Voice actors David Hayter and Robin Atkin Downes eat cheese burgers while discussing Metal Gear

“The world has been listening to us for a long time now. I think we owe them our thanks.”
“What, like a tribute video or something?”
“Yeah, something to show our love. To let the world know that the members of Militaires Sans Frontieres haven’t forgotten them.”
“Well, it’s a fine idea, but… Kaz…”
“What is it, Snake?”
“You realize that when you tweeted me, we sparked rumors of a new Metal Gear game?”
“We did?”
“Yeah, fan madness worldwide, mass hysteria. I’ve been getting google alerts all weekend.”
“Snake…”
“What is it, Kaz?”
“They’re going to kill us for this, aren’t they?”
“Yes they are, Kaz. And rightfully so. Because Twitter… Twitter has changed.”

When Kazuhira Miller’s voice actor Robin Atkin Downes tweeted to David Hayter about a ‘serious mission’ for the both of them, it didn’t take long for the Metal Gear community to explode. Gaming sites were reporting the possibility of a new Metal Gear game or remake being in the works, and Youtube videos appeared on the web connecting the dots between this tweet and several other ones from the past months. So what was it all about? The first thing Downes and Hayter did in their live Q&A video (shot from Downes’ living room) was dispel the rumors that this was all for a new Metal Gear game. What we did get was an entertaining and laid-back Q&A session, during which Hayter and Downes ate a cheese burger, a nod to MGSV’s ‘Pax Hamburgana’ cassette tapes.

Hayter: “Unfortunately, it got a little out of hand, and people were like ‘it’s a new Metal Gear game’. What I don’t think people realize is: actors are never going to be able to announce a new Metal Gear game. They just don’t tell us that stuff in advance. So, in any case, here we are.”
Downes: “Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to play you like a damn fiddle.”

Altough, both Hayter and Downes did express their interest in working on another Metal Gear game together. Downes: “We want to make it clear: there is nothing right now in the works. We just want to make that clear. We didn’t want to lead anybody on, but…”
Hayter: “Hopefully there will be things to announce, but uhm…”
Downes: “But I think it’s important… I mean to me, it says… you know, all of the people that have been tweeting to me… it’s exciting to me that people are truly interested in something else, and obviously, yeah, I’d be down for working on something else.”
Hayter: “Absolutely. I think Robin was just sort of… I don’t know how much experience you have tweeting to the Metal Gear community but I have quite a bit. And when he first sent me that first message I was like ‘oh no, I think they’re going to explode’. So I do apologize for any misconception about new games and whatnot. I would love to do it, we’ll see if Konami is able to make that happen. Because they own the property.”

So, while there was no huge announcement made like some had hoped, some interesting things emerged from the stream.

EVA

Someone asked who the voice actress for EVA is, which to this day remains a mystery. “This is interesting. This is a huge secret, and I’m not going to tell you today either. Because I can’t. I can’t because she… – I can’t even tell you why on camera, I can tell you afterwards – is not contractually allowed to be [inaudbile] this sort of thing.” The actress behind EVA is credited as ‘Suzetta Miñet’ in both MGS3 and Peace Walker, but who hides behind this pseudonym will continue to be a secret for now.

Sauna Scene

A bit later into the stream, a viewer asked why the two of them never dubbed the sauna scene from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – Heiwa to Wahei no Blues, an audio drama CD with the Japanese voices of Kaz and Snake, released in Japan in 2010.
Downes: “Sounds like people want us to dub the sauna scene.”
Hayter: “Part of the reason I’ve never done is is that this is the first time hearing about it.”
Downes: “You never know, it might happen.”

Update November 12th: And it did!

Fiddle

When asked about their favorite Metal Gear lines, Hayter responded: “I’m no hero. Never was, never was, never will be. I’m just an old killer, hired to do some wet work.” Of course, these are some of Old Snake’s most iconic lines from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Hayter explained why he likes this particular line. “It sort of defined the man for me, he doesn’t really romanticize what he has to do, but he recognizes the importance of it, and goes out and does his job, and that is what I’ve always respected most about Snake.”

Robin Atkin Downes: “For me, I mean I just love the character of Kaz, I love the history, and […] there’s so many great lines. I should clear up – the ‘play me like a damn fiddle’ became such a meme, and I think what happened was – at that point I was matching mocap actors – we didn’t know if it was going to be a helicopter, and how loud, so it ended up a little bit louder, a little bit stronger than I would have done if I was doing the performance capture myself.”

Shriveled Snake

Responding the the question if he has ever ad-libbed anything in the games, Hayter said that it wasn’t really an option, as asking for anything to be changed would result in a ‘no’ from Japan. “But we did a lot of joking around in the booth. Two things that almost ended up in the game: one time Raiden referred to somebody as a ‘bitch’, it was like: ‘that’s not going to happen, bitch’. And then, because it’s Japanese engineers, they don’t really always know that we’d done that as a joke. And then, one other time when I was Old Snake, there’s a very uncomfortable scene with Jennifer Hale – Dr Naomi -, and she’s saying ‘oh, this advanced aging is effecting you and so forth, why don’t you take off your clothes’. He takes off his clothes, and Jennifer ad-libbed – cause she was supposed to get so upset – I’m like ‘hey, hey, hey, take it easy, I still look alright’, and she’s like ’Oh Snake, so… shriveled’. And that almost ended up in the game.”

To watch the entire stream, head to the archived Periscope video. Oh, and Robin Atkin Downes denied any involvement in Death Stranding, in case you were wondering.