Konami promises Metal Gear Survive won't be a full-price game

Metal Gear Survive will not be sold at full price, Konami has confirmed. Brand manager Richard Jones let slip the tidbit while speaking to Eurogamer, although remained cagey when it came to elaborating on the bewlidering trailer shown at Gamescom this week.

From the little we know so far, Metal Gear Survive - the first Metal Gear title since the departure of series creator Hideo Kojima - trades in the franchise's traditional core gameplay for zombie-killing co-op action. The trailer that accompanied the announcement also left many series fans in a state of outright bafflement.

Konami's own explanation is as follows: "Mother Base that had been built up during the Peacewalker storyline gets sabotaged from within and destroyed; that all collapses into the sea. Boss and Miller managed to escape, and they go off and have a few adventures which obviously we all know from The Phantom Pain," Jones told Eurogamer.

"Unfortunately, not all of the Mother Base staff get off alive, so some of them are left stranded. But, before anything else untimely happens, they end up being pulled through a wormhole. So, an unexplained wormhole opens up and pulls the staff, parts of mother base, other items and all sorts of detritus through."

An unexplained wormhole. Let's just consider that for a moment.

While most of Jones' explanation was little more than a walkthrough of the trailer, he did elaborate on some aspects of the game and promised that there was more depth to Metal Gear Survive than meets the eye.

"You've got your co-op, you've got your stealth, and you will have seen what we're calling our massive biological threats in the trailer. Let me assure you, those are just a teaser, just a little taste of some of the things that you will encounter in this new alternative landscape. If you watch the trailer to the end you'll see a camera pan that kind of elicits a few suggestions, but I won't say more than that."

Jones also claimed that the game would equip players with a "vast array of equipment and weapons" in keeping with the rest of the series. But as for where it sits within the rest of the Metal Gear universe, especially due to its "alternate reality" setting, remains unclear.

The fact that Konami plans to sell Metal Survive at less than full price could indicate an outing similar in length and content to Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Ground Zeroes, which served as a prequel to MGS V: The Phantom Pain, featured a campaign that could be completed in under two hours but offered optional side missions that fleshed out the story and helped set the scene for the sequel.

Whatever the case, Konami faces an uphill battle winning over Kojima diehards: the trailer for Metal Gear Survive has received nearly 43,000 'dislikes' on YouTube, compared to just 12,200 'likes'.

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