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Does Metal Gear Survive Contain A Secret Message?

by Joey Thurmond on Feb 26, 2018 at 03:30 PM

Hideo Kojima is no stranger to embedding secrets and deception in his work, whether that involves misleading players about Solid Snake's role in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty or cryptically aluding to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain before its official unveiling. Prior to the controversy of the game designer's departure from Konami, he might have hinted toward his internal strife with the publisher with an easter egg in Ground Zeroes. In a discovery by Twitter user Michael Yurko, it seems that someone left behind to work on Metal Gear Survive may have taken after Kojima's craftiness.

In a clipboard list of MSF soldiers who went missing during Cipher's attack on Mother Base at the end of Ground Zeroes, notice that the first initials of the last names before and after the player's name (in this case, "Heitai") spell out "KJP FOREVER." The second and third initials before this message spell out "MG" with both soldiers listed as killed in action, which could be a reference to the belief that Metal Gear is dead after Kojima's departure. The most surprising element comes with the last two names, which might be references to Metal Gear Survive director Yota Tsutsumizaki and producer Yuji Korekado. They are listed as AWOL, which could be a meta-commentary on how the two head figures abandoned their true posts by remaining at Konami. Whoever made this message, it's reasonable to assume that he or she likely acted alone.

Metal Gear Survive is a spin-off of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. You can expect our review in the near future.

[Source: Michael Yorko on Twitter via Kotaku]