Yes, you really do have to pay for an extra character slot in Metal Gear Survive

Konami's Metal Gear Survive - the first in the Metal Gear series since creator Hideo Kojima's departure - is out in the UK today. It's an okay video game! But it also contains one of the more bizarre - and perhaps obnoxious - examples of microtransactions I've seen in a full price video game to date.

Metal Gear Survive contains a second currency powered by 'SV Coins' - coins that can only be purchased with real money - which enable access to XP boosters during your playthrough. All fairly mucky stuff, really, and nothing I'd condone - cosmetic items, at a push, are okay, though if you're willingly breaking your own game in exchange for cold hard cash I think you're admitting your progression system might be kind of broken already - but Metal Gear Survive does something fairly new to me.

In exchange for 1000 SV coins - around £7.99, seeing as that's how much a bundle of 1150 coins will cost you - you unlock access to an additional character slot. And that's the only way you can access an additional character slot.

It's a baffling choice, really - this isn't the kind of game you'd want to grind through with different characters, seeing as you're never locked into one particular build, though why option is then locked out behind a paywall seems only to invite ire. Which, given the heated emotions surrounding Konami's first post-Kojima Metal Gear, it inevitably has. A small shame, really, as beyond such bullshit there's a half decent Metal Gear game to be found in Survive.