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Download (End Card Acoustic Short: It Has To Be This Way)

This one was intended to be the 2023 premiere, but when Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit needed some more time in oven… it had to be this way.

This song has been creeping up the GaMetal Song Ballots from the past couple of years. In 2021, it placed at #25 overall, and helped bring the Metal Gear series as a whole up to the #7 most requested new-to-GaMetal series position. In 2022, it grew ever stronger, placing at #8 overall (song), and Metal Gear as a whole placing at #2 most requested new-to-GaMetal series (we haven’t gotten to #1 yet… maybe later this year!).

Most years, I put together a shortlist of songs to choose from for the end of year finales and beginning of year premieres. This wasn’t the first song I put on the shortlist (in fact it was probably the 4th or 5th), but when I was choosing what to do after Roche Limit, I knew I had to go with something extremely hype, and It Has To Be This Way fit the bill more than any other.

Even though it was probably the most difficult song to put together last year, I was really happy with how The Stains of Time turned out, so I was looking forward to putting this one together. It’s arguably one of if not the most popular song from MGR:R (thanks to, you know… the meme, lol), and is actually a far ‘easier’ (I say that very lightly as it still took a ton of work) song than TSoT. I didn’t add too much, just repeated the chorus section and sent the second chorus straight back into the ‘bloodstained sands’ section, but with the lyrics changed to ‘it has to be this way’.

Plus, I was able to provide you with this, and that’s always fun: