Metal Gear Solid 4 will make its debut on Playstation 3 at this year's E3 (the world's biggest game show, held in Los Angeles). The game is being announced as we speak at a special Metal Gear event in Berlin attended by Producer Hideo Kojima, and PSM2. However, the tantalising first 30 seconds of footage won't be shown until E3 - as the epic finale of Sony's now-certain PS3 public unveiling this May.
It looks like MGS Producer Hideo Kojima - hailed by US News Weekly Time Magazine as 'the Spielberg of games' - won't be in charge, taking a hands off 'Creative Director' role. Production duties will be passed to MGS3's Executive Producer Motoyuki Yoshioka. It's believed thatMGS3 was his trial run, with Kojima co-holding the reins - and, judging by our review score of 97% (get the PAL verdict on pg101), he was, without doubt, a resounding success.
The news isn't exactly entirely unexpected. Senior Konami execs had revealed the existance of MGS4 during a financial conference call in November 2004, stating that work had already begun. This raises some interesting questions - Konami must have been in possession of rough PS3 specs as early as mid-2004, and Sony are more advanced with their 'next-gen' machine than they're letting on to us?
Our source has intimated that the game may take an unexpected change of direction - Kojima always insisted that MGS3 would be the last of the trilogy. Will the new game follow the 1960s timeline? Or follow on from Acid's 2016 setting? A dramatic change of location is guarateed, we're told. Will you play as Snake or a cloned 'son' of the boss? The detail are out there as we speak - stay tuned to PSM2 for all the very latest MGS4 news.