Most of the gaming world was taken by surprise this weekend when they saw Metal Gear Solid: Rising recreated as the reimagined Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. In fact, since it leaked hours early, we’d say even the game creators were surprised when it happened too. Now that this new reality has set in, more information has slowly been leaking out, including behind-the-scenes drama, last minute saviors, and story details.
As translated by Andriasang, the team at Kojima Productions was in love with the cut anything ability of the game, but was having trouble with all the other aspects of the game. After mapping story and setting, the team was couldn’t really make it all work together. Ultimately Kojima felt the game couldn’t be completed, at which point it was cancelled without a word to all the fans awaiting Raiden’s solo adventure.
Fortunately for admirers of the cyber ninja, people from developer Platinum Games one day visited the studio and saw the current state of Rising. They then offered to take the game to the finish line and rework the material that had been made up to that point. When they took over they decided to rename the game to create more distance between Rising and the Solid series, though that doesn’t totally explain an insane subtitle like Revengeance.
One small story detail slipped out as well, namely the timeframe of the title. Though Rising was originally announced as taking place between MGS2 and MSG4, now it’s taking place after 4. Konami was silent on why, but hopefully we’ll know more soon, as our interest in the game is certainly… Rising… Sorry.