Metal Gear Solid: Rising Message Board older than one year ago

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and Platinum Games producer Atsushi Inaba took the stage at Konami's offices here in Los Angeles earlier this week for a mea culpa of sorts: Kojima now admits that Metal Gear Solid Rising, though it may have looked nice in the trailer back at E3 2010, just wasn't working.

"In the summer of 2010, the team made a presentation for me," he recounted through a translator, "and I realized the game design still wasn't there yet." The team's vision was split between stealth and action, the idea of "cut everything" worked technically but made for gameplay that was too open-ended, and the game just wasn't fun, says Kojima. "As the young staff said to me, they wanted a good game that just felt good moving around, and we would never get that, so I decided to cancel the project."

"But still, we had a lot of things" that could still be used, says Kojima. "Motion capture, a lot of good story, the view of the world inside the game, and I wanted to use that somehow. I wanted Rising to be born again, so that's when I decided to contact Platinum Games."

Having relaunched Metal Gear Rising as a full-on action game under the supervision of Platinum Games, Konami has taken the opportunity to freshen up its Metal Gear Solid series website. In addition to a bunch of media for each game, and, of course, purchase links, the new site offers an interactive timeline of highlights from the games, along with real-world events that are referenced in their labyrinthine, impenetrable plots.

A quick warning: all the old Metal Gear Solid: Rising media is still on the site, now labeled with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's title. If you're watching a trailer and there are watermelons or "Zan-Datsu" ... that's the old game.

#metalgear The first official screenshots for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance are now on the brand new Metal Gear Solid website (where, oddly, the age-gate only goes back to 1960... stay away, old people!). More »

We hadn't hear any official news on Metal Gear Solid: Rising for over a year, and then it showed up with a new name, a new storyline, and a new team making it. You don't have to be part of a secret cabal of world-dominating AIs to realize that there was some ... trouble somewhere in the last year. And, in fact, Rising had been canceled.

The staff at Kojima Productions had the "cut anything" concept realized, according to Andriasang's report of the latest Hideraji podcast. They also had the motion capture done and a story written ... but the rest was in the air. Without a clearer direction, Kojima decided to end development.

Platinum Games studio reps happened to visit, the story goes, and expressed their excitement for the project, leading to their assignment to complete the game. It was Platinum's idea to change the story, and they also offered the concept of "a game where it feels so good to chop things up that you would die," as Andriasang translates it. We think that's a more promising concept than a game where it feels good to chop things up, and then the game dies.

The newly Platinum-plated Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance features a story different from the one planned for the old Metal Gear Solid: Rising. While the game was originally intended to take place between Metal Gear Solids 2 and 4, the setting has now been transfarred to a time years after MGS4. This was done in order to let Platinum "show off what they can bring to the series." Without creating a time paradox and accidentally undoing the events of MGS4, we suppose.

Raiden joins up with private military companies for various jobs including "VIP protection, military training and other duties" as an unspecified country rebuilds from a civil war. "Little does he know that the stage is set for a clash with an enigmatic force of countless cyborgs."

This information comes via the official site, which is also the source for the new screens in our gallery. The site provides a detailed listing of staff for the title, including Platinum's Atsushi Inaba (the guy on stage with Kojima) as producer alongside Konami's Yuji Korekado. It could stand to be more detailed, as there's no game director listed.

Konami still has some revealing to do: the site claims that a video interview titled "The Truth Behind RISING" will explain the genesis of the Platinum/Kojipro collaboration, on December 13.

By the way, the site lists only PS3 and Xbox 360 releases -- no PC.

#rumor It appears the trailer for the next Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid Rising, has leaked ahead of the Spike Video Game Awards. If it's real, it contains an interesting little conclusion. More »

The latest trailer for Metal Gear Solid Rising (now totally and completely Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance) has leaked onto NeoGAF ahead of tonight's anticipated Spike VGA reveal, and boy does it ever reveal stuff, primarily that the title is being developed by the over-the-top action aficionados responsible for Bayonetta, Platinum Games. The trailer also looks much more like an actual game than previous footage we've seen from Konami in the past. We're sure more will be revealed during tonight's VGAs.

Kojima Productions has confirmed that Yuji Korekado is the new producer of Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Korekado replaces Shigenobu Matsuyama, who previously discussed the game's motion controls...

Team members at Kojima Productions continue to play Hot Potato with poor Raiden's emotions. After Kojima announced in June of 2010 that he was passing the reigns of Metal Gear Solid: Rising to Shigenobu Matsuyama, control has now passed to Yuji Korekado (who's also working on Zone of the Enders HD). The news was confirmed via the Twitter feed of Kojima Productions producer Kenichiro Imaizumi.

The announcement raises a lot of pressing questions, not the least of which are these: "Joystiq, how did you spell all those names correctly on the first try and without any sort of reference material?" Please, please. We appreciate the flattery, but we're professionals. This is what we do.

With any luck, we'll have a better idea of the direction Korekado is taking the game when it's shown off at this year's VGAs.

Geoff Keighley has begun ramping up the excitement for the VGA show coming December 10, revealing some of the surprises coming up at the Spike event -- but, of course, only enough that they'll still be surprises.

"Alan Wake returns," he tweeted, "and BioWare unveils a new game from a new studio." In addition, Hideo Kojima will reveal "the truth about Metal Gear Solid: Rising." Man, remember Metal Gear Solid: Rising?

Keighley isn't hogging all the exclusives for Spike, having graciously shared "teaser images" of the new announcements with Game Informer, who is itself no stranger to exclusives, for the December issue. Rest assured, we'll get you all the info as soon as the game media's "1%" allow it to trickle down to your prole pals at Joystiq.

One can easily argue that the Spike Video Game Awards are probably a great deal more useful for their exclusive reveals than they are for actual award giving. Still, there are awards being given at the show, though if you're following Geoff Keighley on Twitter, you'd only barely notice it, since those announcements are more or less buried under the pile of exclusive teases he's amassed for himself, like a chipmunk hoarding delicious, exclusive acorns.

How in the unholy blue hell is Mario Party 9 not a nominee for Most Anticipated Game? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.

Keighley teased a few notably big exclusives via his Twitter feed today. Most notably, he exclaimed that the "truth" regarding Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Kojima Productions' barely spoken of side venture featuring the deeply polarizing character Raiden, would be unveiled at the show. Obviously we don't know what that truth is, but one can presume given that Hideo Kojima himself will be on hand to reveal it, it's probably some kind of new trailer, and maybe a release date. That said, it'd be pretty funny if he just showed up to say, "Oh, that game? It's canceled. I'm busy working on this transfarring thing."

Another reveal involves Alan Wake, Remedy's critically-acclaimed horror/action game from 2010. Apparently some kind of new Alan Wake something or other will be shown during the broadcast. It's possible this will be the Alan Wake thing that was supposed to manifest itself at E3 this year, but inexplicably didn't.

Lastly, Keighley teased a new BioWare game from "a new studio." Feel free to start chewing through that sentence looking for clues, or just wait for the December issue of Game Informer, which will apparently have some teaser images.

Now then, onto the awards, which have only partially been revealed. Most notably, the nominees for Game of the Year have been posted, and they include the following 2011 gems:

• Batman: Arkham City
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
• Portal 2
• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

"But wait!" you exclaim, "How can these games that aren't even out yet be nominated for a GOTY award?!?" Fun fact: VGA judges get copies of these games in advance of voting, ensuring they get a chance to play them. So don't worry your pretty little noggins about this situation, all games have very likely been played.

Lastly, the hilarious award for "Most Anticipated Game" still exists, and features the following five titles:

• BioShock: Infinite
• Diablo III
• Halo 4
• Mass Effect 3
• The Last Guardian

This is a fan-voting category, though on the plus side, the nominees were picked by the voting officials, so at least these aren't, like, "sponsored" nominees, or what have you. Still, it's hard to get too excited for a category that essentially amounts to voting for which game has the most appealing PR campaign--which, by the way, you can do if you head over to official VGA site.

#metalgear Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima posted this drawing of Metal Gear Solid creator Raiden. It's not clear if this is just a drawing or whether it's in relation to the upcoming title Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which stars Raiden. More »

#metalgearsolid At the 2009 E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, Konami revealed that it was developing a different spin on the Metal Gear universe. The game was Metal Gear: Rising, and it's M.I.A. More »

#metalgearsolidrising Atsushi Inaba, a producer at Platinum Games, denied today that his studio is working on the next big Metal Gear, despite some whispers to the contrary. More »

At Konami's pre-E3 event this evening, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima said the series' next entry, Metal Gear Solid: Rising will not be appearing at E3, giving no further details why. Kojima said a 2012 release date for the title is still targeted, as originally planned. More »

We already knew that Hideo Kojima was planning to stay in Japan for this year's E3, and that such far-flung nonsense as a Metal Gear Solid 5 wouldn't make its debut at the show. Even still, hope still existed that perhaps, just maybe, Kojima Productions might give fans a new look-see at Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which hasn't really made its presence felt in what feels like forever. Plus, there's all that talk of a brand new, original title from the studio that we couldn't help but hope might get teased ever so slightly.

No whiny cyborgs at this year's E3! Unless someone is planning a Bulletstorm offshoot starring Ishi...

Well, scratch all of that. During the course of Konami's slightly-less-bizarre-than-usual pre-E3 press conference, Kojima made it emphatically known that neither Rising, nor any other Kojima joint, outside of the newly announced MGS and Zone of the Enders HD Collections, would be at E3 2011.

On the subject of Rising, Kojima was fairly tight-lipped, but did state that the game was still scheduled for a 2012 release, as originally planned. If we were to see any new media or information for the game in 2011, the next most likely place would be at this year's Tokyo Game Show.

Though any real info on Kojima's next upcoming project was unlikely to appear today, he did give a brief look at a new engine Kojima Productions has been developing in house, which his next title will use. Titled the Fox Engine, the new engine is designed for multiplatform compatibility. The tech demo is toward the end of the conference--which you can watch on Konami's website, or possibly another site if Konami's servers are still borked to hell--but it shows off some impressive lighting and environmental effects, and evidently will make developing simultaneously for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC a great deal easier.

While I have only minimal tolerance for Raiden and his shitbaggy shitbagness, I imagine a number of you out there are disappointed to hear nothing of Rising at this year's E3. What say you? Was this one of the games you were hoping to see most? Or are you sorta checked out on this one at this point?

If you were hoping to see Raiden at E3 2011, prepare to be crushed -- Metal Gear Solid: Rising will not be at the show. Metal Gear Mastermind Hideo Kojima broke the news today during Konami's pre-E3 conference while confirming that the game is "targeting" a 2012 release date. No specific reason was giving for missing the show...

Otacon: Snake! I was looking at Konami's website and saw that Kojima Productions is hiring staff to make the "next generation" of Metal Gear Solid.
Snake: Metal Gear!
Otacon: Right, Snake, people to work on the next generation of Metal Gear Solid games.
Snake: Next-generation special forces?!
Otacon: Well, I guess you could call them that. Konami is hiring designers, programmers and artists.
Snake: They're building an army!
Otacon: They could just need some additional staff to work on Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Snake. You remember, the one starring Raiden.
Snake: Raiden!
Otacon: ...
Snake: Otacon?!
Otacon: What is it, Snake?
Snake: Tell the story again about the time I drove a ... Metal Gear!
Codec: *click*

#rumor First revealed in summer 2009, Metal Gear Solid: Rising is an action game starring Metal Gear creator Raiden and set between MGS2 and MGS4. The game was expected to be out in 2011. Those expectations, it seems, are wrong. More »

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