Getting volume 1 of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection last year felt like collecting the penultimate stone of the Infinity Gauntlet to me, a man who still essentially lives in 2005 when it comes to the videogames he plays. Finally, one of console gaming’s best, biggest, most iconic series had made the transition to PC (though, to be fair, GOG had the OG PC versions of 1 and 2 for a while before that). Sure, the ports left a little to be desired, but even the rickety state of the games didn’t do much to dampen my enthusiasm about finally having MGS3 on a platform I actually own.
I say the “penultimate” stone because, of course, some games were missing, weren’t they? The Master Collection’s first volume only contained the original Metal Gears plus Metal Gear Solid 1 through 3. Games like Peace Walker, Acid, Ghost Babel, and Portable Ops were all absent, as was—most notably—Metal Gear Solid 4, the only entry in the mainline series not to get a proper port to at least one other platform ever since it hit PS3 16 years ago.
But I’ve got an inkling our long national nightmare might be ending. In a chat with IGN, Konami producer Noriaki Okamura was asked directly about the potential for MGS4 to make an appearance in a future Master Collection release. His response was, basically, a nudge and a wink: “We definitely are aware of this situation with MGS4. Unfortunately we can’t really say too much at the moment with Vol 1 containing MGS 1-3 dot dot dot… you can probably connect the dots!”
Now I’ve played a lot of Phoenix Wright in my time, so I’m something of an ace detective, and all my skills of deduction are telling me that Okamura is mere millimetres away from saying ‘Yes, obviously we’ve got plans to include MGS4 in a future release,’ finally freeing the game from the console shackles that have confined it for over a decade (and freeing me from my semi-annual compulsion to check out second-hand PS3 prices on eBay).
Plus, this isn’t the only sign we’ve had that MGS4 is set to break free. Fans uncovered evidence on the Metal Gear website all the way back in June last year that the game would put in an appearance on a future collection, too. So, as funny as it would be for Okamura’s dots to end up spelling out ‘We’re not doing anything with MGS4 so stop asking about it,’ I don’t think he would take quite that coy tone if Konami wasn’t working on getting the game onto modern platforms somewhere behind the scenes.
At the moment, though, it sounds like Okamura and co are focused on volume 1 of the Master Collection and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3 remake. “Right now we still are internally concerned about what we should be doing for the future of the series,” he told IGN, “But stay tuned!”