Metal Gear Solid 4: 10 Predictions

Kojima won't just break the fourth wall, he'll destroy it

As Metal Gear veterans will know, the MGS series has never shied away from directly targeting you, the gamer behind the controller. Some of the series' best moments came about as a result of this approach, from Psycho Mantis' antics to the only way of discovering Meryl's secret frequency, or the mental, brain-spinning craziness at the end of MGS2.

Kojima isn't just messing about in these moments. He's clearly very astute at realising how to unsettle us by building and then smashing expectations, by whipping the proverbial rug out from under our feet and then beating us about the face with it. He never wants us to be comfortable.

So MGS4, as the - supposedly, anway - last hurrah of the series, will see Kojima pushinghis fourth-wall habit into really weird territory. Not only will we have the mind-spazzing Philosophers/Patriots plot thread, the Liquid-overtaking-Ocelot plot thread and the Olga's child plot thread, but Kojima will doubtless blend all these together while constantly poking us from beyond the screen to make sure we pay attention.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.