Kojima discusses some of the cinematic choices in MGS4

During the conversation between Jordan Vogt-Roberts and Hideo Kojima at E3 2018, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was brought up when discussing Kojima’s cinematic choices in his games. Jordan asked Kojima about the Raiden versus Gekkos fight at the end of Act 2, and how that was conceived. Kojima explained that during production, the choreography was clarified using dolls. ‘Their movement is impossible to achieve for people, so we were doing it endlessly with the dolls, talking with people: alright, this goes there, and we’re going to try to do this… it took quite a bit of time.’ Kojima added that he likes to do everything in one shot, but for this scene that would take away from the sense of speed.

He was also asked about his use of splitscreen in MGS4. There are two instances where splitscreen was used. The first is in Act 4 (Shadow Moses), where on one half Raiden is fighting Vamp on top of REX while the player is controlling Snake on the other half, fighting off hordes of Gekko. Kojima said he put a lot of research and time into this scene. ‘You’re cheering for Raiden, but if you put too much attention into the top part, you get defeated by the Gekkos. But on the other hand, if you’re too focused on defeating the Gekkos, then you miss this very emblematic scene of the battle between Vamp and Raiden. This is a game.’

The second sequence where splitscreen is used is during the famous ‘microwave corridor scene‘ in Act 5, when Snake is crawling to the server room on the bottom half while his allies are seen fighting on the upper half. ‘This is the scene that made Guillermo del Toro himself cry.’ Kojima said, laughing. ‘So this is just about button mashing for Snake to keep crawling, but it’s quite exhausting to mash the button, but then you look up and you have all your allies having a hard time battling for you, so you also get motivated to keep mashing the button. And this is another scene where it only exists and it is only possible because it is a game.’ Jordan added, jokingly: ‘There may or may not be a split-screen action scene in the Metal Gear movie.’

Source: E3 Coliseum: Hideo Kojima in Conversation with Jordan Vogt-Roberts