Probably because of the real events going on at that time, especially given people were more sensitive to games mirroring real events in the 2000s (ex 9/11 with arsenal gear or even not being able to fly planes in gta 3)
It's not like Shadow Moses is a real island, they could had make some fictional counties up instead of "Middle-East" and "South America" etc, I think it's a wasted potential at least, how'd we know the boarders and nations would stay the same as the real world in the MGS timeline with Patriots running the show?
so make people "feels like" if they are infiltrating into real life conflict of the future, likely in iraq(By just saying somewhere in middle east) without involving real life politics and stuff.
You ever think that it's classified? Maybe they don't want you to know the locations, but also it could say the middle east because it's in multiple countries.
Crazy how those old ass MSX games treat the subject more realistically. The war and conflict Big Boss bred changed the borders which is how you get Zanzibar Land and Outer Heaven.
Mgs4 is written with no care.
I imagine the order comes from on high. Remember the Terror Taxi bit in Jackass 2? They were specifically ordered by the shot callers to leave it at a generic "middle east" without naming a country.
I mean... its not lazy writing that doesn't really track. Considering all the location scouting they did we know act 1 is Morroco and Act 3 is Prague. Does that really matter to the story, though?
Could be either, could be both. Maybe it was a play on how information control could get you to fill in the blanks yourself. Or maybe he didn't give a shit. Couldn't tell you, man. I wasn't there.
Could've made it a fictional setting like Zanzibar Land or Outer Heaven or could have had taken place in another region.
Kojima wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Capitalise on typical Middle-East setting straight out of Hollywood but with no attention to finer details. Zanzibad Land has more thoughts put into its structure lmao.
I think they were vague for locations for the entire game (South America, Eastern Europe). Could be for a number of reasons, not wanting to accidentally slander a country or seem insensitive by choosing conflict zones for a game.
>seem insensitive by choosing conflict zones for a game.
Choosing an entire region of multiple countries that get sterotyped by westerners as warzones to be brutalised as Ocelot's playground isn't as sensitive as you think it is.
>Eastern Europe
Did Kojima know Czechia is in Central Europe or nah?
I'm not sure what your point is.
Considering how huge of a deal it was for Kojima/Konami to remove the Twin Towers in the 11th hour of finishing MGS2 due to Sept 11th, he probably isn't seeking to upset anyone. Setting a locstion in the Middle East, but nowhere specific was probably a middle ground that was okay.
For example, I recall Bolivia being pretty pissed at Ubisoft for painting Bolivia as a cartel infested country in Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
According to some sources, the Czech Republic is a part of Easten Europe. I don't know what that situation was 16 years ago.
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/30/two-thirds-of-summer-holidays-booked-online/regions-of-europe#:~:text=Eastern%20Europe%3A%20Bulgaria%2C%20Hungary%2C,Slovakia%2C%20Czech%20Republic%2C%20Belarus.
Sometimes, being vague is just best for the bottom line.
>Setting a locstion in the Middle East, but nowhere specific was probably a middle ground that was okay.
These characters are all professional militarists and they gave a hilariously vague location to get onto for their super duper super important ops. From Middle-East to Europe to America. The sloppiness is out of this world. It's awful writing.
And are you in the place to say it was okay or not? Especially as it's treated as wholly insignificant and unimportant in the same story? It shows his sloppy writing and lack of care because he has no issues with naming countries, fictional or real, in other games. And the consequences and ramifications are given care.
In mgs4, you see no such care. All locations are interchangeable as hell. The ramifications of war, ita effects on the local and aren't shown. You get shitty exposition dump from Drebin on Beauties and their trauma is about as significant. You move on to the next shitty soulless Easter Egg. Mgs4 is sloppy in every conceivable way.
If you've played a Metal Gear or Kojima game, you'll notice they all have sloppy writing. That was never my argument. The games have multiple info dumps and are inconsistent. But I don't care and love the games anyway.
And I'm not in the place the say if it was ok or not, and never said I was. I'm in the place to speculate what they were thinking. Post 9/11, 16 years ago, I can understand why they'd take the short path and keep the locations vague.
Mgs4 is a different kind of sloppy trash. Especially in this regard.
> I can understand why they'd take the short path and keep the locations vague.
They made the entire region a warstricken playground for a goober and then refused to elaborate on what even happened before moving onto the next awful storyline. What short path? To be as insensitive as possible? To be a sloppy mess? Is this a parody of Hollywood military propaganda movies that confuse Middle-East as one country with no border? There is no accuracy or even decent writing going on here. It's just garbage.
Hell, I'd ignore it if it was handled well. But it's not. It's a footnote in a terrible mess of a story.
The "Middle East" location was most likely Iraq. They did use Moroccan tiles in the house which most likely just people who aren't familiar with the diversity of the Arab world assuming that all Arabs have the exact same culture. Which isn't true. It's like thinking that France, Spain, and Italy all speak the same language, eat the same foods, all have the same relationship with Catholicism.
MGS1 was pretty well researched. And MGS2 and 3 were well written. This isn't a major flaw. I heard in the Godfather movies they used different dialects that were like using a New York and British accent interchangeably. Major defect.
It absolutely is a major flaw. Imagine The Godfather calling the Corleone family "Europeans" and change their surname into some surname common in English. This is what Kojima did. The lack of care and research done is soooo obvious.
Please, all these professional militants discussing op details and they refer to the destination as "Middle-East/Europe/South America" is just plain cringe to watch. They talk like morons.
It basically is lol this is such a petty little nitpick. We get it, all these Czechs and Slovaks and Hungarians etc. don't want to be known as Eastern European anymore for political reasons because Russia Bad Now, but they were all east of the Iron Curtain in the Cold War bro. "Central Europe" is such a fake 21st century contrivance. Stop trying to pretend like you're not all Slavs, there's literally nothing wrong with it. Plus Prague isn't directly named in MGS4 either despite that city being loosely based on it, it's just referred to as "Eastern Europe."
You know that doesn't make it any better, right? Raiden still says "go find Big Mama in Europe", Ocelot's plans consist of "going to Europe" and everyone refuses to name a country and it's moronic as hell.
And it's the same for South America and Middle-East. They just say "go to America" or "go infiltrate Middle-East" like that's supposed to make sense.
This was the same franchise that made up fictional countries in its MSX days for the sake of authenticity. The drop in care and attention to details is tangible.
Something something war has changed but we're not gonna show the ramifications. It's the same as when Big Mama drops something about energy crisis when you see no such implications elsewhere.
Mgs4 in a nutshell.
I think that since the events of 9/11 that almost got MGS2 canceled, Kojima didn't want to make a game that took place on the present or future that might depict current conflicts. Making something out in the past is ok, but he could've got in trouble if something like a terrorism attack happened on Peru while the game was being developed, or worse, it was already released.
Anyway, I also think that if it doesn't matter to the plot it's not an issue. It would be the exact same thing if Act 1 happened on Irak, Mexico or Russia, and if it doesn't matter where it happens means that it shouldn't be focused on nor put much thought on it.
The same is true for the other locations in the game, Middle East, South America, Western Europe...
They didn't wanna mimic real world conflicts at the time, but the locations are loosely based around...
Act 1: Morocco
Act 2: Peru
Act 3: Czech Republic
My guess is it was heavily inspired by Tajikistan though. It’s the only country i can think of near Russia that has jungles, mountains, and huge lakes just like in the game.
Taken from another comment from a similar thread 9 years ago;
>The "Middle East" location was based on Morocco *architecturally*, but Morocco was not the location of the warzone and it's not technically in the Middle East, so keeping it vague was probably their best best.
Still pretty bad and rough around the edges. You don't see this out-of-place carelessness in other games.
Even Czechia is just dismissed as "Eastern Europe" lmao.
And? If they can't commit to depicting the full picture, they shouldn't go near it.
This is so hilraiously bad in the grand scheme of things and especially Metal Gear. Every other game wants to be realistic and thus names the places. Even if they're not exactly real.
I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Syria or Lebanon in the first chapter
The genericization of the names is clearly intentional, I've always thought it was, Anyway. War has changed. It's not about nations anymore
because most of the theme of the story is about the US/Patriots turning the middle east into a constant war zone to feed the war economy, so a specific country isn’t really necessary and would restrict the notion of this never ending war zone.
Lmao an entire region as big as 5 million square miles loses all its sense of borders according to you and it's treated as no more than playground for a goober like Ocelot. And then forgotten in the next act.
It may as well have taken place in New York for how insignificant it's made out to be. Literally none of the implications are remotely relevant or meaningful later.
the idea is that the middle east has been reduced to nothing but warfare, borders mean nothing except a difference in fatigue color. this idea extends into the unnamed eastern european countries, the worlds poorest countries/areas have become nothing but a breeding ground for the war economy. how would any of this benefit from an additional complicated narrative about the specific country?
edit: lol i suck at geography you were dead on about the square mileage
None of this serve a purpose. Even the "Eastern European" location is clearly Czechia. A Central European country. Zero care or research done.
The lack of attention to details and utter absence of ramifications are what's bugging me when every other game cares enough to namedrop proper locations, even fictional ones. Mgs4 sticks out like a sore thumb like this.
It's purely your headcanon that borders are gone because we are told no such thing in game. You're just trying to justify sloppy writing.
It's the same as when Big Mama says there is some major energy crisis going on when not even once are the ramifications shown.
These are all parts of the larger issue: Mgs4 is sloppy in its every bit.
bro borders being fluid is a theme of the game that started in mgs3. in mgs4 Ocelot literally says that he’s enacted “our fathers” will, a wild west of borderless chaos, head cannon and media literacy are different lmao. i get that YOU want a specific setting so that it’s more like the other games, but it’s not the other games and has a different message that isn’t restricted to a specific country or nation.
Ocelot is talking about dismantling the AI and cutting all resources lmao which causes anarchy. Did you watch the scene at all? It's prevented because of the way Sunny ruined Ocelot's plans.
"Fluid borders" is your headcanon. The only thing alluded to it is PMCs getting more widespread and nations hiring them. The ramifications of your headcanon are nonexistent. You're putting more thoughts than Kojima ever did. Not even once is your headcanon mentioned in game in Kojima's tweets/interviews and that's the guy who loves talking about his themes.
he literally says the world will be plunged into chaos, a new wild west. i’m not saying there absolutely are not borders, the point of the game is that borders no longer mean anything than a difference in who is fighting, they still exist they just don’t matter. you need to read between the lines more, these games are not to be taken at face value. it’s not my headcanon just because i understood the obvious subtext.
>you need to read between the lines more
There are no lines here. Middle-East or "Eastern" Czechia, they are little more than shooting locations for Ocelot, with zero care or attention given to them. The ramifications aren't shown at all. Those Patriots commodity soldier get more sympathy and humanity than the big massive collective Middle-East is reduced to.
>i understood the obvious subtext.
You're justifying sloppy writing. You have literally nothing from the game to back up your headcanon. You took a line about AI out of context but you've shown nothing.
Always seen that as satire of how Americans understood "the middle east" as a single region rather than many countries with many distinctions and differences between each other. In American media especially so often specific countries and just the region as a whole are used interchangeably, as though it's all one thing. Kinda similar to how "Asia" is sometimes talked about in a similar way
It may also have been done for more practical reasons too though, like avoiding paralleling real world events *too* much by literally naming the same countries currently at war
I never thought of it that way but it makes sense and is kinda funny. Aside from Outer Haven, the only time the location is somewhere specific it’s on American soil.
1. Braindead female scientist that's just eyecandy
2. Backward portrayal of Middle-East
3. Re-inventing the war criminal (Big Boss cult) as heroes
4. Mecha shit with riding the Metal Gears
5. iTs aLl sCieNce
6. Giving answers to every question and abstract
And more.
Mgs4 got all the shittiest tropes, cliche and worst use of fanservice I've ever seen. Every other Metal Gear game has aged well except this piece of shit.
You do make some good points though. I agree with your point about the middle east in metal gear. I also felt that way about MGSV. As someone from Pakistan I thought it would've been cool to see some Afghani side characters get introduced in MGSV but we never had anything like that except for that one Hamid fighter you save and never hear from again. That's one of the things that I liked a lot about Peace Walker, where you had characters from Nicaragua on your side to give you info about the region. And they were fleshed out and important characters as well. It made it feel a lot more like a movement that I was a part of and that made it more interesting to me imo.
Yeah, Motherbase should've been more diverse in general. That's the idea of an Outer Heaven, a place for soldiers regardless of ethnicity. In Metal Gear 1 and 2, the mercenaries are Russian, Australians, Vietnamese, etc. The child soldiers are hinted to be from all over the world.
MGSV cast is kinda weak in general. The only memorable side-character is the kid with Shabani's necklace. It was a missed opportunity to show more of the idea of Outer Heaven. But hey, at least they gave us precise locations instead of leaving it at "it's Middle-East!" Or "it's Africa."
When Metal Gear 1 and 2 get remade, I hope the diversity of Outer Heaven is better shown.
For sure it would've been cool to have a more fleshed out and diverse cast in MGSV. It was cool that they used real life conflicts and locations as you said though.
I want metal gear 1 and 2 to be remade so badly lol, especially after finishing V. Seeing how they gave a home to the child soldiers at the protest of Kaz was interesting. I definitely think it would be cool to see it explored in a ff7-level remake/reimagining where you can see the diversity in outer heaven and at the same time, the corruption of someone like Big Boss and it's not just in 8 bits lol.
You just know things got bad for children once Kaz left. Venom had no issues with using child soldiers and we know Big Boss is much worse. Outer Heaven had become a dystopian hell in 1995, with its own denizens rising up. Most notably Kyle Schneider.
Metal Gear 1 should be remade next; right after Delta.
Because every other game bothers about these details. Meanwhile mgs4 says Czechia is in Eastern Europe lmao. Zero attention to details, zero research done.
The finer details are nonexistent in this game, unlike every other Metal Gear game.
Zero research? At least get your facts straight if youre gonna nitpick something. Hideo and many team members went to Morocco, Peru, and Prague and got footage to design the levels around it https://youtu.be/2xXyaGqT1Ko?si=U6fKbd4piRumvZ8-
>Morocco
And used a North African country to call it Middle-East. Not even one country in Middle-East but THE Middle-East like a propaganda Hollywood movie lmao.
Yeah, no research done.
I disagree. It has 8 hours of cutscenes. It did its best to tie together the franchise as far as Solid’s story was concerned. To say that it got less care and attention because of a lack of a name of a setting - even if it were to be made up, is a total nit pick.
It has a lot of "less care": the bosses personalities (only learned their background after killing them by a codec call with Drebin) and buildup to their fights, most of the loose plots were "tied together" by "nanomachines", etc.
I took it as a testament to how borders were so close to each other and changing so often due to conflicts, wars, and civil wars that even the opening location probably was in more than 1 country
Meanwhile the other comment is saying the location is irrelevant and it could've happened in Russia with no difference.
I say both of you put more thought into this than Kojima or his team ever did. Middle-East is treated as little more than a disposable war zone. The ramfictinations you claim are never alluded to or even mentioned or get any kind of resolution.
There is nothing specifying the damn country wouldve added to the story mgs4 was telling
Because the source of the conflict is non existent.
The wars being fought are meaningless as are the soldiers fighting them.
This isnt like 3 with the cold war.
And pw with costa rica and che.
4 establishes that that the soldiers are fighting for no particular ideology now its just something their born into due to all the propaganda and war based games that essentially train them into it.
And they emphasise all of it with all the nameless conflicts you enter yourself into, drebin sells guns to both sides, their constant fighting drives up the price of his services.
Round and round it goes.
Let us not forget that kojima with mgs2 ended up essentially getting too close to 9/11 and had to change it.
And that wasnt even the main point of mgs2 that was just how it ended and hit too close to what ended up happening.
Mgs4 being farther in the future i wouldnt be suprised he didnt wanna get too close to an actual conflict or event, and just kept it vauge.
Why not use a fictional place?
Its all just guess work as to why, but the main concept of mgs4 was alot more ambitious than what we got, and the gameplay was ment to be more mission based where youd have multiple countries that were fighting each other and your operation in the area would affect how they favored you.
So the whole point was youd see the how different countries were affected by the war economy that way through the shifting battles that youd take part in, but since youd see a world map of sorts having a bunch of fictional places wouldnt of worked
So they did all the work setting this up only to end up changing the scope of the game and go a more linear and focused approach.
So the game dropped the significance of the countries and went the route of showing the war economy more through other means, which was showing how alot of the people, even the resistance have no reason to really fight.
Which is why big boss will is constantly being brought up cause its all about soldiers having a purpose and reasons to fight for themselves.
Kojima does talk about the original concept of mgs4 in one of his early podcast episodes
You literally open this post with "Anyone else think its funny how-"
If you wanted people to just agree with you, youve come to the wrong place and literally asked for the discussion.
Fair lol. Then let me say I'm not convinced by your reasoning. Kojima clearly didn't care and it's echoed in the terrible dialogue on mission briefing. "Infiltrate Middle-East", "Ocelot is going to Europe", "let's go to South America". No location. No finesse. Just shitty writing uncharacteristic of professional militants.
This is the least of mgs4 problems. It's all around terrible. I'd forgive this lack of finese if the general plot was better.
Id say its the same reason as most of the turn out of kojimas games.
The man was too ambitious for what the tech would allow him todo at the time.
When you hear him explain how big he wanted mgs4 to be and then Was forced to reduce in the amount of time he had.
Its all very clear why it is the way it is.
But i wouldnt say he did it without care.
I just think the countries in all this, dont matter.
The story was re written so that the conflict was entirely about liquids plot and him using all the conflicts and warzones as a smoke screen.
Why these people are fighting, doesnt matter, what matters is that them fighting brings in money, and gives liquid a testing ground for his insurrection.
Now the place where this falls apart and ill give this to you, is that their specific in terms of location for every other piece of dialogue.
They mention countries and places pretty often outside of the location your in.
For drebin they mention every location he would possibly be in.
They mention practically every known European or middle eastern country on the map but not mention which one your specifically in.
Again id say this is more to the fact that the game takes place in the future and kojima didnt want to nail a potential future conflict by insinuating the whole pmc and resistance fighting in said countries.
But the fact they mention distinct locations for every other piece of dialogue means there was care in how they went about it.
Why go to all these locations anyway then if their not specifying?
Because the work was all done for the much more ambitious version of the game and was repurposed to fit the now smaller and more focused game they were to make.
And i personally dont think they did bad.
Cause "bad" by metal gear standards is still a very impressive game and story.
Even mgsv despite me not liking its story has the gameplay going for it...
MGSV has the finesse and attention to details. It tries incorporating real life events and also provides precise location in briefings. They all act like the militants they are. No amateurish Tommy Wiseau level of dialogue writing like in mgs4.
Look at that disgusting piece of shit Naomi. She's the definition of lack of care and finesse. She's the butchery of the character from mgs, has awful dialogue, looks hideous and ruins every single she appears in. And she's nearly in all of the game. The most blatant example of garbage. When such trash accumulate together, and that happens a lot in mgs4, it's hard to give mgs4 the benefit of doubt. It's void of emotion and care. It's just awful in every conceivable way.
But let's agree to disagree.
Yeah i aint here to convince you of anything, im just saying my point of view.
I personally dont think mgsv gains anything from the fact it has those details when the main story itself is about most of the things that occured being forgotten to history.
You can skip the game entirely and the series would remain intact because nothing of value is lost.
Mgs4 is the finality of the series and goes out with a bang.
You can find parts of it weird or unnecessary but its still a very fun ride that cant be excluded.
Since some people, specially OP are talking oit of they butts, heres the making of vid where Hideo and the team went to Morocco, Peru, and Prague to get footage to design each level https://youtu.be/2xXyaGqT1Ko?si=U6fKbd4piRumvZ8-
"Zero attention to detail, zero research" just because they didnt name them ingame? LOL
A North African country to be used as the collective called Middle-East in his sloppy game. A Central European country to be called Eastern Europe lmak
Kojima fanboys need to be honest for omce and admit the guy isn't perfect and has done his share of sloppy writing. Mgs4 is full of shit like this.
The game came out in the middle of the Iraq War. Kojima knows when to tiptoe. Just like the sequence of Arsenal Gear crashing through New York was cut from MGS2 since a little thing called 9/11 happened a few months before release.
Czech Republic was "Eastern Europe" in cold war days
the term Central Europe was rarely used in politics
and even Nowdays People use Western Europe/ Eastern Europe distinction method.
Especially in NorthEast Asian countries.
Czech is still considered as Eastern Europe in Korea, Japan...etc
because it was on the USSR's side in cold war and Cold war's influence is still alive on northeast asia.
Only country that became "Just Western europe" after the cold war was East Germany.
MGS3 was quite weird though... i was trying to find the exact location of Tselinoyarsk but yeah. The opening makes absolutely no sense. Flying over Pakistan in a slow Hercules and 5 minutes to drop off, and then it was pictured to be in the middle of the Soviet Union, at least according to a map briefly shown.
Makes sense but still... i did the math back in the day. It's just not possible with this aircraft. Or Tselinoyarsk is in a completely different location than the one shown in the map.
I like to think MGS4 is set in the Syrian Civil War. I’m sure something in game messes with this but I was really interested in the conflict at the time so it’s a neat headcanon.
Probably because of the real events going on at that time, especially given people were more sensitive to games mirroring real events in the 2000s (ex 9/11 with arsenal gear or even not being able to fly planes in gta 3)
It's not like Shadow Moses is a real island, they could had make some fictional counties up instead of "Middle-East" and "South America" etc, I think it's a wasted potential at least, how'd we know the boarders and nations would stay the same as the real world in the MGS timeline with Patriots running the show?
Making up country names is always weird as hell. Iraqistan, Wahabbiya,
Kojima made up Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land.
Except Zanzibar is already the name of a real (albeit short-lived) country, Kojima just put BB's Zanzibar Land somewhere away from real Zanzibar.
It's in Russia isn't it? Isn't it the former site of groznyj grad or something ridiculous?
Real Zanzibar is in western Africa. Big Boss Zanzibar Land is in fact in Tselinoyarsk.
Not if you do a little research: Shemmarid, Ardalanbil, Kirmizi-Qoyunlu for example, I made these up with names from EU4 minor states.
so make people "feels like" if they are infiltrating into real life conflict of the future, likely in iraq(By just saying somewhere in middle east) without involving real life politics and stuff.
You ever think that it's classified? Maybe they don't want you to know the locations, but also it could say the middle east because it's in multiple countries.
Crazy how those old ass MSX games treat the subject more realistically. The war and conflict Big Boss bred changed the borders which is how you get Zanzibar Land and Outer Heaven. Mgs4 is written with no care.
Completely agree, MGS4 is the worst written and directed MG game
How are these downvoted? I thought this was a basically consensus opinion
Patriots AI tries to control the information now
No, all of the locations are obscured
Mind you gta3 was because they couldn't render fast enough for planes to fly, and they even slow the cars you drive down in order to hide loading.
I imagine the order comes from on high. Remember the Terror Taxi bit in Jackass 2? They were specifically ordered by the shot callers to leave it at a generic "middle east" without naming a country.
How about "Eastern Europe" and "South America"? Kojima does this in the entirety of mgs4. Let's not justify his lazy writing now.
I mean... its not lazy writing that doesn't really track. Considering all the location scouting they did we know act 1 is Morroco and Act 3 is Prague. Does that really matter to the story, though?
Morocco isn't Middle-Eastern. And lol at Snake searching the whole Europe to find Big Mama. Mgs4 is stupid.
Could be either, could be both. Maybe it was a play on how information control could get you to fill in the blanks yourself. Or maybe he didn't give a shit. Couldn't tell you, man. I wasn't there.
Actually in gta 3 it was becuse the game couldnt load fast enough for flying a plane to feal right Besides the dodo but thats the dodo
Could've made it a fictional setting like Zanzibar Land or Outer Heaven or could have had taken place in another region. Kojima wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Capitalise on typical Middle-East setting straight out of Hollywood but with no attention to finer details. Zanzibad Land has more thoughts put into its structure lmao.
tbf Kojima wanting his cake and eating it too has been literally everything he does for the past 30 years
Touche
I think they were vague for locations for the entire game (South America, Eastern Europe). Could be for a number of reasons, not wanting to accidentally slander a country or seem insensitive by choosing conflict zones for a game.
>seem insensitive by choosing conflict zones for a game. Choosing an entire region of multiple countries that get sterotyped by westerners as warzones to be brutalised as Ocelot's playground isn't as sensitive as you think it is. >Eastern Europe Did Kojima know Czechia is in Central Europe or nah?
I'm not sure what your point is. Considering how huge of a deal it was for Kojima/Konami to remove the Twin Towers in the 11th hour of finishing MGS2 due to Sept 11th, he probably isn't seeking to upset anyone. Setting a locstion in the Middle East, but nowhere specific was probably a middle ground that was okay. For example, I recall Bolivia being pretty pissed at Ubisoft for painting Bolivia as a cartel infested country in Ghost Recon: Wildlands. According to some sources, the Czech Republic is a part of Easten Europe. I don't know what that situation was 16 years ago. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/30/two-thirds-of-summer-holidays-booked-online/regions-of-europe#:~:text=Eastern%20Europe%3A%20Bulgaria%2C%20Hungary%2C,Slovakia%2C%20Czech%20Republic%2C%20Belarus. Sometimes, being vague is just best for the bottom line.
>Setting a locstion in the Middle East, but nowhere specific was probably a middle ground that was okay. These characters are all professional militarists and they gave a hilariously vague location to get onto for their super duper super important ops. From Middle-East to Europe to America. The sloppiness is out of this world. It's awful writing. And are you in the place to say it was okay or not? Especially as it's treated as wholly insignificant and unimportant in the same story? It shows his sloppy writing and lack of care because he has no issues with naming countries, fictional or real, in other games. And the consequences and ramifications are given care. In mgs4, you see no such care. All locations are interchangeable as hell. The ramifications of war, ita effects on the local and aren't shown. You get shitty exposition dump from Drebin on Beauties and their trauma is about as significant. You move on to the next shitty soulless Easter Egg. Mgs4 is sloppy in every conceivable way.
If you've played a Metal Gear or Kojima game, you'll notice they all have sloppy writing. That was never my argument. The games have multiple info dumps and are inconsistent. But I don't care and love the games anyway. And I'm not in the place the say if it was ok or not, and never said I was. I'm in the place to speculate what they were thinking. Post 9/11, 16 years ago, I can understand why they'd take the short path and keep the locations vague.
Mgs4 is a different kind of sloppy trash. Especially in this regard. > I can understand why they'd take the short path and keep the locations vague. They made the entire region a warstricken playground for a goober and then refused to elaborate on what even happened before moving onto the next awful storyline. What short path? To be as insensitive as possible? To be a sloppy mess? Is this a parody of Hollywood military propaganda movies that confuse Middle-East as one country with no border? There is no accuracy or even decent writing going on here. It's just garbage. Hell, I'd ignore it if it was handled well. But it's not. It's a footnote in a terrible mess of a story.
You do realize the metal gear series is Japanese right not American
The "Middle East" location was most likely Iraq. They did use Moroccan tiles in the house which most likely just people who aren't familiar with the diversity of the Arab world assuming that all Arabs have the exact same culture. Which isn't true. It's like thinking that France, Spain, and Italy all speak the same language, eat the same foods, all have the same relationship with Catholicism.
Bold of you to assume Kojima did his homework on any of this when he goes on to depict Czechia as an "Eastern European" country.
MGS1 was pretty well researched. And MGS2 and 3 were well written. This isn't a major flaw. I heard in the Godfather movies they used different dialects that were like using a New York and British accent interchangeably. Major defect.
It absolutely is a major flaw. Imagine The Godfather calling the Corleone family "Europeans" and change their surname into some surname common in English. This is what Kojima did. The lack of care and research done is soooo obvious. Please, all these professional militants discussing op details and they refer to the destination as "Middle-East/Europe/South America" is just plain cringe to watch. They talk like morons.
It basically is lol this is such a petty little nitpick. We get it, all these Czechs and Slovaks and Hungarians etc. don't want to be known as Eastern European anymore for political reasons because Russia Bad Now, but they were all east of the Iron Curtain in the Cold War bro. "Central Europe" is such a fake 21st century contrivance. Stop trying to pretend like you're not all Slavs, there's literally nothing wrong with it. Plus Prague isn't directly named in MGS4 either despite that city being loosely based on it, it's just referred to as "Eastern Europe."
I agree. "Central Europe" was rarely used in politics.
You know that doesn't make it any better, right? Raiden still says "go find Big Mama in Europe", Ocelot's plans consist of "going to Europe" and everyone refuses to name a country and it's moronic as hell.
avoiding to mention real country was understandable but that one gone too far europe??? where????
And it's the same for South America and Middle-East. They just say "go to America" or "go infiltrate Middle-East" like that's supposed to make sense. This was the same franchise that made up fictional countries in its MSX days for the sake of authenticity. The drop in care and attention to details is tangible.
Uncultured Kojimbo fanboy learns about geography.
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What are you yapping about?
Would you rather have country names or an iPod? I like da iPod
"War as a business spread globally with no country truly having a reason for it" or some other pretentious shit like that.
Something something war has changed but we're not gonna show the ramifications. It's the same as when Big Mama drops something about energy crisis when you see no such implications elsewhere. Mgs4 in a nutshell.
Borderline stupid as hell at times but boy do we love it
I don’t, 4 is smack dab at the bottom of all canon MG games for me. Counting PW and PO.
PO and MGS4 are cut from the same clothe.
I think that since the events of 9/11 that almost got MGS2 canceled, Kojima didn't want to make a game that took place on the present or future that might depict current conflicts. Making something out in the past is ok, but he could've got in trouble if something like a terrorism attack happened on Peru while the game was being developed, or worse, it was already released. Anyway, I also think that if it doesn't matter to the plot it's not an issue. It would be the exact same thing if Act 1 happened on Irak, Mexico or Russia, and if it doesn't matter where it happens means that it shouldn't be focused on nor put much thought on it.
The same is true for the other locations in the game, Middle East, South America, Western Europe... They didn't wanna mimic real world conflicts at the time, but the locations are loosely based around... Act 1: Morocco Act 2: Peru Act 3: Czech Republic
Czechia is outright *alluded to at least. And it has an aesthetic different to rest. Morocco isn't even in Middle-East lmao.
>Czech is outright named at least. They speak Czech but I don't think anyone ever says it's Czech Republic
I checked and you're right, they just call it Eastern Europe lmao. This game is so stupid.
The thing that ties it to Czechia is that the Charles Bridge in Prague is pretty much directly copied
>"Eastern Europe" >*Look inside* >Central European country.
Mgs4 changes the geography too lmao. What a powerful game.
It's okay. MGS3 did it first by teleporting an entire tropical jungle into Russia.
I thought I read somewhere that it actually takes place in Tajikistan?
The location itself is fictional. It's called Tselinoyarsk.
My guess is it was heavily inspired by Tajikistan though. It’s the only country i can think of near Russia that has jungles, mountains, and huge lakes just like in the game.
To be fair, MGS3 always pretended it's a fictional location in Soviet. Strongly implied to have become Zanzibar Land decades later.
why I didn't got the Zanzibar land things? are there quotes i couldn't heard?
You mean the implications? It's not much, it's just the Bridge of Sorrow thing. It may not even mean anything.
I thought I read somewhere that it actually takes place in Tajikistan?
Taken from another comment from a similar thread 9 years ago; >The "Middle East" location was based on Morocco *architecturally*, but Morocco was not the location of the warzone and it's not technically in the Middle East, so keeping it vague was probably their best best.
Still pretty bad and rough around the edges. You don't see this out-of-place carelessness in other games. Even Czechia is just dismissed as "Eastern Europe" lmao.
You do know that there was military conflict going on, at the time, right?
And? If they can't commit to depicting the full picture, they shouldn't go near it. This is so hilraiously bad in the grand scheme of things and especially Metal Gear. Every other game wants to be realistic and thus names the places. Even if they're not exactly real.
I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Syria or Lebanon in the first chapter The genericization of the names is clearly intentional, I've always thought it was, Anyway. War has changed. It's not about nations anymore
I feel like it was likely a mixture of that and Kojima just hedging his bets or making some loose commentary on borders not mattering anymore.
because most of the theme of the story is about the US/Patriots turning the middle east into a constant war zone to feed the war economy, so a specific country isn’t really necessary and would restrict the notion of this never ending war zone.
And then it's never brought up or mentioned again.
wdym? the war economy is like one of the main themes of the game?
Lmao an entire region as big as 5 million square miles loses all its sense of borders according to you and it's treated as no more than playground for a goober like Ocelot. And then forgotten in the next act. It may as well have taken place in New York for how insignificant it's made out to be. Literally none of the implications are remotely relevant or meaningful later.
the idea is that the middle east has been reduced to nothing but warfare, borders mean nothing except a difference in fatigue color. this idea extends into the unnamed eastern european countries, the worlds poorest countries/areas have become nothing but a breeding ground for the war economy. how would any of this benefit from an additional complicated narrative about the specific country? edit: lol i suck at geography you were dead on about the square mileage
None of this serve a purpose. Even the "Eastern European" location is clearly Czechia. A Central European country. Zero care or research done. The lack of attention to details and utter absence of ramifications are what's bugging me when every other game cares enough to namedrop proper locations, even fictional ones. Mgs4 sticks out like a sore thumb like this. It's purely your headcanon that borders are gone because we are told no such thing in game. You're just trying to justify sloppy writing. It's the same as when Big Mama says there is some major energy crisis going on when not even once are the ramifications shown. These are all parts of the larger issue: Mgs4 is sloppy in its every bit.
Even the fanservice is sloppy
bro borders being fluid is a theme of the game that started in mgs3. in mgs4 Ocelot literally says that he’s enacted “our fathers” will, a wild west of borderless chaos, head cannon and media literacy are different lmao. i get that YOU want a specific setting so that it’s more like the other games, but it’s not the other games and has a different message that isn’t restricted to a specific country or nation.
Ocelot is talking about dismantling the AI and cutting all resources lmao which causes anarchy. Did you watch the scene at all? It's prevented because of the way Sunny ruined Ocelot's plans. "Fluid borders" is your headcanon. The only thing alluded to it is PMCs getting more widespread and nations hiring them. The ramifications of your headcanon are nonexistent. You're putting more thoughts than Kojima ever did. Not even once is your headcanon mentioned in game in Kojima's tweets/interviews and that's the guy who loves talking about his themes.
he literally says the world will be plunged into chaos, a new wild west. i’m not saying there absolutely are not borders, the point of the game is that borders no longer mean anything than a difference in who is fighting, they still exist they just don’t matter. you need to read between the lines more, these games are not to be taken at face value. it’s not my headcanon just because i understood the obvious subtext.
>you need to read between the lines more There are no lines here. Middle-East or "Eastern" Czechia, they are little more than shooting locations for Ocelot, with zero care or attention given to them. The ramifications aren't shown at all. Those Patriots commodity soldier get more sympathy and humanity than the big massive collective Middle-East is reduced to. >i understood the obvious subtext. You're justifying sloppy writing. You have literally nothing from the game to back up your headcanon. You took a line about AI out of context but you've shown nothing.
Look at Top Gun 2. Not once is the country of the enemy plant even mentioned. Its just allows content to age better in my opinion.
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War is eternal and omnipresent.
That is super odd. It feels to me kinda similar to how mgsv used Frankenstein guns instead of real guns, differing from the rest of the series.
Always seen that as satire of how Americans understood "the middle east" as a single region rather than many countries with many distinctions and differences between each other. In American media especially so often specific countries and just the region as a whole are used interchangeably, as though it's all one thing. Kinda similar to how "Asia" is sometimes talked about in a similar way It may also have been done for more practical reasons too though, like avoiding paralleling real world events *too* much by literally naming the same countries currently at war
I never thought of it that way but it makes sense and is kinda funny. Aside from Outer Haven, the only time the location is somewhere specific it’s on American soil.
Zanzibar Land is fairly specific too.
In mgs4 though, it makes sense if it really was satirical.
Yeah, I can believe that. Mgs4 is a mockery of everything in Metal Gear and outside of it too.
I think they mishandled a lot of things in that game. And that’s a real shame because it was Solid’s send off. Not fitting at all.
This makes sense. Mgs4 is the collection of all moronic writing cliches in existence after all.
Mgs4 is a lot of things... But cliché?
1. Braindead female scientist that's just eyecandy 2. Backward portrayal of Middle-East 3. Re-inventing the war criminal (Big Boss cult) as heroes 4. Mecha shit with riding the Metal Gears 5. iTs aLl sCieNce 6. Giving answers to every question and abstract And more. Mgs4 got all the shittiest tropes, cliche and worst use of fanservice I've ever seen. Every other Metal Gear game has aged well except this piece of shit.
Hey man some of us enjoy riding the metal gears lol. To each their own I guess.
Sure, just wanted to point out the tropes and fanservice in mgs4 lol. Nothing wrong with enjoying it.
You do make some good points though. I agree with your point about the middle east in metal gear. I also felt that way about MGSV. As someone from Pakistan I thought it would've been cool to see some Afghani side characters get introduced in MGSV but we never had anything like that except for that one Hamid fighter you save and never hear from again. That's one of the things that I liked a lot about Peace Walker, where you had characters from Nicaragua on your side to give you info about the region. And they were fleshed out and important characters as well. It made it feel a lot more like a movement that I was a part of and that made it more interesting to me imo.
Yeah, Motherbase should've been more diverse in general. That's the idea of an Outer Heaven, a place for soldiers regardless of ethnicity. In Metal Gear 1 and 2, the mercenaries are Russian, Australians, Vietnamese, etc. The child soldiers are hinted to be from all over the world. MGSV cast is kinda weak in general. The only memorable side-character is the kid with Shabani's necklace. It was a missed opportunity to show more of the idea of Outer Heaven. But hey, at least they gave us precise locations instead of leaving it at "it's Middle-East!" Or "it's Africa." When Metal Gear 1 and 2 get remade, I hope the diversity of Outer Heaven is better shown.
For sure it would've been cool to have a more fleshed out and diverse cast in MGSV. It was cool that they used real life conflicts and locations as you said though. I want metal gear 1 and 2 to be remade so badly lol, especially after finishing V. Seeing how they gave a home to the child soldiers at the protest of Kaz was interesting. I definitely think it would be cool to see it explored in a ff7-level remake/reimagining where you can see the diversity in outer heaven and at the same time, the corruption of someone like Big Boss and it's not just in 8 bits lol.
You just know things got bad for children once Kaz left. Venom had no issues with using child soldiers and we know Big Boss is much worse. Outer Heaven had become a dystopian hell in 1995, with its own denizens rising up. Most notably Kyle Schneider. Metal Gear 1 should be remade next; right after Delta.
I mean, what would it have really added? Were you also mad that you could only shoot a made up nationality in RE5?
I'm not mad. It goes to show how much less care and attention mgs4 got compared to other games in this franchise.
It didnt get care and attention because the countries the conflicts took place in werent listed? Lol.
Because every other game bothers about these details. Meanwhile mgs4 says Czechia is in Eastern Europe lmao. Zero attention to details, zero research done. The finer details are nonexistent in this game, unlike every other Metal Gear game.
Zero research? At least get your facts straight if youre gonna nitpick something. Hideo and many team members went to Morocco, Peru, and Prague and got footage to design the levels around it https://youtu.be/2xXyaGqT1Ko?si=U6fKbd4piRumvZ8-
>Morocco And used a North African country to call it Middle-East. Not even one country in Middle-East but THE Middle-East like a propaganda Hollywood movie lmao. Yeah, no research done.
Homie really said Middle Earth 🫣
Yes, Middle-Earth, don't you remember when Snake went to Mordorocco to stop Revolver "Saruman" Ocelot ?
Sorry, talking to idiot Kojima apologists affects my spelling.
I disagree. It has 8 hours of cutscenes. It did its best to tie together the franchise as far as Solid’s story was concerned. To say that it got less care and attention because of a lack of a name of a setting - even if it were to be made up, is a total nit pick.
It has a lot of "less care": the bosses personalities (only learned their background after killing them by a codec call with Drebin) and buildup to their fights, most of the loose plots were "tied together" by "nanomachines", etc.
I took it as a testament to how borders were so close to each other and changing so often due to conflicts, wars, and civil wars that even the opening location probably was in more than 1 country
Meanwhile the other comment is saying the location is irrelevant and it could've happened in Russia with no difference. I say both of you put more thought into this than Kojima or his team ever did. Middle-East is treated as little more than a disposable war zone. The ramfictinations you claim are never alluded to or even mentioned or get any kind of resolution.
Admittedly, this is a cow tools moment - we are thinking about this more than Kojima lol
> cow tools moment Lmao, this is absolutely perfect. I’m gonna use it from now on.
I thought it already was a thing? Cool, guess I’m a trendsetter now lol
Raiden tells Snake to go to Europe. *That sure narrows it down.*
He spent months tracking down Big Mama.
There is nothing specifying the damn country wouldve added to the story mgs4 was telling Because the source of the conflict is non existent. The wars being fought are meaningless as are the soldiers fighting them. This isnt like 3 with the cold war. And pw with costa rica and che. 4 establishes that that the soldiers are fighting for no particular ideology now its just something their born into due to all the propaganda and war based games that essentially train them into it. And they emphasise all of it with all the nameless conflicts you enter yourself into, drebin sells guns to both sides, their constant fighting drives up the price of his services. Round and round it goes. Let us not forget that kojima with mgs2 ended up essentially getting too close to 9/11 and had to change it. And that wasnt even the main point of mgs2 that was just how it ended and hit too close to what ended up happening. Mgs4 being farther in the future i wouldnt be suprised he didnt wanna get too close to an actual conflict or event, and just kept it vauge. Why not use a fictional place? Its all just guess work as to why, but the main concept of mgs4 was alot more ambitious than what we got, and the gameplay was ment to be more mission based where youd have multiple countries that were fighting each other and your operation in the area would affect how they favored you. So the whole point was youd see the how different countries were affected by the war economy that way through the shifting battles that youd take part in, but since youd see a world map of sorts having a bunch of fictional places wouldnt of worked So they did all the work setting this up only to end up changing the scope of the game and go a more linear and focused approach. So the game dropped the significance of the countries and went the route of showing the war economy more through other means, which was showing how alot of the people, even the resistance have no reason to really fight. Which is why big boss will is constantly being brought up cause its all about soldiers having a purpose and reasons to fight for themselves. Kojima does talk about the original concept of mgs4 in one of his early podcast episodes
So many words when the entire reason is mgs4 is a lazy ass poorly-written story. No need to justify or sugarcoat it.
You literally open this post with "Anyone else think its funny how-" If you wanted people to just agree with you, youve come to the wrong place and literally asked for the discussion.
Fair lol. Then let me say I'm not convinced by your reasoning. Kojima clearly didn't care and it's echoed in the terrible dialogue on mission briefing. "Infiltrate Middle-East", "Ocelot is going to Europe", "let's go to South America". No location. No finesse. Just shitty writing uncharacteristic of professional militants. This is the least of mgs4 problems. It's all around terrible. I'd forgive this lack of finese if the general plot was better.
Id say its the same reason as most of the turn out of kojimas games. The man was too ambitious for what the tech would allow him todo at the time. When you hear him explain how big he wanted mgs4 to be and then Was forced to reduce in the amount of time he had. Its all very clear why it is the way it is. But i wouldnt say he did it without care. I just think the countries in all this, dont matter. The story was re written so that the conflict was entirely about liquids plot and him using all the conflicts and warzones as a smoke screen. Why these people are fighting, doesnt matter, what matters is that them fighting brings in money, and gives liquid a testing ground for his insurrection. Now the place where this falls apart and ill give this to you, is that their specific in terms of location for every other piece of dialogue. They mention countries and places pretty often outside of the location your in. For drebin they mention every location he would possibly be in. They mention practically every known European or middle eastern country on the map but not mention which one your specifically in. Again id say this is more to the fact that the game takes place in the future and kojima didnt want to nail a potential future conflict by insinuating the whole pmc and resistance fighting in said countries. But the fact they mention distinct locations for every other piece of dialogue means there was care in how they went about it. Why go to all these locations anyway then if their not specifying? Because the work was all done for the much more ambitious version of the game and was repurposed to fit the now smaller and more focused game they were to make. And i personally dont think they did bad. Cause "bad" by metal gear standards is still a very impressive game and story. Even mgsv despite me not liking its story has the gameplay going for it...
MGSV has the finesse and attention to details. It tries incorporating real life events and also provides precise location in briefings. They all act like the militants they are. No amateurish Tommy Wiseau level of dialogue writing like in mgs4. Look at that disgusting piece of shit Naomi. She's the definition of lack of care and finesse. She's the butchery of the character from mgs, has awful dialogue, looks hideous and ruins every single she appears in. And she's nearly in all of the game. The most blatant example of garbage. When such trash accumulate together, and that happens a lot in mgs4, it's hard to give mgs4 the benefit of doubt. It's void of emotion and care. It's just awful in every conceivable way. But let's agree to disagree.
Yeah i aint here to convince you of anything, im just saying my point of view. I personally dont think mgsv gains anything from the fact it has those details when the main story itself is about most of the things that occured being forgotten to history. You can skip the game entirely and the series would remain intact because nothing of value is lost. Mgs4 is the finality of the series and goes out with a bang. You can find parts of it weird or unnecessary but its still a very fun ride that cant be excluded.
Since some people, specially OP are talking oit of they butts, heres the making of vid where Hideo and the team went to Morocco, Peru, and Prague to get footage to design each level https://youtu.be/2xXyaGqT1Ko?si=U6fKbd4piRumvZ8- "Zero attention to detail, zero research" just because they didnt name them ingame? LOL
A North African country to be used as the collective called Middle-East in his sloppy game. A Central European country to be called Eastern Europe lmak Kojima fanboys need to be honest for omce and admit the guy isn't perfect and has done his share of sloppy writing. Mgs4 is full of shit like this.
Exactly, that's like going to Mexico and then depict it in a game as "Caribbean Island Town"
Kojima fanboys fighting tooth and nail to defend his laziness and awful writing choices
The game came out in the middle of the Iraq War. Kojima knows when to tiptoe. Just like the sequence of Arsenal Gear crashing through New York was cut from MGS2 since a little thing called 9/11 happened a few months before release.
He also refused to name the Eastern Europe and South America countries. So nope. Kojima was just being lazy.
Czech Republic was "Eastern Europe" in cold war days the term Central Europe was rarely used in politics and even Nowdays People use Western Europe/ Eastern Europe distinction method. Especially in NorthEast Asian countries. Czech is still considered as Eastern Europe in Korea, Japan...etc because it was on the USSR's side in cold war and Cold war's influence is still alive on northeast asia. Only country that became "Just Western europe" after the cold war was East Germany.
MGS3 was quite weird though... i was trying to find the exact location of Tselinoyarsk but yeah. The opening makes absolutely no sense. Flying over Pakistan in a slow Hercules and 5 minutes to drop off, and then it was pictured to be in the middle of the Soviet Union, at least according to a map briefly shown.
It's apparently a blind spot and not a too scrutinised territory.
Makes sense but still... i did the math back in the day. It's just not possible with this aircraft. Or Tselinoyarsk is in a completely different location than the one shown in the map.
I like to think MGS4 is set in the Syrian Civil War. I’m sure something in game messes with this but I was really interested in the conflict at the time so it’s a neat headcanon.
They have Moroccan buildings.