We're still about a week away from the release date of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain but the game has already taken the video game industry by storm. It has received new universal praise from critics, currently sitting at an astounding 95 percent on review aggregator metacritic.
To celebrate the title's impending launch, publisher Konami has just released a final trailer for the game. The five minute launch video opens with a short title credit indicating that it was directed and edited by series creator Hideo Kojima.
The clip is a love letter to long-time fans of the series and feels very much like the definitive end of Kojima's involvement with the franchise.
Earlier this year, Kojima was part of a rocky split from Konami. The developer, who has spent nearly his entire career with the Japanese publishing giant, had his Kojima Productions studio shuttered. Additionally Silent Hills, the psychological horror game he was working on with film director Guillermo Del Toro and The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus, was abruptly cancelled and all traces of the title's existence were wiped from the Playstation store.
Back in July, Akio Otsuka, the Japanese voice actor of Metal Gear protagonist Solid Snake tweeted:
"Kojima Productions got dissolved, and due to the team's hard effort, the game is just about finished. This is no exaggeration, but it's bound to be a supreme masterpiece! I can't help it if I want to say, 'I kept you waiting.' Even if this is the last time ... MGS lives forever!"
Konami also removed Kojima's name from the final box art of the Phantom Pain. Reasons for the rift between the two remain unclear, but it definitely seems like this is the last we'll ever see of Kojima at the helm of Metal Gear.
