Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Metal Gear Solid: Rising is a cancelled game that was intended to be the ninth title in the Metal Gear series. Originally announced at E3 2009, 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 development of the game over to Platinum Games who revamped the entire game.

The game was to star Raiden and was to be set between Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Kojima was the executive producer while Shigenobu Matsuyama was the original producer but was replaced by Yuji Korekado prior to the game's cancelation.

Gameplay
Metal Gear Solid: Rising 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 revolved around Raiden literally taking power from enemies, a concept shown in the trailer as Raiden absorbed the power from a robotic soldier's intestinal battery. This concept of "taking" was not limited to power; intelligence essential for a mission objective might also be taken from enemies, as well as other components. The game was also to feature a slow motion element that would aid in the accurate cutting mechanic, this would be carried over into Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as Blade Mode.

Plot
Set between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, Rising was going to explain how Raiden became the character that he did in Metal Gear Solid 4. The story was said to be darker than Metal Gear Rising and would depict Raiden rescuing Sunny from the Patriots. Several of the Unmanned Gear enemies seen in Metal Gear Rising (most notably the Mastiff enemy), as well as Boris Vyacheslavovich Popov were to be included in the game.

Pre-announcement
Prior to Metal Gear Solid: Rising 's announcement in 2009, the concept of Raiden getting a starring role in Metal Gear Solid 5 was jokingly stated by Rosemary and Raiden in the Secret Theatre film Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser, included on Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. At the time the film was released, Metal Gear Solid 4 was considered to be the last game in the Metal Gear franchise.

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

Kojima affirmed that he would have preferred Gray Fox rather than Raiden as the main character during the pre-production of the game, but that the studio was more akin to Raiden. Kojima also said that he was looking for a production job, not a direction job, and that couldn't have been done if Gray Fox were the main character.

Sean Eyestone, the host of Kojima Productions' podcast, stated that Rising 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 members of the Beauty and the Beast Unit, based on an unused concept by Yoji Shinkawa for Metal Gear Solid 4, which appears in the Master Art Works book. The robot that Raiden kills at the beginning of the trailer has the same footwear as Vamp and the FROGS, which suggests that these robots may have utilized the same technology to traverse walls and roofs. The trailer also featured the first gameplay footage, and a Peace Walker poster can be seen when Raiden destroys the building. An official site for the game was also unveiled, where the robot was later identified as a Mastiff, per recent blueprint artwork accessible via passcode. 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."

During development, it was also considered that Raiden would have received different voice actors for the game. It was mentioned that Raiden's Japanese voice actor would have been Toshiyuki Morikawa instead of his usual voice actor, Kenyuu Horiuchi, and Quinton Flynn, Raiden's English voice actor, tweeted during its development that he wasn't asked to reprise his role, indicating that the same would have happened in the North American version.

A Dwarf Gekko made a brief appearance in the TGS 2010 tech demo, holding things for Raiden to slash, such as watermelons, bowling pins and even another Scarab. This particular droid was called "Kogekko."

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. Prior to the cancellation, however, the boss concepts and the script was completed.

The project was then given to Platinum Games, resulting in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Some aspects that were to appear in this game, such as Zandatsu and the character of Boris, would be retained in Metal Gear Rising.