A board game to surpass Metal Gear.
A previously canceled board game for the Metal Gear series is now back in production. Aptly titled Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game, the cooperative title is making is a return after it was previously canceled back in 2021.
Game publisher IDW first announced a board game based on Konami and Hideo Kojima's video game series for a 2019 release. After a handful of delays, it was ultimately shelved, with IDW saying back then that the time needed to implement various changes "just grew longer than expected, and our window to ship the game on time closed.”
The newly revived board game will now be published by CMON in May 2024, which is best known for Zombicide: Undead or Alive and the board game version of FromSoftware's Bloodborne. Beyond that, it appears to still have Emerson Matsuuchi as its designer.
Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game puts 1-4 players in the role of franchise characters such as Solid Snake and Meryl Silverburgh. Much like the original Metal Gear Solid video game, the overall goal is to complete missions and defeat the series' trademark Bosses.
Video games and board games have an interesting relationship: over the years, various big games have branched out into more physical forms of entertainment. Beyond Bloodborne, titles like Fallout and XCOM have had board games of their own. And both Call of Duty and The Last of Us are receiving board (or tabletop) game adaptations in the near future.
Konami's relationship with the Metal Gear series has been...strange following the dissolution of its relationship with Kojima. 2015's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain marked the last game in the series with his involvement.
The franchise's immediate next entry was Metal Gear Survive in 2018, and it's been dormant since then. But earlier this week, Konami revealed that a remake of 2004's Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was in the works (known as Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater) from it and co-developer Virtuous.
In that same announcement, Konami announced a collection of remasters spanning the first Metal Gear Solid and previously released remasters of Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Given how it's been subtitled Master Collection Vol. 1, it indicates that later entries in the series may eventually get remastered.
In the same way that Konami is starting up the Silent Hill franchise again with various new entries from different developers, it's gradually trying to create a real future for Metal Gear without its original creator. Whether the franchise actually can go on without Kojima is another matter entirely.
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