The upcoming Metal Gear Solid board game has hit a huge roadblock after publisher IDW pulled out of the project. The news was announced in a Board Game Geek post from the game's designer, Emerson Matsuuchi.
Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game Is In Serious Trouble
The Metal Gear Solid board game was originally announced back in 2018 with a 2019 release date, but since then it was pushed back several times. First, it was moved to Summer 2020, then to Summer 2021, despite claims from IDW that the game was "approaching the finish line", either way, it seems like any release date at all is a far-flung hope.
Not only did IDW pull out of the project in December, but now Mastuuchi doesn't even have the license, let alone a publisher for the game. Since IDW "chose not to move forward" with the game, the designer has been shopping it around to try and get the game out to people one way or the other. On the plus side, the rights to the actual design of the game are back with the designer, so it's not completely out of the question that the game will actually be made with the license still intact. After all, Konami has been a bit more free-and-easy with Metal Gear Solid lately.
Why Did This Happen?
Right now, we basically have no details at all as to why the game was canceled. IDW seemed to think that the game was quite far along back in August, so the sudden change of tune is a bit strange. It's almost certainly going to annoy the over 2000 people who had apparently pre-ordered the game according to the game's backerkit page.
Who knows if those pre-orders will carry over to any new version that comes out. If that even happens.
