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14 years later, Hideo Kojima reveals why Peace Walker wasn't called Metal Gear Solid 5: 'It faced strong opposition from overseas marketing'
Hideo Kojima revealed that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was initially intended to be Metal Gear Solid 5 but was retitled due to 'overseas marketing' concerns, as Konami reportedly didn't want to market a portable title as a mainline entry in the series.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker launched on PSP 14 years ago, and for much of that time we've wondered why it wasn't made a proper numbered entry in the series. Now, director Hideo Kojima has revealed it's because of "overseas marketing."
"After creating MGS4, I strongly felt the need for a proprietary engine," Kojima says in a new tweet. "The leap forward for games in a vertical direction would only come after the engine was complete." That led to the creation of the Fox Engine that powered Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. In the meantime, Kojima wanted to evolve the series "horizontally" - onto other platforms.
"I proposed Peace Walker as a way to evolve MGS horizontally," Kojima continues. "Initially, it was titled MGS5: Peace Walker, but it faced strong opposition from overseas marketing, so we dropped the numbered title. Since it was for the PSP, we lowered the target age range to middle and high school students, aiming to discover younger fans and build a multi-generational following, with parents and children enjoying the game together."
It’s been 14 years since the release of “Peace Walker.” I was still in my mid-40s at the time. Many game companies had started shifting towards developing apps for feature phones. After creating MGS4, I strongly felt the need for a proprietary engine. The leap forward for games… pic.twitter.com/mkr4AqaHqhOctober 4, 2024
We've known that Peace Walker was called Metal Gear Solid 5 at some point in development since before the game launched, but the exact reasons why it ended up dropping the number have never been entirely clear. Kojima himself referred to Peace Walker as "a MGS5-class game," but fans long suspected that Konami simply didn't want to market a portable title as a full, mainline entry in the Metal Gear Solid series.
Of course, the events of Peace Walker ended up setting the stage for the events of Metal Gear Solid V in a major way, introducing characters and themes that would be central to the game. But, uh… there's always been a hint that The Phantom Pain wasn't actually MGS5, either. "Not MGS5, but MGSV," Kojima said before The Phantom Pain's launch. "My thought in it. V has come to." Kojima's always had a propensity for hanging big ideas on odd wordplay, and the notion that we've actually never gotten Metal Gear Solid 5 might be the greatest trick of all.