Metal Gear Survive has microtransactions and requires constant online connection—report

Metal Gear Survive, Konami's Kojima-less game about staying alive in a zombie-infested desert, will offer players stat-boosting microtransactions and will require a constant internet connection to play, even in single-player, according to a report.

"Metal Gear Survive's online connectivity requirements were built to support a seamless integration between single player and co-op. This will also enable us to provide ongoing content post-launch," Konami told Gamespot.

Fair enough, but not everyone has access to a steady internet connection 100% of the time, and this could be a pain for those people, especially if they just want to play solo.

The presence of microtransactions is less surprising, given that Metal Gear Solid 5 had them. According to Gamespot, you'll be able to be able to pay real money for in-game currency (called SV coins), and then use that currency to buy temporary stat boosts, or increase the rate at which you earn 'Battle Points', which in previous games have been used to unlock equipment.

The game is due out next month. James played a hearty slice earlier this week, and wasn't too impressed. "A functional survival game," was how he described it, and it sounds like there's lots of annoying status bars to keep track of. Still, some of its ideas—like a map you have to fill manually by stamping on points of interest—sound interesting. Let's wait and see.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.