In a newly unearthed interview, Hideo Kojima shared that he faced near universal resistance against his idea for Metal Gear until he pointed out the iconic exclamation point that lets players know they've been spotted by the enemy. (Try not to hear the sound challenge, go!)
Talking to Nice Games way back in 1999 (available now due to the great work over at Shmuplations), Kojima explained how the kernel that would eventually become Metal Gear was Konami's desire to make a "war game." Kojima said that a team of veteran Konami developers had an idea for a war game and then scrapped it, and then came up with another, and scrapped that, and so and, so forth. Eventually the project fell into Kojima's hands, and he put forth an idea for an "escape game" inspired by the 1963 movie The Great Escape, but was told "'There's no games like that'."
"I was still a new planner at Konami, so I guess no one was inclined to listen to what I had to say… there was just zero motivation from the start," Kojima said. "It was like, what do I have to do here, do I have to start beating people up? (laughs)"
"Of course everyone still had their doubts about the basic premise," Kojima said. "They were all asking, 'will an escape game really be fun…?' But once we got a working build running, and they saw that exclamation mark pop up when the enemy gets surprised, that sold them on the concept. They all changed their tune then: 'This is gonna work!'"
❗ What do you mean Metal Gear isn't on our list of the best NES games?❗
