Metal Gear Solid 4 inbound and fully playable

By Stevie Smith Jan 14, 2008, 11:02 GMT

Kojima podcast reveals Metal Gear Solid 4 is fully playable and will be released almost simultaneously in Q2. Credit: Kojima Productions.

Neither publisher Konami nor developer Kojima Productions is prepared to offer up a concrete release date for the return of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, preferring only to dangle a vague "Q2 2008" before the drooling PlayStation 3 fan base - which has already suffered frustration with delay after delay for the massively anticipated title.

However, speaking in the latest Kojima pod cast, the game’s assistant producer, Ryan Payton, has offered up a little nugget of tantalising hope for expectant Metal Gear fans everywhere, reports ShackNews.

According to Payton, Guns of the Patriots is now in the "last push" of its production timeline, and is ready to move into the Q&A play test portion of its drawn out development. Payton also offers that the game is now fully playable, from start to finish, and that creator Hideo Kojima is eager to finally deliver on the game’s considerable promise.

"Mr. Kojima of all people is really committed to [the unspecified Q2 date] because he really hates to disappoint people," said Payton, "and I know he is embarrassed by what happened with the 2007 slip into 2008."

While outlining that a few features may yet still be added, most of the development team’s work has now been completed. He also revealed that Guns of the Patriots will ship worldwide upon its release, with only a few days passing between regional arrivals at retail, and could also be preceded by a huge Gears of War-style marketing drive (a la ‘emergence day’), which would likely include final release dates and details of game content.

While happy to utilise the Kojima podcast to add extra polish to the gleam on Metal Gear Solid 4, Payton notably dodged questions pertaining to rumours of the PlayStation 3 exclusive arriving on Microsoft's Xbox 360 platform.