Hideo Kojima’s upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will not launch on February 24th, 2015, a Konami representative has confirmed.
Specific online retailers — Microsoft Store (which has now changed the date to “TBD”), SmartGameShopper and Rakuten — had changed their placeholder date for The Phantom Pain, fuelling speculation that the open-world stealth title would be available in Q1 of 2015.
User ToraShiro, a Konami spokesperson, took to a NeoGAF thread to dismiss the rumours that online retailers had the correct release date for The Phantom Pain.
“When I woke up this morning I certainly didn’t want to come in and smash people’s dreams,” he said. “That’s not why I’m here. But I’m also trying to fulfil my duty (heh) of being honest and as straightforward as possible with fans.
“Wish they hadn’t posted a date (especially a wrong date), but here we are. If anything I hope people realize that they should be wary when a retailer posts an unverified date unless corroborated by a publisher.”
The rumoured release date was too soon for The Phantom Pain to be available, considering that Kojima tweeted yesterday that more voice recording sessions are taking place for the title.
VO shooting again.pic.twitter.com/eQlCgumv77”
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 23, 2014
In other Metal Gear-related news, Kotaro Oki, the creative director on Metal Gear Online, had announced that the servers for MGO would be live simultaneously with the release of The Phantom Pain, while also revealing some of the new features and mechanics in the multiplayer mode.
Running on Kojima Productions’ Fox Engine, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is rumoured to launch in Q2 of 2015 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.