Associate Editor ZhiQing Wan’s Gamescom BIG Winner and Loser
WINNER: Metal Gear Solid V
For me, the most impressive showing at this year’s Gamescom had to be Konami’s video walkthrough of Metal Gear Solid V’s Mother Base. I loved that the entire 30-minute video didn’t show off any of the main campaign at all, and almost everything within Mother Base itself was optional content, which just goes to show how massive Metal Gear Solid V is going to be.
From Ocelot forcing Big Boss to take a shower to being able to invade other players’ bases and steal their resources, it was really heartening to see how much the Metal Gear Solid series has developed over the last decade, even if this is indeed going to be Kojima’s final entry into the franchise.
Not to mention, most of the coverage we’ve seen of the game thus far has all been very serious – unsurprising, considering that the primary theme of The Phantom Pain is revenge. However, the Mother Base walkthrough reassured fans that MGS V still knows how to be silly and I’m thrilled by the variety in content we’ll be getting in this latest installment.
LOSER: Final Fantasy XV
As I’m sure fans of the series must be aware by now, Final Fantasy XV has been in development for about nine years. But this year, it’s starting to feel like we might finally get a release date and even more concrete information about the game itself. While we didn’t get to see the game at this year’s E3, Square Enix promised that they would have new information to share in coming events, along with a few important announcements about the game. Needless to say, many speculated that the company might be ready to announce the game’s release date.
So when Gamescom rolled around, and Square Enix teased on the official FFXV Twitter account that they had a big, brand new trailer coming up, all eyes fell on them. Unfortunately, all we got out of Gamescom was an uneventful, though rather emotional trailer that raised more questions than answers, as well as an equally uninformative Active Time Report with game director Hajime Tabata.
Aside from the cool Marlboro reveal, everything else about the game is still being kept under wraps, and fans have once again been told to “please be excited” and look out for “future updates”. With all the hype that Square Enix has been building up since skipping out on this year’s E3, what little we got to see of Final Fantasy XV at Gamescom has proven to be extremely disappointing, to say the least.
