The Hideo & KP Roadmap: Peace Walker, Castlevania, Rising, MGS3DS, MGS5, and ZOE

Looking back on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and a Potential PS3 Release

Sales of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker have been going extremely well, and Konami's CEO is projecting a target of more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. For Hideo Kojima, the game brought more to the development experience than the usual success his studio is accustomed to: Peace Walker also presented Hideo with the unique opportunity to focus more on the design of the game compared to other console productions since he had less to worry about in terms of the game's graphics and soundtrack. It also allowed him to consider what a real Metal Gear Solid game would be like if players could carry it everywhere. He feels the gameplay was greatly deepened because of this, and many reviewers have accordingly pointed out the valid subtitle change from "Tactical Espionage Action" in previous games to the more extended gameplay description of "Tactical Espionage Operations" in Peace Walker.

When asked whether any compromises were made due to the PSP platform, Hideo stated that they misjudged the storage capacity that would be needed for the game. Comparing the final product to the original vision of the game, there could possibly have been as many as 10 more characters in the story and a lot of additional dialog had to be cut. Also mentioned during an interview, Hideo revealed that Cecile from Peace Walker is based off of Konami Press Officer Cecile Caminades. Because the real Cecile hadn't been born yet during the time period of Peace Walker, Kojima had her gather information about her mother to create the character. The character's purpose was to be an outsider to the conflict and provide a breath of fresh air.

In addition to recognizing the overall positive reviews of the game, Kojima has also noted that many of them seem to end with, "We're hoping for a console version." While he didn't say that it'll actually happen, Hideo Kojima did discuss the potential technical challenges of bringing Peace Walker to the Playstation 3. Because of the specializations that went into making the game for the PSP, Hideo said that a direct port would not be possible; however, if he were to actually pursue the task, Kojima says he would take it upon himself to add more depth to the story.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Kojima also took time to discuss the role he and his studio are taking on Konami's franchise reboot, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. He describes his role on Castlevania as that of "Executive Manager" which makes him personally more disconnected from the game than his role in Metal Gear Solid: Rising and is actually the role he has in general for Konami outside of Kojima Productions.

Production of the game is being outsourced to an overseas production company similar to Capcom's approach for Dead Rising 2. Commenting on the production technique, Kojima stated he doesn't know how Capcom manages to pull it off, however, Kojima is keeping a close eye on things and gives advice whenever he can while delegating all final decision-making to the overseas game studio Mercury Steam and producer Dave Cox. Kojima Productions staff have already made several visits to Spain giving development advice to the Mercury Steam staff. Overall, Kojima Productions involvement with Castlevania falls more on the business side rather than the creative side with the hope of raising Castlevania's European and North American popularity closer to that of its Japanese acclaim.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Regarding his role on Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Hideo Kojima clarified that he is not making the game. The Rising team he says, are "youngsters [...] of good age" and two of the executives are both Konami and Metal Gear Solid veterans. Rising's producer Shigenobu Matsuyama came to Konami R&D the same year Kojima did, and the two actually sat in adjacent booths. Rising's director Mineshi Kimura has been working on Metal Gear Solid since the falling half of Metal Gear Solid 1's development. Because of Hideo's decreased role on the game, Rising does not have the "message" aspect of traditional Kojima-MGS games. It's more of a mainstream European/North American-style game, he says.

In spite of this reduced role, Hideo Kojima did have one interesting bit of input that actually led to opposition from the staff. It was Hideo that requested the final segment of the Metal Gear Solid: Rising trailer from 2010's E3 in which Raiden is shown slicing a watermelon into several pieces. While Hideo didn't explain why the development staff objected, he did mention that he initially wanted children running up to the table after the watermelon had been sliced, however, this idea had to be dropped because time constraints did not allow for the character modeling. This aspect was replaced with the children cheering instead.

Still recognizing fan reaction to Metal Gear Solid 2, Hideo mentioned that although Raiden was heavily criticized after his introduction in MGS2 by western gamers, he has actually been almost as popular as Solid Snake in Japan the whole time. Kojima feels Raiden's popularity has become significantly higher amongst gamers because of MGS4. He believes that many of the Rising developers who worked on MGS4 are quite attached to Raiden and are seeking to make him even more popular than his MGS4 heights. Raiden was also chosen as the main character for Metal Gear Solid: Rising after the team determined the gameplay should involve the ability to cut anything, an action for which Raiden is especially apt.

Metal Gear Solid 3DS: The Naked Sample

While contradicting statements whether Metal Gear Solid 3DS: Snake Eater will be a full game have been issued by Konami, Hideo made some very clear statements regarding the production, current status, and open-ended future of Metal Gear Solid on Nintendo's 3DS. MGS3D started as a top-secret project originally under non-disclosure agreement with Nintendo. With only two months available to make the preview, the game was produced by parts of the Peace Walker team but made on a different floor from the rest of the studio, making other staff members think the team was on vacation. From a technical aspect, Kojima described the game's character models as significantly improved over the original Snake Eater game approaching the quality of the PS3 game models. He felt that with more time, the character models could have been optimized and improved even more.

As far as the game's current status, Kojima said that what has been produced was intended merely as a technical demonstration and as a notification that Metal Gear Solid would be coming to Nintendo's 3DS handheld. At the moment, Hideo does not even know what the final title of the game will be and is extremely open to hearing opinions of MGS3D. If the game does take the route of becoming a Snake Eater remake, Hideo has stated that because he cannot change the story of Metal Gear Solid 3, he would like to focus on bringing some Peace Walker features to MGS3D such as Co-Ops. He would also like to take advantage of the 3D possibilities of the handheld stating, "just having things pop out at the player all the time would get old fast, so I think the emphasis will be on visual depth instead." This statement matches the feelings of a lot of other E3 attendees who described the Nintendo 3DS's small, portable screen size as more apt to being a "window" of depth into a game rather than having things jump out.

When questioned about the timeframe for MGS3D, Hideo doesn't think it'll be a 3DS launch title but recognizes the need to be out within a year of launch before losing product value. In the meantime, he wishes he could get more opinions on the game via a Nintendo-organized public demo event because a trailer isn't enough.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Not Peace Walker

Perhaps the game the industry is always asking about, what is Hideo Kojima's next big project? According to the famed director himself, his next project will be for consoles, it will be a big-budget game that will mean the end of Hideo's career if he messes it up, and he has two options: make Metal Gear Solid 5 or an original game.

While Hideo hasn't announced his final decision, he has stated that he was extremely certain of what he wanted to do until E3 where his feelings wavered a little. Putting the game in perspective relative to the latest Metal Gear release, Hideo describes the gameplay as a "revolution" and could do things that couldn't be done in Peace Walker. Regardless of what direction Hideo chooses to go with the game, at the very least, the game's engine has already been laid down and further technical preparations are in progress.

When pressed for a time table on the next game, Kojima notes that he can only afford to take a little over two years of development for games because western studios work so quickly. Kojima says he'll proceed slowly but can't take three years like many Japanese studios take. Using Ubisoft as an example of the increased speed of production in the industry, Kojima pointed out how Assassin's Creed had a sequel teased at E3 just after the previous game was released. Kojima's next game is expected to be released in 2012 at the worst, but possibly in 2011.

The Roadmap - From 2010 to 2012

All in all, it looks like Hideo Kojima has his calendar filled with both hands-on & hands-off projects. Compared to E3, it seems like more details and the real exciting news for Hideo and Kojima Productions may instead come later this year from events such as the Tokyo Game Show taking place 16 September 2010 to 19 September 2010. Until more details are revealed, the extremely tentative schedule for Hideo-related games and Kojima Productions is as follows:

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010)
• Metal Gear Solid: Rising (2011)
• Metal Gear Solid on the Nintendo 3DS (2011)
• [Metal Gear Solid 5 or another Big-Budget Game] (2012)
• Zone of the Enders 3 (Backburner)

Source: Andriasang (1), Andriasang (2), 1UP, Jeuxvideo (original), Jeuxvideo (translated), Examiner, ComputerAndVideoGames

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