This recently released video provides a truly eye-opening interview with Hideo Kojima and developers from both Kojima Productions and Platinum Games, explaining the foundations of Rising and how Platinum Games became involved. 




According to the original dev team, their ideas, namely the decisions to make Raiden’s sword cut anything, while adhering to Metal Gear Solid traditions AND setting the game’s timeline between MGS2 and MGS4, were simply not coming together.

In 2010, Hideo Kojima learned of these difficulties and handed Rising over to Platinum Games, who completely re-worked the formula and made the game their own. The timeline has also been set after MGS4 in order to give the new developers complete freedom. Kojima appears more than happy with the fast-paced hack ‘n’ slash action variant and input from Kojima Productions seems half-hearted and submissive.

It’s a shame that the ‘cut at will’ feature caused all this trouble around it, for if they’d just gone with improved series’ traditions instead of re-inventing it, it could well have been salvaged as another stealth/action addition. While it’s mutually agreed among those involved that it’s a spin off, Metal Gear Rising doesn’t, at this point, provide anything unique to the series that fans would take an interest to.


~Alex