Hideo Kojima laments that Metal Gear Solid 4's digital battlefield 'is no longer science fiction'
Game creator Hideo Kojima is and probably will always be best-known for his creation and stewardship of the Metal Gear series at Konami, which since his departure has been more-or-less on permanent hiatus (don't mention Survive). In his almost three decades these games evolved to the point where they predicted certain problems of the information age (MGS 2), took aim at contemporary topics like Guantanamo Bay (MGS: Ground Zeroes), and ended on a profound sense of sadness about our species' inability to break the cycles of global conflict (MGS V).
The depth of Kojima's thinking on these topics, and the parallels he constantly draws between Metal Gear's science fiction and real-world events and conflicts, is one of the reasons that, for all his flaws, he is something of a visionary. After leaving Konami the creator kept his own counsel on Metal Gear for several years, but recently Kojima has begun to reminisce more often about the titles and talk a little about them.
It's not clear what sparked this reflection, but Kojima's been thinking about Metal Gear Solid 4, an entry that was (and unfortunately still remains) a PlayStation 3 exclusive (thanks, GamesRadar+(opens in new tab)). In that entry the player controls an aged Solid Snake in the year 2014, caught up in a civil war being fought between Private Military Companies (PMCs).
«MGS4 depicts the next generation of proxy wars and war economies waged by unmanned weapons and PMCs,» said Kojima(opens in new tab). «A future where parties do not fight, but are represented by drones, proxy soldiers and corporations. In this future, those who sell or rent weapons introduce SOPs to take full control of the battlefield.»
SOPs is one of those in-game acronyms that's also a
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