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Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Slicing and dicing with Kojima Productions.

Eurogamer You say you don't want people to have to have played previous Metal Gear games. Would you agree the Metal Gear plot's become a bit too mental? Will Rising have fewer, shorter cut scenes than in Kojima's Metal Gear games?
Shigenobu Matsuyama

You're exactly right about the complexity of the MGS series world and universe. Yes, the cut-scenes will be shorter!

I'm not saying the story is not important, but that was specifically tailored by Hideo Kojima. Since I'm not him, I'm not going to base my game on a very heavy scene. The story will not be in the centre. It's more katana action. I have to play a different style.

Don't get me wrong, the story will be there, because I believe a good-quality story background will always be needed in these kind of titles.

Eurogamer How will you express Raiden's speed in the gameplay?
Shigenobu Matsuyama

It's very difficult to come up with good ideas and good ways to express the quick action. I'm always saying that something makes a game too complicated to control. I'm always saying MGS Rising should be intuitive for the novice players to play as well, and you should have a great feeling when you're using the katana.

So, I'm saying to the team don't try and make it so complicated because that's not the ultimate style I'm aiming for. That's the difficult part. We have great ideas, but if we chuck them all in the controls will be too difficult. So we have to decide which go in and which do not.

The rather brutal MGS: Rising reveal trailer.
Eurogamer The reveal trailer was pretty brutal. Why did you make it so violent?
Shigenobu Matsuyama

One reason is impact was needed because it's a new title. But the thinking behind the violence is more complicated and well thought. First of all, there should be more freedom in a game, I thought. The freedom to do anything I thought was important.

In the game you don't have to play like the trailer. We do not recommend you play like the trailer. There are more enemies: mechanical enemies, and there are humans too. And the theme, zan-datsu battle, meaning to cut and to take, you cannot do that from human enemies. Hunting stealth can be done from the mechs and cyborgs that appear in the game. If you cut and slice human enemies you will have no reward at all. The game will not be designed so that you have to do so in order to clear it.

But the freedom is there. It's very interesting, because you could be so precise. You could cut just the weapon of the human enemies and make them not fight any more. If you make a mistake, you might cut their hand, and you'll feel like, oh, I really made a mistake. I'm not saying this will be a game for children. It's a game for adults. Therefore I didn't want to lie. If you make a mistake something will happen in order to make it real and make you feel it's real as well.

That kind of image from the trailer you saw I thought was needed. But again, that trailer is almost an exaggeration of what you could do. We're not going to persuade people to do that.