions being answered.

Ubisoft has announced that their PS3-exclusive FPS, Haze, is out on store shelves now. Yep, this is the shooter from Free Radical that’s been delayed and hyped up like crazy for a long time now. In my experience, that’s either a good sign or a very very bad one; like walking into a movie theater and finding no one else there. So what side does this one fall under? I don’t know, but early reviews for it are proclaiming it a solid “meh.” Still, this might tide over you action fiends until MGS4 hits stores. And Ubisoft has also released a new launch trailer that you can view above.

Via Press Release

Hideo Kojima, acclaimed director of the Metal Gear Solid series, seems to have a hard time making up his mind. He’s stated numerous times that Metal Gear Solid 4 will be his last entry in the series and even mentioned that he might turn his creative eye to Zone of Enders once more. But now he seems to be saying that he’s already making plans for Metal Gear Solid 5, even though MGS4 isn’t even out the door quite yet. In an interview with Famitsu, Kojima said:

I gotta start thinking about MGS5…that would be something that Kojima Productions would have to make, I think.

Wait, what? Didn’t he pull this with MGS3 too? Dang it, Kojima, stop toying with our emotions.

Via Kotaku

Fans of MGS and PS3 owners alike cannot wait for June 12th to arrive. Who could blame them though? MGS4 looks amazing, is a great series, and this is the last time we will ever get to play as the venerable Snake. Supposedly.

As someone who has loved playing these games over the years and who unfortunately does not own a PS3 yet, all I can do is just gaze in awe at the gorgeous screenshots and very cinematic trailers. These new screens are no exception. Enjoy.

Konami has announced the availability of a limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 bundle for North America. Featuring a Gun Metal Gray 40 GB PS3 with matching DualShock 3 wireless controller and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Limited Edition game. The bundle will be exclusively available at Konami’s website for $599.99.

Pre-sell for the bundle begins on May 19th and limited supplies are available.

Here are the stats pulled from the Konami site:

• Due to limited quantities, orders will be limited to 1 (one) bundle per household
• Shipping costs are higher than normal on this item, due to product size. Please review the shipping costs, during your order process
• Please review our Return and Warranty policies before purchase
• Gun Metal Gray PLAYSTATION 3 with a 40GB Hard drive
• Gray DUALSHOCK 3 wireless controller
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Limited Edition
• The Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots game, which includes Metal Gear Online, enabling you to take part in the ultimate multiplayer squad based tactical shooter
• Exclusive Blu-ray disc including over 2 hours of additional content – “Hideo Kojima’s Gene” a behind-the-scenes vision of Hideo Kojima’s production team & game and “The Making of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” documentary
• The official Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots CD Soundtrack, including 16 never-before-released tracks by Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek, Armageddon, The Rock), Nobuko Toda, and Ennio Morricone

To order, get more information, or just salivate over it, click here, and under “find products” click game platforms, and then PS3 and you should see it right away. For some reason I cannot get any of the links directly to it to work. Or, you can just click the link Rick posted in the comments section below. HTML is a cruel mistress sometimes.

Since he’s wrapped up with Metal Gear Solid 4 — and has stated numerous times that this is his last game in the series, and he really means it this time — director Hideo Kojima is now looking at what sort of game to lend his talents to next. According to a recent interview with PSM UK though, it seems he may be going back to another beloved franchise of his and craft another Zone of the Enders game:

“I would like to say that Zone of the Enders is quite near the priority list… [after MGS4] it might be good to change to outer space or robots or things like that for a change.”

The past two ZOE games were fun, so I’d love to see a new one get made. I just hope they make them last much longer — since the past games could be completed in a solid afternoon — or, dare I say it, add some online multiplayer.

Via GameFunk

G4 TV has released a new gameplay video of the long awaited Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The footage demonstrates The new recon droid for MGS4. It also gives gamers a good look at the real time gameplay and the wide variety of weapons that are available. You can ship to a weapon and auto to first person with ease. In this video, your allies, Meryl’s Rat Patrol team, demonstrate smart AI that will actually help you in combat.

Check out the footage narrated by G4’s Adam Sessler:

You can look forward to grabbing MGS4 for the PS3 June 12.

The weekly “Metal Gear Mondays” post on PlayStation.Blog yesterday revealed the new content that has been made available to those in the Metal Gear Online beta: a new gameplay type, Sneaking Mission, and a new map, Midtown Maelstrom. The new map, pictured to the right, is a Middle Eastern level that focuses on combat in the streets and various back alleyways.

Sneaking Mission is a bit complex, as PS Blog explains: “In this rule, there will be one character and two teams in the game. Snake, Red team, and Blue team. Snake’s mission is to collect a certain number of dog tags, by having other players stunned or held up. Red and Blue teams’ mission is to defeat Snake certain times or defeat more players in the opposing team. If more than 10 people are in the game, another player may play as Snake’s mini robotic sidekick Mk. II, to assist the Snake player. If you are playing as Snake, you have many of his incredible abilities available to you – such as the camouflage!”

Some various concerns were also addressed in the post, including microphone problems, accessing the community site, training modes, and adding friends. You can check all of that out here.

This past weekend, I headed out to the New York Comic Con to see all of that latest and greatest in the Comic Book community. To my surprise, Komani was there showing off Metal Gear Online. Not only did I have to play it, but I made sure I got footage of myself completely sucking at… er.. I mean pwning the enemy! We all know that folks who play video games for a living must be good at all of them…right?!

I must say that I was completely surprised at how well the game handled. It stayed true to how Metal Gear Solid feels, while finally adding a multiplayer component to it. The game was setup as a local 4v4 LAN match. As you’ll see in the video above, this was the first time I ever played MGO, so I didn’t quite have a grasp on what the controls were yet. I did like how you can change weapons or accessories by simply press the R2/L2 buttons instead of having to hold it down in order to select what you want to use (even though I can’t recall at the moment if that was something previous Metal Gear Solid games did).

Playing Metal Gear Online was fun for the short time I got to try it out. Thanks to this hands-on impression, not only am I looking forward to MGS4, but I’ll also probably be checking out MGO whenever I have the chance.

If you’re one of the unfortunate souls who picked up their Metal Gear Solid 4 pre-order bonus only to come home and find out that the included Metal Gear Online beta key was partially missing, then listen up. Head over to http://www.konami-data.com/support/ and contact Konami. Make sure to include your partial UPVC code and a return email address, and hopefully you’ll get a new code before the beta begins on Monday.

For clarity’s sake, keep this in mind: You can’t play MGO yet, and people on your PSN friends list who show up as in game are either sitting in the menu or downloading the new patch (which you should be doing, too, to save you from wasting any fragging time come Monday). You can also now sign up for a Konami ID/Game ID either through the game (once you’ve obtained the patch) or online right now at http://id.konami.net. If you’re anything like me, though, you’ll have trouble getting the website to work properly. Konami is working on address that, too.

Other than that, there’s nothing else you can do in MGO right now. Trying to play will simply result in an error, so you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer before you get in on some multiplayer Metal Gear action.