Metal Gear Survive Review

Konami took the finest stealth engine ever built, removed the man who designed it, and shipped a base-defense survival game about hunger meters and fence placement. The Fox Engine is still the Fox Engine, so movement, animation blending and the simple feel of a sprint are conspicuously better than the game around them deserves, which makes the whole thing sadder rather than better. Crafting, thirst, hunger and stamina layer into a resource grind calibrated to make waiting the primary verb, and the wormhole premise exists only to explain why a Metal Gear game contains zombies with crystals for heads.

Charging real money for a second save slot was a decision made by people who did not care what the name on the box meant. The cooperative defense missions have a mild tower-defense pleasure when a crew coordinates, and the tether-and-spear melee is more considered than its reception allowed. But this is an asset reuse project wearing a legendary series as a costume.