10 Longest-Running Video Game Franchises With The MOST Quality

Last but not least, yet another game that takes the core elements of stellar gameplay, compelling characters, incredible stories, and a very unique kind of charm then mushed it all under the purview of one of gaming’s greatest creators, Metal Gear should have always seemed like a sure thing.

While iconic game designer Hideo Kojima always seems to raise a few eyebrows when it comes to the eccentric way he can talk about his games, you got to admit he always pulls it out of the bag.

With an imagination beyond what most of us would think within human limits, Kojima and Konami set sail on the good, melodramatic, bombastic, beautiful and mad ship Metal Gear in 1987. After that point it would press the boundaries on plenty of assumptions about video games, namely that they couldn’t tell strong, complex stories, design intriguing characters, or create a focus on stealth that remained mechanically interesting and flexible to player input choices.

Beyond all of this, Kojima proved himself a master of video game cinema that would inspire countless creators to come, and whose games leant themselves to some of the greatest soundtracks made for gaming.

Eventually we realised this meant loving his games would mean settling in for dozens of minutes of cutscenes, but early on it was stunning. To be fair, later on it was stunning too, we just started to enjoy making a bit about it.

Grossing over a billion dollars and dominating the realms of comics, toys, and one regrettable post-Kojima-exodus survival game that we’ll pretend didn’t come out, just about every other game in the franchise has received incredible acclaim and it’s likely we won’t see anything else like it ever again.

I just realised I ended on the only franchise here that’s actually dead in the water. Or it should be. So let’s go back to laughing at Metal Gear Survive so I can end this one on a high.