[quote=@Drag] Oh yeah Konami isn't the primary one to blame imo. But I kind of feel like they have some indirect responsibility, 80 million or no Kojima didn't even want to make another game in the series and like you said with the expansive worlds with nothing of note in them and really a plot that overall doesn't really need to exist in the grand scheme of things it really shows. I mean, with the Ocelot thing and other questionable choices there is [i]some[/i] excuse for it, but it feels less like a major plot element having validity and more like it's there just so the point itself isn't entirely nonsense. It's more that it's a game that has a lot of tools to be great, I'd argue the gameplay is probably the smoothest MGS has ever been but from a story and emotional standpoint everything feels either cardboardy and tacked on (killing the infected soldiers really didn't even come close to hitting me with the emotional punch as much as furiously tapping X through the microwave hallway) or they're just not there. It's just the games good points that annoy me more for that reason. Like I love seeing Venom show Eli why Big Boss is the master of CQC, or just that scene with Ocelot echoing the words Big Boss taught him in 3, if there was at least more of that I could enjoy my experience more and empathize more with the cast. [/quote] MGSV struck me as more of an over-ambitious title than one he flat out didn't want to make, but I can't remember the last time Kojima didn't say that whatever MGS game he was working on was going to be his last one, so maybe he really lost enthusiasm this time around. I'd be tempted to break out the world's smallest violin for this whole dilemma where this extremely well-known and respected developer just has to keep coming back and making games with an incredible amount of creative control in an incredibly successful and renowned series, but I do tend to bitch a lot about how From Software used to have a lot more variety in their game lineup before Souls hit it big, so I guess I'd be kind of a hypocrite. I'd personally prefer it if all that time and money went into, say, Zone of the Enders 3, but I often wonder how many of those who bring up Kojima being kinda forced to work on MGS share my enthusiasm for that series (or Kojima's other work in general) or even bought them. MGS games kept getting made because they sold well, and that never really happened with anything else he made, at least in comparison. I disagree, I think there was actually a lot of potential in MGSV's plot to finally justify that incredibly dumb twist in 4 and a couple of stupid things in Peace Walker, and it does! In casette tapes that randomly appear in the inventory at the end of the game that of course got played in the trailers like they would factor into the plot in some meaningful way... Well, I guess we still got to listen to everyone prattle on about vocal chord parasites like nanomachines never went out of style. Talk about a lack of priorities. All I know for sure is that I'm finding it pretty difficult to jump on the Death Stranding hype train after taking a ride on MGSV's.