10 Problems With The Metal Gear Series Nobody Wants To Admit

4. It's Crazy Sexist

Ground Zeroes, the prequel to Phantom Pain which got released as a separate title more to tide fans over than anything else, was the eye of the storm of a handful of controversies: for one thing, players were a little put out paying full price for what was essentially a demo that could complete in under an hour; for another, it took the series' often dicey characterisation of women characters to its illogical conclusion. An optional part of the climax to Ground Zeroes involved cutting a bomb out of a woman's womb. A woman who has previously been the victim of violent, explicit rape and torture. That's the most extreme example of the Metal Gear games and their generally terrible attitude towards women. It's a problem widespread in video games as a whole, but Metal Gear is particularly problematic in this respect. This is a series where you can use nudie mags as a way to distract guards, where the main female characters in most of the games are half-clothed at best €“ and in Phantom Pain, there's the worst in the form of Quiet, a teleporting sniper clad in bikini bra and ripped fishnets Hideo Kojima has described as alternately €œerotic€ and €œsexy€.