Kojima predicts long dev cycle for MGS V

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima has said that Metal Gear Solid V “will require much more time” in development.

The acclaimed developer admitted that he didn’t initially want to release teaser title MGS: Ground Zeroes separately but felt forced to after realising how long the wait for the ‘proper’ Metal Gear Solid V would be.

“It would’ve actually been better to release it all at once, but by the way things are going, it appears likely that Phantom Pain will be coming out around the time the PlayStation 4 becomes more spread out,” he told Famitsu, as reported by Siliconera.

“That means we would’ve had to make people wait a while longer. [MGS V] The Phantom Pain has enormous volume, so it will require much more time. So, together with the marketing staff, we consulted ‘what ifs’ and such, and came to the decision of allowing fans to at least play the prologue, ahead of time.”

Ground Zeroes will be released on PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360 in the spring for a discounted price of £29.99 (or £19.99 for the digital last-gen version). Kojima added that Konami even considered making it digital only.

“We want to offer it for as cheap as possible, so at first we thought about making it as a download only,” he said. “However, after thinking about people around the world, and how some places don’t have the best connectivity, we’re preparing a physical version.”

Kojima also confirmed that playing Ground Zeroes will offer an unspecified in-game reward for those who then buy MGS V.

This article originally appeared on our sister site, MCV