6 Canceled Metal Gear Games

Highlights

• Metal Gear
  helped define the stealth genre, facing cancelations and setbacks along the way.
• Kojima planned
  Metal Gear’s
  return on 3DO, then shifted to PlayStation for greater success.
• Metal Gear Solid 4
  on Xbox 360 was axed due to storage space issues, stranding it on PS3.

Though it had humble beginnings on the MSX2, a Japanese home computer that was incredibly popular during the 1980s, Metal Gear helped codify the stealth video game genre and went on to create a massively successful franchise. During its ascent to the top, a number of games in the series felt the wrath of the most feared word in the industry; cancelation.

For everything from ports to entirely new spin-offs, the Metal Gear series has seen its fair share of games come and go. Some of them were finished, then shelved. Others had their trajectory altered due to the market changing or studios going in different directions. Whatever the case may be, Metal Gear is not immune to the many challenges of getting a game shipped that the industry faces on a daily basis.

Updated on August 5th, 2024, by Maddie Fisher: Metal Gear has a consistent history of genre-defining games, with landmark releases codifying the stealth genre and paving the way for cinematic experiences to take center stage. Over the course of its 30-plus years of existence though, Metal Gear has also seen several games get the ax during development. This list has been included to add a new cancelled Metal Gear game and to provide some more information about the included games.

6 Everybody’s Metal Gear

Kojima Planned A Different Type Of Metal Gear Game For The PSP

After the launch of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in 2004, series creator Hideo Kojima decided to hand the reins of the franchise to a younger group of developers that had worked under him for the previous decade. One of them was Shuyo Murata, a talented developer who directed Snake Eater’s thrilling motorcycle chase climax, who was tasked with leading the next Metal Gear game. Kojima, meanwhile, began work on a concept that was known as Everybody’s Metal Gear for the PSP, a game that would eventually get canceled and have its elements transferred into another game.

Everybody’s Metal Gear was described as a mix between Animal Crossing and MGS, with some sort of base-building and recruitment system that would find its way into Portable Ops as one of its main mechanics. As a result of Kojima receiving death threats that placed him back into the director position for MGS4, Everybody’s Metal Gear went through a rough period and was canceled, while most of the work done on it became Portable Ops in 2006.

Kojima Plotted Metal Gear’s Return On 3DO Before The Arrival Of The PS1

While taking a break from the series, creator Hideo Kojima began working on some truly fantastic titles in the form of Policenauts, a point-and-click sci-fi adventure game. While in production, Kojima was planning a return to the Metal Gear franchise on the 3DO, but things took a turn when he started hearing about a machine capable of true 3D graphics called the PlayStation. Concept art depicting Snake, Meryl, and members of FOX-HOUND is available on the Policenauts Pilot Disc for 3DO from 1995.

Known then as Metal Gear 3, the 3DO version of the stealth franchise would have used digitized sprites in 3D environments akin to something like Mortal Kombat. After a series of setbacks and an earthquake in Japan that further hampered development, the PS1 began to emerge as a prominent force in gaming, and Konami ended up canceling the 3DO version and transferring development to Sony’s machine, where it was released as Metal Gear Solid to worldwide critical acclaim.

Handheld Port Of The PS1 Classic Was Planned For Game.com

Metal Gear Solid was a revolutionary game for the industry when it was released in 1998, as its focus on complex cinematic storytelling and spectacular voice acting took the world by storm. As such, it wasn’t that bizarre to think of other ways one could play it, as evidenced by an attempted handheld port for Tiger Electronics’ Game.com handheld. It was an attempt to breathe new life into a system with sluggish sales, as the runaway popularity of MGS1 was undeniable. Footage of the game was seen by several members of a Tiger Electronics group on an old America Online server, but any chance of seeing that footage today seems unlikely.

By 1999, the Game.com version of Metal Gear Solid was nearly complete, and it was scheduled for release in November. As November came and went, however, the port was never released, and the Game.com handheld was not performing well. Although the reportedly near-complete ROM has never found its way online, lost media is continuously being discovered, so there’s a slight bit of hope that maybe one day we will get the chance to see it.

Guns Of The Patriots Port To A Rival Console Was Axed Due To Storage Space Issues

Despite numerous petitions, tweets and fan campaigns, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots remains frustratingly stuck on the PlayStation 3. It wasn’t for a lack of trying though, as former Kojima Productions producer Ryan Payton revealed that a team within Konami was able to get the story of Old Snakerunning perfectly on the Xbox 360. Although it was a fantastic achievement, it wasn’t meant to be.

Guns of the Patriots shipped on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc for the PS3 that could hold 54 gigabytes of data, something that wasn’t an option for DVD’s on the Xbox 360. This meant the Xbox 360 version of Snake’s final mission would have required multiple DVDs in order to work, something that simply wasn’t feasible. As a result, the 360 version of MGS4 was canceled and any hope for a modern release still hinges on a rumored Volume 2 of Konami’s Master Collection series.

The Original Vision Of Raiden’s Spin-Off Was Restarted By PlatinumGames

After development of Metal Gear Solid 4 concluded in 2008, the next game in the series was already being brainstormed by Kojima and his team. Wanting to fill in the story of Raiden’s transformation into the cyborg ninja he became in Guns of the Patriots, the team started work on Metal Gear Solid: Rising, a game that Kojima was slated to serve as a supervisor on. However, after the game was announced and development surged forward, troubles started to arise and severely affected its progress.

The team at Kojima Productions found the game difficult to complete, as the balance between the trademark stealth that the series was known for and Raiden’s hack-and-slash action combat caused some major issues during development. It was ultimately canceled in 2010, then handed over to PlatinumGames, who used their magic touch in order to create one of the finest games of its generation in its new form: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

1 Boss WW2 Game

Unrealized Project Would Have Explored The Boss Storming Normandy On D-Day

Among all of Hideo Kojima’s unrealized projects, it’s his attempt to explore the early days of The Boss that is perhaps the most heartbreaking. This iconic and complicated figure in the Metal Gear series was set to be the star of a prequel set during World War 2, where the Boss and her Cobra Unit would storm the beaches of Normandy to assist the Allied Powers against the Axis.

Inspired by a line in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater about the Boss and the Cobra Unit taking part in WW2, Kojima wanted to see a game dedicated entirely to her exploits and how she became the woman players meet later in the series. It was a tantalizing concept that was canceled in favor of Metal Gear Rising, but one that remains just as fascinating today. Although elements of that game may have found their way into another Kojima project in the form of Death Stranding, it’s enticing to think about how a prequel starring one of Metal Gear’s most incredible characters would have played out.