Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 delisted from storefronts over archive footage license

Published , by Donovan Erskine

The Metal Gear franchise has a lot of parallels and commentary on our real-world, with some of its titles even using archival footage from actual events. Now, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, along with several other titles in the series, are being delisted from digital stores as Konami has lost the license to some historical archive footage shown in them.

Konami announced that several Metal Gear Solid games are being delisted over a licensing issue in a post to its website earlier today. Here are all of the games being removed and their respective storefronts:

These games have been pulled from stores, effective today. That said, Konami says that it is “currently working on renewing the licenses for select historical archive footage used in-game.” The games being delisted means that players will no longer be able to purchase and download them from stores. That said, if you already own the games, you can still launch and play it whenever you like.

The delisting also has no impact on the sale or use of physical copies of the games. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a major game get pulled from storefronts over an expired license. It’s one of the drawbacks of going fully digital with games. For future updates on the Metal Gear Solid games and their potential return to digital stores, stick with Shacknews.