Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Overview

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, formerly known as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, is the eighth game in the overall Metal Gear series announced by Hideo Kojima at E3 on June 1, 2009. It is also the first game set in the canonical Metal Gear universe to not bear the "Metal Gear Solid" branding since Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. The protagonist is Raiden, formerly the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and a supporting character in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Development of the game is being handled by PlatinumGames.

Hideo Kojima is set to produce the game, but unlike most other titles in the mainline Metal Gear series he is not the director. Kojima has said that this game will be created by some of his younger Metal Gear team staff. During production of this game, Kojima was busy writing and directing the PSP side story, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. It was announced on the Kojima Productions Report that the game will utilize a different engine than the one used in Guns of the Patriots.

Metal Gear Rising is all about slashing and cutting (as described by the Japanese symbol that the game is associated with), a step in a different direction from Metal Gear's usual stealth-action gameplay. The game's tagline is "Lightning Bolt Action", instead of the usual "Tactical Espionage Action." This is almost certainly a reference to the fact that Raiden is named after a Japanese thunder god. In Rising, you take control of Raiden as he fights against PMCs (possibly the same PMCs that Old Snake fought in MGS4). The game has you using Raiden's sword to eviscerate your enemies, and lets you slow down time to make incredibly precise slashes, allowing the player to rotate a 'cutting plane' to show which way he'll swing his sword; Raiden is so skilled that he can cut through nearly anything at any angle, giving the player free reign over what to cut and when.

Kojima Productions released a new picture of Raiden, with a different appearance than he had in MGS4, most notably now with blue eyes and and a slightly different skin tone.

A new official trailer for the game leaked on December 10th 2011, hours before it's scheduled appearance on the 2011 edition of the Spike Video Game Awards.

Development

GDC 2009

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was first initially hinted at during Hideo Kojima's debut 2009 Game Developers Conference appearance in San Francisco and specifically while delivering his keynote presentation. Which detailed the long development process of the Metal Gear franchise all the way up to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and ended with his concluding remarks of which were geared towards the future of the series'. Of which was embodied by a floating mock-up spelling-out "The Next MGS", which coincidentally enough just happened to prominently feature a Cyborg "Raiden-esque" character alluding to the series new direction.

E3 2009

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was then officially announced at Microsoft's E3 09' press conference. A teaser trailer was released by series' director Hideo Kojima, although Kojima will only being serving only as the executive producer for the game. Rising was initially only announced for the Xbox 360 but was later confirmed for the PlayStation 3 as well as the Games for Windows Live platform.

E3 2010

After a year long silence, Metal Gear Rising was once again shown at Microsoft's press conference. Hideo Kojima came on stage and then "passed the torch" to Rising's producer, Shigenbu Matsuyama. He then explains that the game is based on "Zan-Datsu". In Japanese, "Zan" (斬) means "to cut" and "Datsu" (奪) means "to take by force". Then a trailer was shown. The first part of the trailer showed Raiden infiltrating an enemy base and cutting a rather beefy cybernetic enemy to shreds, apparently absorbing energy of some kind from a dismembered segment of one of the robot's two spines. Then the trailer showed actual gameplay footage, in which the player takes control of Raiden and fights through a village similar to the one found in chapter two of Metal Gear Solid 4. The gameplay from the trailer suggests that Rising is far more focused on action, combat, and melee than the previous Metal Gear Solid games. Also, from the trailer, it looks like the player will be able to control how Raiden uses his sword in different ways, ranging from gorily and efficiently dismembering his opponents to benignly chopping a watermelon (a reference to the famous scene from MGS4 in which a Gekko confuses a box full of watermelons for Old Snake) into bite-sized slices.

Platinum Games Takes Over

In spite of numerous plot ideas and a variety of scenarios thought out for the game, Kojima Productions was still finding it extremely difficult to design a game mostly around thee inherent concept of cutting things. The project therefore was quietly cancelled in late 2010 due to lack of foreword momentum and whilst Kojima had considered moving the project to developers abroad, mainly of a Western nature he felt that a Japanese developer would still be more suited to produce a sword focused, ninja action game. Thus in early 2011, Kojima approached Tatsuya Minami, president & CEO of Platinum Games about reviving the cancelled project with them. Platinum Games accepted the challenge and took over development with Atsushi Inaba as producer, reworking the game from the bottom up using their own engine, whilst Kojima Productions handling cutscenes and story elements, revising the story to now take place after Metal Gear Solid 4 to reflect the new development style. This new revision, now titled Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, was first revealed via a trailer initially intended to exclusively premiere on the Spike Video Game Awards on December 10, 2011 though it was unfortunately leaked online hours before it's scheduled appearance.

The VGA reveal trailer has also revealed that Raiden will once again be voiced by Quinton Flynn, who had been previously quoted, saying Konami had yet to contact him regarding the game. The game's title was changed to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as well to reflect that it isn't part of the main Metal Gear Solid series, but is instead a spinoff that takes place after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Kojima also confirmed Rising will run at 60 frames per second, a requirement he personally requested to Platinum Games during the initial talks of their involvement.

E3 2012

According to a January issue of the Japanese gaming publication Famitsu, it appears that the new Platinum version of Rising will achieve what the Kojima Productions version never could, being playable at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

This particular issue of Famitsu also featured a conversation between Kojima and Platinum Games' CEO Tatsuya Minami and producer Atsushi Inaba. The three again reflected on how Platinum came to be involved in the Rising project.

Minami recalled that when the offer first came he thought it was a joke. Said Kojima in response to this, "Even though we were serious, we didn't get a response, so we asked a second time one year later." When for the first time they truly spoke about the collaboration, and according to Kojima, it all started during Sony's Vita announcement press conference.

The subject then quickly shifted to Rising's previous iteration, and it's divisive stealth component being the first thing Platinum tossed out from the game when taking over the project, revealed by Minami. Kojima then admitted that his staff felt that stealth and high speed action did not go well with one another, and that he personally did not want a stealth component in the game either. Nevertheless, reminding everyone-else once again that he has no direct involvement in development whatsoever.