Metal Gear Rising was originally going to be an open world game

During an interview in Paris earlier this week, Hideo Kojima talked about the development process of the newest game in the series, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. As many people already know, this game originally started as a project by Kojima Productions’ younger development team. Given the status of the series, they were afraid to make a new installment and decided to go for a spin off featuring Raiden instead.

Back then, the game was still called Metal Gear Solid Rising, and it was going to take place between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. The idea was to make an open world game were Raiden could go explore and undertake various assassination missions. However, the team didn’t manage to succeed in combining all the different ideas in a coherent game.

Kojima cancelled the game, and Platinum Games started over. Some elements of the orginal concept were still used though, such as Shinkawa’s character designs and the Zandatsu and cut at will mechanics.

Kojima has praised the Assassin’s Creed series several times, and references to the games could be found in Metal Gear Solid 4 (Altair costume) and Peace Walker. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood also featured an unlockable Raiden costume.

The original script for the game, about how Raiden became a cyborg somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, still exists, and Kojima doesn’t exclude the possibility of it still being made into a game in the future, although there are no concrete plans at the moment.

Source: MetalGearSolid.be