Board Thread:Metal Gear Solid V/@comment-42.2.187.80-20150911172559/@comment-1672596-20151024115210

Bluerock wrote: 0nighthawk0 wrote: Gotta ask on a source where Kojima confirms that this novel is canon, because that would be a first I think. Considering the novels (graphic or otherwise) tend to be disclaimed as canon due to their differences to the games. Anything that conveys Hideo Kojima's core message he will often consider "canon," whether or not it differs in the specific details from the original game. What most people forget is that how fans approach "canon" and how Kojima approaches "main story" are not the same. At present, the Wiki's de facto canon policy is that where novel adaptations differ from the game are considered "unconfirmed/what if?/alternative" scenarios, whose story portrayal the reader can choose to either acknowledge or ignore. In the end, the message that "Quiet leaves permanently to avoid Snake and Diamond Dogs coming to harm" is all that really matters.

Kojima's thoughts are less "this book is definitive canon," and more "this book conveys the message I was trying to get across in the game." So, does that mean that we should include the MGS4 novelization as part of the "canon" (put in quotes to emphasize what Kojima meant by that and not the traditional definition) instead of put in the unconfirmed canon section? He did indicate that Project Itoh conveys the core message he was trying to get across in the story.