Konami takes to Twitter, explaining that the so-called cancelled 'true ending' of The Phantom Pain won't be included in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Definitive Experience.
The vast majority of players and reviewers agreed that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was an excellent game. However, most also agreed that the game wasn't what it could have been. Nearly a year after its release, some gamers found new hope that the legendary Mission 51 - which many speculated was the 'true' ending of Metal Gear Solid V - might be released, but Konami officials are shooting the idea down.
Konami recently announced the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience, which will include Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes as well as The Phantom Pain. With a name like The Definitive Experience, some gamers believed that it might mean that some of the notoriously cut content might be restored, and took to Twitter to ask Konami about it.
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As the above tweets indicate, Konami is reiterating that Mission 51 is cancelled and never coming back, and that it isn't the ending of Metal Gear Solid. This response probably doesn't surprise some gamers, since it was already well-known that a great deal Metal Gear Solid V's content was scrapped, but it's probably disappointing nonetheless.
While it's fairly commonplace for storylines to be changed or significant portions of content to be cut from video games, Metal Gear Solid V's cancelled content is a bit unusual. Gamers can watch long clips of what the missing content consisted of but can't actually play it themselves. On top of that, the distress is most likely only made worse by the fact that this is the last entry to the Metal Gear Solid franchise under the care of Hideo Kojima.
Although this answer from Konami isn't a huge surprise, it probably won't do much to help Konami's efforts to earn back the trust of fans. The split between Kojima and Konami came as a shock and upset fans of Metal Gear Solid, as well as those hoping for a reboot of the Silent Hill series, and many are still angry. If Kojima hadn't left Konami and there was the promise of a future Metal Gear Solid game directed by him, the fervor for Mission 51 and a 'true ending' might not be as strong as it is now. However, that's not the case, and other than the recently-announced and poorly received Metal Gear Survive spin-off game and Metal Gear Pachinko machines, there's no telling what Konami intends to do with the property from this point forward.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience is scheduled for release on October 11 in the US and on October 13 in the UK for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.