Hideo Kojima knows fans thought Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes was too short, as he thinks back to negative comments: “‘Why would they sell a trial version even at a low price?'”

It’s been 11 whole years since Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes first released, and director Hideo Kojima still clearly remembers the criticism the short stealth game received at launch as he looks back on its negative comments and lower review scores.

Ground Zeroes serves as a prologue to the other Metal Gear Solid 5, The Phantom Pain, with the Steam description proclaiming that it “gives core fans the opportunity to get a taste of the world-class production’s unparalleled visual presentation and gameplay before the release of the main game.” As Kojima writes in a tweet celebrating the anniversary (which has been machine translated), the experimental installment was “originally planned” to show off Konami’s proprietary Fox Engine and “open-world infiltration” gameplay.

Beyond that, Kojima reminisces, Ground Zeroes introduced new gameplay elements – in fact, he says “as many gameplay elements as possible were included.” At the end of the day though, this didn’t rectify the main criticism of the game – its length. With a two-hour main story, Ground Zeroes is an undeniably bite-sized experience – HowLongToBeat may list it as a 21-hour game for completionists, this is still significantly shorter than its follow-up, with The Phantom Pain’s main story alone being around 45 hours long.

Kojima notes that now, over a decade on, Ground Zeroes is looked at much more favorably, but it debuted as the lowest-rated main game in the Metal Gear Solid series. An average Metacritic score of 75 is still nothing to be sniffed at, but its director clearly knows what caused it, pointing to comments that questioned, “‘why would they sell a trial version even at a low price?'” At launch, you could expect Ground Zeroes to cost up to $40, so it was always going to be a considered purchase if you value a lengthy runtime.

These days, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is significantly cheaper to buy even when it’s not on sale, which probably helps remedy these complaints. Kojima is clearly pleased to see so many people love the game today, though, as his Twitter profile has been filled with retweets of fans sharing their praise and lengthy playtimes, with some going well above 100 hours – so much for a “trial version,” huh?

For more games like Metal Gear Solid, be sure to check out our list of the best stealth games you can play right now.