Konami pivots with "an alternate timeline caused by unexplained wormholes."

https://youtu.be/X3hjRKGrC40

When Metal Gear Solid series auteur Hideo Kojima left Konami under extremely strained circumstances last year, many worried about what the corporate parent would do with the storied Metal Gear franchise IP it still controlled. Well worry no longer: the newly announced Metal Gear Survive stays true to the series' long-established roots of stealth action, amazing visuals, and multiplayer, interdimensional battles against zombie hordes.
Wait, what was that last part?

Yes, despite the Metal Gear branding, Survive looks like it couldn't be much more different from the well-known Metal Gear Solid games. Set just after the events of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, the online multiplayer game will let four characters from that game's Mother Base fight together to survive against "living biological threats" in "a distorted desert landscape" that's part of "an alternate timeline caused by unexplained wormholes forming in the sky," according to a press release.

Standard Metal Gear stuff, really.

The game's first trailer shows the same kind of cliched scenes of shambling, misshapen undead pressing their flesh against chain link fences that you've probably seen in literally dozens of pieces of media over the past ten years. While the press release promises the series' standard "stealth" gameplay, the trailer seems much more focused on gory scenes of zombie impalement.

To be fair, Kojima himself often played with the Metal Gear formula in the non-Solid games, from the card-based tactical battling of Metal Gear Acid to the non-stop sword-slicing action of Metal Gear Revengeance. Still, without Kojima at the franchise's helm, we shudder to think just how thin Konami will be willing to stretch one of its last remaining cash-cow franchises. In the future, we may actually long for the relatively respectful days of Metal Gear Solid pachinko.