Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater launched for PS5, Xbox, and PC in August, but it wasn't the full experience. Although it included a lovingly recreated version of the classic campaign, Konami decided to delay the Fox Hunt multiplayer mode until a later date.
Now, after months of waiting, Fox Hunt has finally been released with a free update. This update allows up to 12 players to battle across a variety of maps inspired by the main narrative. You take on a number of different disguises while engaging in Hide and Seek gameplay, in which you must kill, extract, and steal valuable amphibian assets from your enemies.
Instead of implementing a traditional multiplayer mode, it feels like Konami tried to give Fox Hunt its signature Metal Gear Solid flavor, and the results speak for themselves. That's why it's even more unfortunate that he was sent away to die without any apparent promotion.
The modern gaming landscape is one obsessed with temporary trends. A random indie can appear on Steam and attract hundreds of thousands of players in a week, but it could become a distant memory in record time as we all move on to the next big thing. The same logic applies to triple-A blockbusters, play them, talk about them for a bit online, and then move on.
There are few exceptions, such as a few live service behemoths and video games that can build fandom beyond the initial experience. Gems like Baldur's Gate 3 or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 push the boundaries of the medium and show exactly what developers can do when they're not constrained by capitalist publishers. If you don't strike while the iron is hot, you will suffer the consequences because people don't care.
Fox Hunt launched last week with minimal marketing and no crossplay support. This means that hardcore fans looking to find a match have had a hard time doing so and not been able to fully experience parts of the game they were looking forward to.
Things have stabilized since then, but I'm having a hard time seeing a world where Fox Hunt is seen as anything more than a niche part of a game that already feels geared toward a specific brand of Metal Gear Solid fans. That's a shame, because there's tremendous potential here. It sounds like it would be really fun to be able to use different environmental disguises and different weapons and items you discover against other players in the campaign.
Unfortunately, the gameplay also seems a bit unpolished. Players on Reddit are acknowledging that not only did Konami appear to have sent Fox Hunt to its death due to a rude launch, but much of it feels woefully unbalanced at the time of writing.
It runs poorly, the netcode is bad, the maps are too small for the number of teams needed for certain modes, the kill times are ridiculous, and the random rewards make progression feel like unnecessary tedium. My biggest concern is that there won't be a large enough audience for Konami to care about future quality of life updates.
It's likely that Fox Hunt will die with its small community of players holding on for dear life, recognizing the greatness it could have inspired had things been different.
In an ideal world, this would have been the next version of Metal Gear Online. In other words, it will be an unorthodox multiplayer game with distinct mechanics, modes, and progression that will make it stand out among the countless imitators. Konami may have missed the boat on this one, and that breaks my heart.
