The Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer was the biggest story out of the Tokyo Game Show this year. Those that saw it were beyond blown away. But the trailer left a lot of questions in the minds of the fans. Is that really Snake? What�s with the new Metal Gears? We decided to head straight to the source. Below is the full transcription from our interview with Mr. Hideo Kojima himself.
Game Informer: The Metal Gear Solid series seems to have grown up with the PlayStation franchise. I wanted to ask you about the franchise�s evolution and how it has coincided with the evolution of the PlayStation franchise.
Hideo Kojima: We did release the game in 1998, and the PlayStation 1 was released in 1994. It was a coincidence that it was released at the end of the PlayStation 1 lifecycle because it took time to create. We started the project much earlier than the actual street date.
First of all, when I joined the company, Metal Gear was the first project that I worked on. It was for the MSX, and that was in 1987. Also, I was in a division that was concentrating only on PC game software, so I was working on things for the PC Engine, PC, and 3DO. At the time of 3DO, there were some rumors that the PlayStation would come out, and that was quite shocking to me. It was the first time that a consumer machine would be able to create a 3D polygon. I thought about this and thought that I would like to recreate Metal Gear in 3D for that platform.
Metal Gear itself is basically a hide and seek game. So when you hide under a desk or hide in a locker, your vision should be from under the desk or in the locker. But on the MSX, that wasn't possible due to the machine�s spec. So the camera was from the top. So, if it was not for the birth of the PlayStation hardware, Metal Gear Solid would not have been born. It would have just ended as a 2D game.
The name Metal Gear Solid came from the creation of the PlayStation 1. The �Solid� means 3D. That�s why we named it Metal Gear Solid, because it was the first time 3D could be used.
Before PlayStation 1, I was making games for the PC only in Japan, and for the first time I had a chance to release a game outside of Japan because the PS1 was sold worldwide. After that, my life changed. Since I was working on a PC-base, the Metal Gear theme or world was targeted to a higher age. So I still had questions. What if I created this game for a Nintendo system? I still think that it might not have been as successful as it was on PlayStation 1. That means that the PlayStation 1 hardware itself, the people that followed the hardware, that means that I felt that Sony and Metal Gear were a good match.
With the rumors of PlayStation 2 and that it will use the emotion engine, I was thinking about what to make use of for Metal Gear Solid 2. Since Metal Gear Solid 2 was a smash hit worldwide - much more of a smash hit than Metal Gear Solid 1 - for Metal Gear Solid 3 it was a very natural choice to stay with the PlayStation platform.
The top priority for me to make Metal Gear Solid is for the fans who love Metal Gear Solid. If the users support the PlayStation over the years, and we thought that this was the case, I created Metal Gear for those users. So that was the top priority.
It is safe to say that I don�t dislike other platforms. The reason why I always select the PlayStation format is because at the same time that I was unknown, the PlayStation was unknown. They were a good match, and they evolved to what Metal Gear and PlayStation are today, meaning that with Metal Gear Solid, I strongly believe that I will follow with the Sony PlayStation onward because many users support that hardware as well.
GI: Your devotion to the Sony hardware is very understandable given that history. But do you think that there could have been a chance that the series could have gone multiplatform if the Xbox or GameCube versions of the games had been bigger hits?
Kojima: It�s a difficult question to answer, because multi-format is not what I like to do in terms of game development. I believe that all hardware has good points and bad points. With the rivals of this hardware battle, that grows, meaning that the game industry grows. If game hardware is integrated to one, and games are integrated to one, then we die, same as nature. So what I thought was that I wanted to create a game for the PlayStation, specifically using the PlayStation and what the PlayStation could do. Same for the Xbox. I would like to create games for the Xbox, to take advantage of what the Xbox is the most capable of doing.
For instance, Metal Gear Solid 2 was specifically created for PlayStation 2, because the PlayStation 2 was capable of creating transparent polygons. Alpha - meaning combinations of transparent polygons was what gave them the idea to express rain and wind using the PS2. So it was suitable for users to play using the PlayStation format. When it was converted to Xbox, that�s a little different, because there is a change there of the expression. It�s not as complete, because it was designed specifically for the PlayStation 2.
I should not say anything bad about our competition, but look at Splinter Cell 2, the Xbox version looks really great, but the PS2 looks a little odd, with choppy graphics. I think that is not loyal to the loyal game fans. I don�t want to do that kind of thing.
So for Metal Gear Soild 4, we have already started the project for the PlayStation 3 platform. We would like to concentrate specifically on what we could do just for the PlayStation 3. For example, if I was to create Metal Gear Solid 5 or another title for the Xbox 360, I would create solely for the 360, taking advantage of the hardware, and would not convert to PlayStation 3, because that will not be a very good conversion. Another example is the Revolution. I will try to create a title specifically taking advantage of the Revolution hardware.
So it wasn�t the hardware�s fault for the conversion edition of the Xbox game, or the GameCube version of the Twin Snakes. It didn�t do as well as people thought because it was a conversion. It wasn�t created for that machine. If Metal Gear Solid was created specifically for GameCube or Xbox, the result would have been a lot different.
GI: Clearly you�re interested in other games and other hardware, but you�re back for Metal Gear Solid 4. You�ve said that you were done with the series before, so what made you come back for a final Metal Gear Solid game?
Kojima: It�s similar to Hayao Miyazaki. It�s a difficult question. For Metal Gear Solid 3, I started doing the story design, the plot, the gameplay systems. With finishing with Metal Gear Solid, I thought I would leave Metal Gear Solid 4 for the staff, who did 1, 2, and 3 together, and I would become the producer, so I could create time for other genres, and just manage or produce the title and not do direction, like I did for the past series.
For Metal Gear Solid 4 I thought of just working on the story, the world, or maybe the plot, and leaving other things to the younger staff. Back in March, during the European tour, I announced that I would not be working as intensively on Metal Gear Solid 4. I wasn�t trying to say I was just going to be a producer, just looking after money like other producers sometimes do. I was going to look to the content like a movie producer. But ever since I announced that, there was a lot of misunderstanding, and I got a lot of mail. I got many calls and fan letters saying that they will kill me if I don�t do Metal Gear. And of course the staff heard about this and got very nervous. We talk today as if it was a joke, but at the time, it was not a joke at all. It was serious. And the staff came to me and said �Mr. Kojima, you have to direct this, just like you�ve always been doing.� So I decided to do Metal Gear Solid 4. And since I am doing Metal Gear Solid 4, I really had to sit down and do it, meaning that the original plan for other games that I had will be pushed a little bit off into the future.
Metal Gear Solid itself is a game that is created only for the users and no one else. Although I have another role of running the company and producing titles and corporate things, I still think that I will not create Metal Gear Solid if the users don�t want that. That�s why I decided to come back and direct and do all the things I said I would do for Metal Gear Solid 4.
The funny thing is that Japanese users sometimes say that I shouldn�t come back and do Metal Gear Solid, as opposed to European gamers, who threaten me.
GI: Why do Japanese gamers say that you shouldn�t do Metal Gear Solid?
Kojima: Maybe perhaps it�s that the Japanese users don�t like the same kind of storytelling or the message that scolds the players in a way and maybe Japanese players don�t like that anymore.
GI: The series has historically been more popular in the US than Japan, correct?
Kojima: In terms of popularity, it would be US, Europe, and then Japan.
GI: Now I would like to ask you about some of the ideas and philosophies behind Metal Gear 4. On your website, you mention that you�re interested in exploring the �inner qualities� of a game. Can you discuss that concept?
I always thought that even as the hardware evolves to become hi-spec, the game has not evolved or revolutionized for the last couple of years. I always express an example of a movie set. It�s a battle of making the movie set prettier, or bigger. This is how the game has been doing for the past couple of years now. So from Famicom to PlayStation, this was revolutionary, because 2D became 3D, and everyone could walk around in a 3D environment.
There was nothing that was much of a drastic change from the PlayStation to the PlayStation 2. Of course, the graphics look prettier and the sound is better, and there is a touch of online, but 3D remained 3D. So PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 � of course there is an online element as well, but there�s not a big change. 3D is not going to 4D. So going back to the movie set, it will only be a battle of making this movie set much prettier or bigger.
If the hardware will not take us to the next level in games, we thought that we had to set ourselves to the higher level on the game side. Of course, Revolution is an exception because it�s totally different hardware. That�s why we had the idea of concentrating on what you cannot see.
The battle of creating movie sets will probably go on forever if the hardware will rise with their spec as well, and this will probably continue. But I think that a set will probably just remain a set because a set is hollow behind. There is nothing other than the places that you can see. Behind that set is nothing. I don�t want to do this. That is why I want to concentrate on what you cannot see.
Like, for instance, look at a jungle. In the past, if we made a jungle, it was just a set. The trees were plastic. We could make the trees prettier, or make more plastic trees to look like real jungles. Or make the details more intense. But plastic will remain plastic, and this is what I don�t want to do. There should be life in that tree. If we water the tree it will grow, if we burn the tree it will die. So I wanted to create this kind of simulation world. And this is what we want to do, and I don�t know how much we can actually do it, but this is the direction of what we want to do.
What actually worries me is that if we actually try to do this, it might take up a lot of CPU power, meaning the visual side might not be the up to the standard of what the users expect. So, we will always think about the balance of what we can see and what we can�t see.
However, it�s a next-gen platform. The users will expect upgraded graphics and sound, so that was another answer to the TGS trailer. It was expressing that we will go up to this kind of level standard. Of course, that was not the completed version, so we will go even higher. However, that is the level that Kojima productions will produce in Metal Gear Solid 4. After that, we will concentrate on the things you cannot see.
GI: Your comments on the living world coupled with what was shown in the trailer are very interesting. The trailer clearly shows a battlefield, and if you have a living world on a battlefield, there would obviously be innocent bystanders. Does this mean that in Metal Gear Solid 4 the player will encounter for the first time, people he doesn�t want to fight.
Kojima: First of all, we really wanted to put this out, but we couldn�t do it because of the limits of the hardware. Of course, as you said, innocent people will appear in Metal Gear Solid 4, however the troops will not be 100% enemies like we have always been treated in Metal Gear Solid series. For instance, there is a battle between A and B, and Snake belongs to Country C. He is not directly involved with A and B countries.
New interview with Hideo Kojima about MGS4
