Shigenobu Matsuyama has a tough job ahead of him. Introducing a new stand alone Metal Gear Solid series without Solid Snake, a tagline of “Lightning Bolt Action” indicating a more action and less stealth oriented title, and main character who, to date, has been most mysterious all adds up to one thing: high expectation. Matsuyama-san isn’t to be Hideo Kojima – and in a recent interview he shares a few reasons for why he is taking his MGS series off in a bold new direction.
Matsuyama-san revealed a few new details surrounding Raiden’s strengths and weaknesses:
“Raiden’s weakness is his self, his will. His strength, from the story side, is he’s grown up as a trained child soldier. Now he’s become one of the strongest soldiers you see in the MGS series.”
“For the weakness, about the will, in the team we call it “himself”. We want to put this on a theme that he will try to go through his weakness, to go through his will. It’s one of the themes we’re thinking we want to put in the plot.”
Another interesting tidbit from the interview, was the target audience. “It’s a game for adults. Therefore I didn’t want to lie”, Matsuyama-san said when asked about the violence in the trailer. Along those same line’s of violence, Matsuyama-san is aware of how a “hack-and-action” title as he now calls it like his could be compared with Grand Theft Auto. When talking about Grand Theft Auto, the Producer said this:
“It’s not influential – maybe it’s influential in a way – but what was shocking was a title like Grand Theft Auto. I never realized the freedom of any other games. You could go anywhere. You could do anything. It was fun, but at the same time I felt a fear of what the people would do and how they would react. When I saw that title I thought, as a creator, there was going to be a hell of a lot of risk involved. As I create Rising, and going back to the freedom to cut humans, I always have Grand Theft Auto and that shocking feeling in my mind.”
Matsuyama-san then mentioned one of the core philosophies of the game – and why dismemberment is not the focus in Rising:
“So, in Rising, you might make a mistake. You might try to get just his weapon but you might cut his hand, and then you’re surrounded more and you’re in a more difficult position. Or, you’re trying to do the zan-datsu, you’re trying to cut the mechs and get the batteries out. But if you make a mistake, you can’t get that item out.
I want to make people learn from their mistakes. That’s one of the philosophies I have.”
Metal Gear Solid: Rising is still aways off. But in the interim, Shigenobu Matsuyama is maximizing his time to bring fan’s a unique and different experience. At E3 210 in an interview he stated he would continue to be vocal about the game; let’s what we find out at his next big opportunity: Tokyo Game Show 2010.
[Source]
