Controversy

Shortly before the release of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops , someone on the internet discovered a song by Classical Russian composer Georgy Vasilevich Sviridov, named The Winter Road. The Metal Gear community was in an up-roar at how similar the song was to the MGS Theme, and requested the song be shown to Hideo Kojima. Eventually, a YouTube video emerged of a group of people showing the song to Hideo, with Hideo giving a very surprised reaction.



Eventually in an issue of the videogaming magazine "EGM" it was revealed via an interview with Norihiko Hibino that the theme was indeed changed due to the fact that "Konami had legal problems with Russian composers who said [they] stole their music".


The motif was removed from the MGS3 theme on the 20th Anniversary Music Collection (the song switches to "The World Needs Only One Big Boss!" from MGS2, at the point the melody originally began).

As aforementioned, the original Portable Ops theme featured the motif. The song was, however, still used in the game though without the motif, therefore consisting entirely of original music, and appeared on the Portable Ops soundtrack as Show Time.

Code extracted from Super Smash Bros. Brawl showed that this theme was originally supposed to be among the "My Music" tracks, but was later removed, possibly as a result of the controversy. The theme was also not included in Metal Gear Solid 4, although Harry Gregson-Williams' new motif (originally used in MGS3) was remixed by him as an independent song, carrying the title Metal Gear Saga.