5 Reasons Why Metal Gear Rising 2 Needs To Happen

The internet has been responsible for a lot of bad things over the years. Whether it’s making people pay absurd amounts of money for ordinary drinks from influencers,  or continuing to give my bad takes a place to be splurted out, the internet can be a very difficult place to navigate. However, every so often, it can also be a force for good, like giving an underrated spin-off from one of gaming’s most beloved franchises another chance to shine through the sheer weight of memes.

Released in 2013, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance eschews the typical stealthy nonsensical brilliance of Snake’s adventures for more bombastic nonsensical brilliance with Raiden, the unexpected main character of Metal Gear Solid 2. With some guidance from Hideo Kojima and its pioneering katana slicing tech garnering plenty of attention, action stalwarts PlatinumGames set to work on adding a Devil May Cry flavour to the word of Metal Gear, with the game initially releasing for PS3 and Xbox 360 before later making its way to PC.

While Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance certainly wasn’t a flop, its sales figures were a good ways off the main Metal Gear installments, with it roughly selling just under two million copies by 2018, which doesn’t  compared to The Phantom Pain’s estimated 7 million copies sold. Its low 80s range of average scores on Metacritic were also some way off the expected critical reception for most things Metal Gear. For a while, Metal Gear Rising was looked at as a charming oddity that had its fans but passed many people by.

But in the last couple of years, a new appreciation for Metal Gear Rising across seemingly the whole gaming sphere has been hard to ignore. Whether it’s because it’s the most memeable game in existence or the fact that cheap Steam keys are more numerous online than Logan Paul cancellations, a new audience has grown to love Metal Gear Rising, and deservedly so. It really is a good game, son.

And now it’s time for Metal Gear Rising 2 become a reality.

 

1. Platinum Need The Win

It’s not a stretch to say that Platinum’s more recent output has been less illustrious than their name suggests. World of Demons and Sol Cresta released to little fanfare, while Babylon’s Fall brought down their batting average significantly, with many agreeing that it’s perhaps the worst live service game to date. Following a critical mauling and truly tragic number of players, Babylon’s Fall will be taken offline in February 2023, less than a year since it released.

While Bayonetta 3 salvaged the studio’s 2022 (but not without an increasingly dramatic subplot featuring a disgruntled ex-lead voice actor), Platinum’s batting average has taken a real hit, including in terms of sales. 2019’s supremely underrated Astral Chain sold well enough, but you have to go back to 2017’s NieR: Automata to find the last truly substantial hit for the studio, which apparently saved Platinum from a very perilous position at the time.

As the first true Metal Gear game in close to a decade for a dedicated following of fans, Metal Gear Rising 2 could go a very long way towards balancing the books again. Here’s hoping they stop doubling down on live services, as it clearly isn’t what they’re good at.

 

2. Konami’s Renaissance Might Need It

Few could have predicted that Konami would go all in on their renaissance arc, announcing plans to publish roughly 25 new Silent Hill games in late 2022. Silent Hill’s prospects of ever returning looked about as hopeless as Metal Gear’s at one point, yet here we are with the IP being giving several fresh leases of life. The same isn’t unthinkable for Metal Gear, especially as Konami seemingly looks to repair its public image, with rumours persisting of a remake of the third MGS game.

However, there’s one big issue that’s difficult to ignore: Kojima and Konami’s very public 2015 fallout. Any new Metal Gear game would need to have at least Kojima’s blessing for a lot of fans to accept it, if not preferably some direct involvement. With Death Stranding 2 in development, though, Kojima may be too busy to get deeply involved, but some kind of consultancy role isn’t impossible, as he does seem to miss the series he oversaw for decades.

It’s been 7 years, I miss everything. https://t.co/IcOUDVyjgs

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 1, 2022

Whether he misses it enough to make a return or if Konami can make amends remains to be seen, but if everything came together, it might go down as one of the biggest gaming news stories of all time, and also do a lot to rehabilitate Konami’s public image.

 

3. Metal Gear Being Totally Dormant Is A Waste

While there are murmurings of something happening with the franchise this year, 2023 will likely still mark eight years since anything new and meaningful was last released under the Metal Gear umbrella (and five years if you want something completely meaningless). That’s too long a time for a franchise as important as Metal Gear, even moreso when you’re trying to someday get a movie off the ground that would likely want to appeal to a newer generation.

However, after countless games, adventures, and bad-bowelled soldiers, it’s time for Snake(s) to rest. There really isn’t enough room to expand Big Boss, Solid Snake, or Venom Snake’s stories in new games that wouldn’t feel like either a betrayal of their arcs or padding for the sake of it. Plus, the canon is so complex at this point that it would just confuse newcomers even more to add layers on top and potentially mess up timelines. If they pursue anything with the brand in the future, Konami should probably go down the expected remake route to refresh memories and introduce new players, similarly to Silent Hill 2’s upcoming remake.

Personally speaking, they should start with the very first Metal Gear games, which would feel completely brand new being in 3D for the first time, over the much newer Metal Gear Solid games, though it does make sense to start a potential series of remakes with Snake Eater from a chronological perspective.

Metal Gear Rising, though, is fairly clean in terms of lore, with it being easily enjoyable without any need to watch a ten hour long YouTube analysis on the game world’s background. You have sword, sword go slice, these are the rules of nature, and so on. Raiden could and should take up the mantle as Metal Gear’s main character going forward, if only because his redemption arc from Sons of Liberty would be almost as big as Konami’s.

 

4. Character Action Games Are Back In Demand

While never the biggest genre in the world, character action games (typically third-person hack-and-slash romps in which your performance is graded and the music is very loud) do seem to have started rising in fans over the last few years.

Devil May Cry V surpassing six million copies sold and becoming the best selling game in the series points to this, as does the apparent success of Bayonetta 3, with Platinum banking on the IP going forward with a new spin-off due this year.

The indie sphere also seems to be embracing character action, with Ultrakill (an FPS blend of Quake and Devil May Cry that you really should try) being one of the most beloved Early Access games on the market right now. Elsewhere, Soulstice released to a decent amount of interest in 2022, while Evil West felt like it was channeling the PS2 heyday of character action at the backend of the year. Add the continued love for Metal Gear Rising into the mix (which has more concurrent players than a lot of newer, bigger games) and you have a weird little subgenre with a very strong following that would no doubt lap up more craziness.

 

5. The Memes

Platinum probably didn’t intend to develop a game so eminently memeable, but there’s some magic blend of silliness and edginess that makes Revengeance such an absolute hoot, ironically or otherwise. As long as they keep the same spirit (and don’t try to play up to the previous game’s online reputation too much), you could have a new, refreshingly weird blockbuster release that we see so little of these days.

Would Joel from The Last of Us wear a sombrero? No? Didn’t think so.

This wouldn’t be a Morbius situation, either, in which executives mistakenly push ahead with something after it’s been heavily memed online. Platinum (or maybe even a new developer) would really have to make some huge mistakes (like not putting Raiden in a sombrero or making Blade Wolf racist) for Metal Gear Rising 2 to not be a success thanks to the built-in adoration for the wider Metal Gear license and this exquisite spin-off.

It would be a giant shame if the outpouring of love since 2021 leads to absolutely nothing happening going forward with the license. Even a simple remaster for current consoles seems like a money printer. The internet did good for once, and the only thing I know for real is that Metal Gear Rising 2 would be a straightforward win for everyone involved.

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