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Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2 was revealed at yesterday's Sony State of Play presentation, confirming that Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally being freed from its long-standing PS3 jail. The collection also includes the 2000 Game Boy Color game Ghost Babel and the 2010 PSP title Peace Walker, but there are plenty more Metal Gear entries not present here – including Portable Ops.
Portable Ops, released in 2006 for PSP, is something of a black sheep in the series. It's set after Metal Gear Solid 3, telling the story of how Big Boss first built the military unit that he'd lead in Peace Walker and MGS5. It'd make perfect sense for inclusion in Volume 2, since it bridges the gap between MGS3 in the previous collection and Peace Walker here.
But series lead Hideo Kojima only had minor involvement in the development of Portable Ops, and specific events from the game are only tangentially referenced in later titles. Its status as a semi-canon title might account for its exclusion here – but Ghost Babel, an entirely non-canon game, is still part of the package.
"Such an underrated game," one fan laments on Reddit. "Legitimately I think the story is the best sequel to 3 we ever got, and the gameplay is way overhated. Imo this game should be considered an integral part of the saga. Legitimately it’s story has more impact than V’s somehow."
It's not impossible that Portable Ops might sneak into the collection – after all, Konami did only reveal the NES games included in Volume 1 some time after the original announcement. "It'll either be a bonus game, Vol 3, or it's never happening," another commenter suggests, and yeah, that does seem to cover all the bases.
Likely the biggest reason we're not getting Portable Ops is that it's never previously been ported. The version of Peace Walker included in Volume 2 is based on the one included in the old HD Collection, which likely lessened the development load here. Portable Ops would need a whole new port, and given the resources Konami's already putting in to finally get Metal Gear Solid 4 off the PS3, well, maybe it figures that another bigger port project is better saved for a possible Volume 3.
There's still plenty of Metal Gear left to fill out future collections, too. There are the Acid games, PSP deckbuilders with big cult followings, and Platinum's excellent, over-the-top action title Metal Gear Rising: Reveangance. Plus, of course, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and its premium-priced preview, Ground Zeroes. Heck, there's even Metal Gear Survive if you really need to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Maybe it's premature to talk about all this when Volume 2 was only just announced, but there's more than enough material left to fill Volumes 3 and 4.
Metal Gear gave us some of the best PSP games ever released.
