Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is an upcoming game in the Metal Gear series. Originally announced at E3 2009 under the title Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the game went through a long development process at Kojima Productions, who struggled to fully develop the game. At the beginning of 2011, Hideo Kojima decided to hand the production of the game over to Platinum Games who revamped the entire game. This switch in developer was formally announced on December 10, 2011. The game will be released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

The game will star Raiden and will be set some time after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Kojima will be acting as executive producer with Yuji Korekado from Kojima Productions and Atsushi Inaba from Platinum Games producing. The team have yet to formally announce the director of the game.

Stance in the Metal Gear canon
"We've only said that the period setting is several years after MGS4. Metal Gear Rising is not part of the Metal Gear Solid series. At present, we can't say more than this."

- Hideo Kojima on Twitter.

Rising will not be a proper title in the MGS series.

Characters
Raiden "Raiden in MGS4 was received very well, and I wanted to keep going with that direction in Rising. The people who liked him in 4 will like him in this, but it’s a personal preference."

- Hideo Kojima, January 2012.

Plot
According to the English Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance website, the main premise of the story is that Raiden has been contracted for VIP protection, military training, and other duties by a Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) in a developing country piecing itself back together after a bloody civil war, but then the country is suddenly overrun by cyborgs, forcing Raiden to go back to battle again. The trailer also implies that he may have reverted back to his "Jack the Ripper" persona, and that some cyborgs in black suits and shades with similar high frequency blades to Raiden will be involved in the story.

Original version and cancellation
Hideo Kojima officially announced Metal Gear Solid: Rising at Microsoft's E3 2009 press conference, after running various countdowns for the announcement on a Konami website. Kojima stated that he became involved with Rising because "it's a completely different kind of action than what has appeared in the series so far" and also stated that he would be more involved in the development of the game than a normal video game producer would be. Kojima had specifically said that he would not be directing, as he wished to pursue other projects.

The original version of the game was based around a concept known as "zan-datsu", literally "cut and take." The game's original director Mineshi Kimura explained in a Konami press conference that the "take" part revolves around Raiden literally taking power from enemies, a concept shown in the trailer as Raiden absorbs power from a robotic soldier's intestinal battery. This concept of "taking" is not limited to power; intelligence essential for a mission objective may also be taken from enemies, as well as other components.

Sean Eyestone, the host of Kojima Productions' podcast, stated that the game would feature an entirely new game engine, which was later revealed as being Kojima Productions' own Fox Engine. At E3 2010, the debut trailer for the game was shown, featuring Raiden facing off against a robotic soldier bearing a similar appearance to the Haven Troopers and the Beauty and the Beast Unit, and the first gameplay footage was shown. An official site for the game was also unveiled. Kojima also stated that Rising would play like a mainstream European and North American-style game and as such he felt that "it doesn't matter if it lacks the message aspect of a MGS game I'd make."

In August 2011, it was revealed that Rising would be absent from the 2011 Tokyo Game Show. According to Eyestone, the reason for the game's absence was so that the development team could spend their time on the game itself rather than a trailer or creating a one-off for an event. Kojima reportedly became more involved, and replaced Shigenobu Matsuyama with veteran Kojima Productions staff member Yuji Korekado as the producer of the game.

However, believing the project would not get completed, Kojima secretly cancelled Rising.

Platinum Games' involvement
At this point, Kojima Productions had already fleshed out many areas of the game such as the story and motion capture work. Eventually, Platinum Games expressed its passion for the project and offered its services in reinventing and completing Rising.

On December 2011, Kojima and Platinum Games producer, Atsushi Inaba attended a special Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Q&A session. They talked about the reason behind Kojima Productions' absence in developing the game. By the time development started, Kojima allowed his younger staff to develop the game by themselves, and he took a hands-off approach. That didn't turn out too well, as the less-experienced staff decided to try to make a game in which Raiden could cut anything, including enemies, large vehicles, and buildings. The team ran into a roadblock, and the game apparently sat in limbo for about six months starting around May 2010. Although they weren't too clear on the timeline, Kojima said that Platinum Games started work on the title in late 2010/early 2011.

Kojima did consider many different developers, even Western ones. However, he thought that since the focus of the game was the katana, a Japanese developer would do it best. Kojima joked that if he let a Western developer work on the game, he might come back a year and find that they had attached a gun to a chainsaw as the main weapon.

Inaba stated that he wants "…everyone to be happy that Platinum Games got involved." He also said that his job is to take the concept and make something fun, and that he wants to meet Hideo Kojima’s expectations, but he also wants to do what he wants to do. "If my team wasn’t passionate about Metal Gear Solid, then we wouldn’t have been able to start the project." Inaba said that he is aiming to make the game fun, and to have depth and high-speed action.

Metal Gear Rising was actually not Kojima's idea. It was his staff's. He said that if he were to choose between making a game with guns or katanas, he would probably choose guns.

The game's title was changed to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance to reflect that it isn't part of the main series, but instead a spinoff that takes place after Metal Gear Solid 4.

Since the shift in developer, the concept of "zan-datsu" has been downplayed, and the game will focus more on a "cutting feels good" mentality. The gameplay is less stealth oriented, and is more akin to Platinum Games' other projects (most notably Vanquish) where the player will take on large groups of enemies, ranging from cyborg soldiers, Gekko and a new look Metal Gear RAY with blades on its arms. One notable aspect of the game is that it features no human enemies. All the soldiers Raiden faces in the game are cyborgs, so as to avoid the game being banned in Japan.

Kojima has also confirmed Metal Gear Rising will run at 60 frames per second, something he personally requested. The original version of the game was set to run at 30 frames per second.

On December 10, 2011, Kojima unveiled a new trailer of the game at the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards. The new trailer unveiled the new look for the game, and formally announced to the world that the game was being produced by Platinum Games known for making more action oriented games like Bayonetta and Vanquish. The trailer featured a starkly different tone to previous Metal Gear trailers, featuring a more hard rock driven soundtrack and less emphasis on the stealth aspects with more focus on the newer, action orientated style of gameplay. One such aspect features Raiden fighting a Metal Gear RAY, grabbing a hold of one of its "arms" and throwing into the air. Another sequence showcased Raiden fighting an unknown enemy on a speeding train in a tunnel, with Raiden running along the walls of the tunnel to keep up with the train. The last seconds of the trailer reveals a new tagline and logo for the game; the new tagline being "Revenge with a Vengeance" which is cut to simply say "Revengeance." The new logo reveals the game is now simply titled Metal Gear Rising, with the subtitle Revengeance below it. In addition, the KojiPro Report also revealed that the plot setting had changed to be happening after Metal Gear Solid 4, and that Platinum Games will end up using the opportunity to create content based on their own ideas.

On December 14, KojiPro released a new 25-minute documentary onto the newly revamped website which goes into more detail behind the shift in developer. They also stated that the game will no longer be running on the Fox Engine.

Hideki Kamiya, the director of Bayonetta has denied any involvement in the development of Metal Gear Rising.

New staff
Yuji Korakado, a vetaran on the Metal Gear Solid will supervise the title for Kojima Productions alongside Platinum Games Atsushi Inaba as Platinum attempt to refocus the title to get it to the finish line.

Platinum will handle all the game design and coding duties working around the story, cutscenes and voice acting sessions put together by Kojima Productions and using the extensive character design work carried out by Kojima Productions' Yoji Shinkawa.

Konami GM Martin Scheider explained: "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a new direction. There was the urge for something new and thus Inaba-san's unrivalled knowledge of the action genre, and Korekado-san's knowledge of the Metal Gear Solid universe, combined with Kojima Productions' standard for excellence ensures Metal Gear Rising: Revenegeance is in safe hands."

Trivia

 * Raiden being a playable character in another Metal Gear game was foreshadowed in the release of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. In one of the Secret Theatre short films, titled Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser, Raiden travels to the past to kill Big Boss which would prevent Solid Snake from ever existing and allow Raiden to be the main hero of the series. In Raiden's full attempts, he fails in succeeding the task, and the comedic short film ends with Rosemary stating "...there is going to be a 5, right?" At that point in time, Metal Gear Solid 4 was still in development. After the completion of Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was originally known as Metal Gear Solid 5.
 * It should be noted that the robot that Raiden kills at the beginning of the E3 2010 trailer has the same leggings as Vamp and the FROGS, which suggests that these robots may utilize the van der Waals force to traverse walls and roofs.
 * The trailer features a poster for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker when Raiden destroys the building.
 * A Scarab made a brief appearance in the TGS trailer, holding things for Raiden to slash, such as watermelons, bowling pins and even another Scarab. This particular droid is called "Kogekko."
 * The robotic soldier seen in the E3 2010 trailer appears in Yoji Shinkawa's Metal Gear Solid 4 Master Art Works book as an unused concept for the Beauty and the Beast Unit.
 * In the poster for Metal Gear Rising, Raiden's appearances in both Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 can be seen in the reflection of his sword.
 * The MIB in Revengeance trailer wield Raiden's MGS4 HF Blade.

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