>>719992732
MGS4 was supposed to be written and done by other staff, and that fell through for reasons that are still vague, but come down to "death threats" and "outside pressures".
Here's what MGS was supposed to look like.
>Metal Gear
>Metal Gear 2
>Metal Gear Solid
>Metal Gear Solid 2
The "Kojima Games", ones written by him and telling the story Kojima had in mind.
>Metal Gear Solid 3
A passing of the torch, with its assistance from Shuyo Murata and its introduction of the real Patriots (they were always planned to be that).
>Portable Ops
The interquel between MGS3 and MGS4, which further sets up the true Patriots.
>Metal Gear Solid 4
The first fully fledged mainline game that would not deeply involve Kojima.
This is where it all went to hell. It's also not even the first or last time Kojima gave a lot of creative control to people outside the series.
>Twin Snakes
Kojima let Silicon Knights do what they wanted to do.
>Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Was another MGS4 type attempt at having KojiPro handle the big console MG title on their own, without Kojima, and this time it would be an interquel between MGS2 and 4 about Raiden. Obviously, it failed and Platinum took over.
>Peace Walker
Kojima planned for this to be another 'final Metal Gear game' early on, with Itoh Keikaku penned to do a novel adaptation combining MGS3 and PW (like he had done for MGS4), but Keikaku died before PW even came out and so Kojima could not pass the baton so to speak.
It's incredibly unfortunate honestly. Kojima spent about a decade prepping the series to be handed off to the next guy and it never happened, which is why he just completely did his own thing with MGSV.
