Virtual reality



"War as a video game -- what better way to raise the ultimate soldier?"

- Solid Snake to Raiden

Virtual reality (VR) is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds.

Combat training
A virtual-reality program designed by the U.S. Army Force XXI program was developed to help train rookie operators and keep veterans sharp in the ways of combat, stealth, etc. The missions took place in a VR environment, so not only did it guarantee safety, but the programs could be edited to produce almost any situation possible. As a result, the missions could range from simple combat training, to fighting a flying saucer, and more advanced combat simulations. Most commonly, the virtual environment appeared as a generic grid-like platform, but real-life environments could also be uploaded.

The missions are generally divided into three modes: sneaking mode, weapons mode and alternative mode. Sneaking mode consists of simple sneaking missions, where the user is forbidden to use weapons and as such had to sneak past any simulated guards. In weapons mode, as its name suggests, the user can use weapons, but gains bonus points for unused bullets or for not "killing" the enemies. Finally, alternative mode contains an array of missions with different objectives so that the user can practice specific skills, such as bomb disposal or minding. Approximately 800 unique missions were conducted in VR training sessions by the time of the Big Shell Incident.

Besides VR training for direct combat, there were also VR training programs relating to areas within combat indirectly, such as piloting weapons.

However, there are some negative side-effects to VR training, such as leaving the user with a diminished sense of reality, as commented upon by Solid Snake regarding Raiden's comments about not being able to distinguish reality from fiction before the latter admitted that he was actually referring to field training from his days as a child soldier.

Other uses
Besides combat training, virtual reality was also developed for research purposes as well as for actual combat during the late 1990s, early 2000s. The former allowed for mechanized weapons projects, nuclear detonition projects (which also require sub-critical tests to acquire data for simulation) and other development projects to be completed at only one actual stage of the project rather than several.

History
Before the Shadow Moses Incident, most of the members of the Next-Generation Special Forces were trained using VR training, but had little or no actual field experience. Solid Snake also utilized VR training on the Discovery prior to being deployed to Shadow Moses Island to quell the terrorist revolt/nuclear threat located there.

The REX development team, prior to the 2005 takeover, utilized virtual reality to go through various prototype stages for Metal Gear REX and then correct several flaws in the design, of which the necessary supercomputers for the VR development program were located in the chief engineer, Dr. Hal Emmerich's main office. This by extension resulted in its development consuming far less resources than it would have othewise.

Because the cockpit for REX was entirely self-contained and indestructible, the pilot would utilize an environment similar to VR training to pilot REX, and get images via a radome, although it will be shut down if the radome is irreparably damaged, thus forcing the pilot to open up the cockpit and thus be vulnerable, a flaw that was deliberately engineered by Dr. Emmerich, as a means to ensure it had a weakness/"character flaw," and thus be "complete."

When the Metal Gear RAY prototype was being developed, pilots were required to have undergone VR training before piloting the mech. The Gurlukovich Mercenaries, learning of this development, had Ocelot undergo the proper VR training before their attempted theft of RAY, until Ocelot betrayed them during the attempted theft.

At some point between 2005 and 2009, Hal Emmerich underwent VR training with piloting the KA-62 civilian model, which by consequence allowed him to pilot the KA-60 Kasatka during the Big Shell Incident due to the two helicopters having similar controls.

Raiden underwent extensive VR training before infiltrating the Big Shell, having completed three hundred missions, including some relating to the Shadow Moses Incident and the Tanker Incident. However, he was unable to cover bomb disposal VR training prior to being dispatched to the Big Shell.

VR Training was succeeded by the SOP System by 2014. As the system allowed soldiers to gain the skills and senses of battlefield hardened veterans, without any combat experience or training at all, this proved much more efficient and time-saving, factors obviously important to the commercial PMCs. Otacon, however, created the Virtual Range based on the same concept, to allow Snake to practice his skills and test weapons he had acquired.

Although not VR training in the strictest sense, various PMCs often utilized first person shooter games distributed freely as a means of recruitment, according to Paradise Lost Army leader Big Mama.

Revengeance
During the events of 2018, after Raiden, now a Maverick agent, was forced to become a Cyborg Ninja again after sustaining injuries from an ambush from the PMSC Desperado, Wilhelm "Doktor" Voight, a German cybernetics surgeon hired by Maverick to operate on Raiden, developed a VR Training module to aid Raiden in getting used to his new cyborg ninja body.

In addition, a major plot point concerns the use of a VR version of the "Sears Program," the brutal training regimen that Raiden was subjected to as a child, to train disembodied brains harvested from homeless children for use as cyborg soldiers. Metal Gear EXCELSUS, like REX before it, also utilized VR environments and holograms as the pilot's means to the outside world.

VR mission terminals supposedly belonging to Desperado can be found throughout the game, though they are more a "gamey" bonus than a real aspect of the game world. Each unlocks an additional VR training mission; these resemble the Alfheim Portals of Bayonetta, each one a test of the player's skills under certain fixed conditions, with only default upgrades and equipment and the difficultly level set according to the challenge rather than according to player preference. Completing these time-ranked challenges gradually unlocks three stat-changing Custom Bodies for Raiden, while placing first in all of them unlocks the HF Long Sword weapon.

Behind the scenes
The Metal Gear Solid: Official Mission Handbook states that the VR training took place in Fort Knox.

In the non-canon game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (localized in the international releases as Metal Gear Solid), there were a set of VR missions, called VR Special Stages, that the player can accomplish after beating the game. After completing all of them, No. 4, the person responsible for guiding the player throughout the stages, will congratulate the player for completing them, and refer to him/her as "Jack", implying that the player character was Raiden, that No. 4 worked for the Patriots, and that the VR missions were actually a means to train Raiden to become better than Solid Snake as an insurance policy in case the latter turned against him.

In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Jack mistakenly refers to the Virtuous Mission as the "Virtual Mission" during a briefing, before being corrected by Major Zero.

The demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has Raiden going through areas that also seem to apparate, possibly implying that the levels were either VR Missions or even the Virtual Range. This was later confirmed in a video release of the gameplay tutorial. In the E3 and PAX demos, the VR training largely utilized a holographic representation of Abkhazia. It was changed in the released demo for Metal Gear Rising to a yellow VR environment with flat gridded textures, resembling the text textures used to ensure correct alignment in game development. The VR enviroment in the demo does not actually appear in the final game, and features a hidden Cardboard Box on a high walkway.

In a PlayStation Blog, it was revealed that the player can unlock additional VR missions from computers found throughout the game. It also revealed that completing each of the VR missions will result in some special rewards, although it elaborated no further on the subject. According to a leaked achievement/trophy list for Metal Gear Rising, unlocking, completing, and beating the high score of all VR missions in the game will reward the player with the achievements/trophies "Analysis Complete," "VR Master," and "Virtually a God" respectively. Besides the regular VR missions, there were also 30 DLC VR missions that were to be released for Metal Gear Rising, although they are only available for the PlayStation 3 version, presumably due to the Xbox 360 version's cancellation in Japan, although this is only the case with North America. They will also be distributed worldwide according to both Rising producer Yuji Koreikado and PlayStation Blog editor and Konami's Social Media Manager Dalton Link, and they also implied that there are more DLC VR missions in development than just thirty.

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid: Integral
 * Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
 * Metal Gear: Ghost Babel
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
 * Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance