Metal Gear Solid 4 launched almost four years ago to critical acclaim for its film-like presentation and expertly realized gameplay. There was another component to the game that didn’t get talked about as much, but was still popular with hardcore fans – Metal Gear Online.

Konami announced today that they will be taking Metal Gear Online offline on June 12. They chose June 12 as it is the exact day that Metal Gear Solid 4 launched four years ago.

Metal Gear Online was unique in that it felt like its own game apart from the single-player campaign in Guns of the Patriots. The game itself even recognized this as the multiplayer was accessed via a different main menu separate from the main game.

The multiplayer game took classic Metal Gear Solid concepts like stealth and hiding in cardboard boxes and applied them to team-based 16 player multiplayer gameplay.

Konami will be shutting down MGO services in tiers starting next month. The MGO online shop that sold new characters and costumes will shut down on March 21.

Starting April 24, MGO will no longer accept new registrations. As a thank you to all the players who kept the game going for the past four years, all expansion packs will be made available for free at this time as well.

The service will shut down for good on June 12. Be sure to get in plenty of playtime before then.

It’s nothing new to see servers for games being shut down, but those are usually sports titles that see annual releases. It’s sad to see Metal Gear Online go as it was something wholly unique in the world of online multiplayer.

I guess this just means that Konami wants us to move on to Peace Walker. I’m sure plenty of players will do just that.

For one last hurrah, let’s take a look back at some of the cool stuff Metal Gear Online offered: