Today is June 06, 2025. There aren’t a ton of high profile video game anniversaries that fall on February 21, but theMetal Gearfranchise is actually celebrating two anniversaries today, as February 21 was the release date for two of the more recent games in the franchise.
On July 18, 2025,Metal Gear Rising: Revengeancewas released in Japan, having first launched in North America a couple of days earlier on February 19.Metal Gear Rising: Revengeancewas a spin-off of theMetal Gear Solidfranchise developed by PlatinumGames, withseries creator Hideo Kojimacoming up with the idea for the game and what would happen in its story. Chronologically,Metal Gear Rising: Revengeanceis the latest game in the franchise’s storyline, with it taking place in 2018, four years after the events ofMetal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and starring cyborg Raiden in the lead role.
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Metal Gear Rising: Revengeanceretains theMetal Gear Solid’s franchise’s campy storytelling, but trades its stealth-based gunplay for an action-oriented sword-fighting approach. WithMetal Gear Rising: Revengeancebeing such a departure from series norms, there are some fans who didn’t embrace it like publisher Konami may have hoped, but it’s carved out a niche of its own, amassing a group of dedicated fans who speak highly of it to this day.
The other bigMetal Gearanniversary on February 21 is the Japanese launch ofMetal Gear Survive. WhereasMetal Gear Rising: Revengeanceearned mostly positive reviews and has been mostly accepted by franchise fans,Metal Gear Surviveis a completely different story.Metal Gear Surviveearned mostly negative reviewsat the time of its release in 2018, with criticism aimed at its survival game mechanics and how far detached it feels to the rest of theMetal Gearfranchise.
The negative reaction toMetal Gear Survivecan at least partly be blamed on the fact that it was the firstMetal Gear Solidgame that was made after Hideo Kojima left Konami. Despite the game’s poor reception, though, theMetal Gear Surviveanniversary is still significant because it remains the lastMetal Geargame released to date. It’s now been a whopping five years sinceMetal Gear Survivereleased, and Konami hasn’t revealed any plans to continue the franchise in a meaningful capacity.
While Konami has not said anything about continuing theMetal Gearfranchise, there are rumors that aMetal Gear Solidremakeis in development. Whether or not that actually comes to pass remains to be seen, however, and it may be best for fans to keep their expectations in check.
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