Transcript here:
EGM: Fans were a bit surprised by Snake's new mustache...
Hideo Kojima: Of course, the team researched many different beards and mustaches, and we eventually decided on this Lee Van Cleef-inspired look. And the power of PS3 allows us to represent the facial hair with such amazing detail, along with his facial features, like wrinkles. It's very easy to create a simple texture, like the skin of a young beautiful lady, so we decided to use the machine's power to create something far more complex...an old guy.
EGM: We were wondering if Snake's beard grew in real time and you had to shave it in a minigame?
HK: We actually first had that idea for MGS 2, but we weren't able to do real-time whisker shaving. So this time we also want to include that...hopefully we'll be able to get it in the final game. Also we'd like Snake's face to look older and to show realistic expressions of fatigue as he goes through the game. Well I told my team that, and they said, "Please, we don't want to have to do that." We're not sure what's going to happen with that.
EGM: MGS has always seemed to be inspired by real-life events. With all the wars raging right now, have these conflicts inspired MGS 4?
HK: Of course, what's happening today--not just one specific war, but all the global conflicts--influences my works. I haven't really gone to actually see the fighting, but I plan to go near it. I'm not sure if I'll come back alive but I really want to go by the end of this year. MGS 4 will not be based on a specific location: we just call it "the battlefield." It's any location where a war is raging: many different situations and several different countries.
EGM: Has Mr. Mori, your military advisor, been by to teach you new combat tactics for urban combat?
HK: Yes, Mr. Mori is backing us up in the combat department. We're actually going to have more training sessions very soon. And since MGS 4 is a wrap-up for the whole series, I'm planning on visiting the most dangerous places possible with Mr. Mori. But since we're a company, and I'm important to Konami, I have a hard time convincing my bosses to let me go. When I say dangerous, it isn't just physical danger though -- this time we're also trying to highlight the psychological effects of war. I'm worried that some of my team might suffer some serious mental damage and be unable to return to the real world.
EGM: How will Snake's new "Solid Eye System" affect gameplay?
HK: In the past, Snake wore several different types of goggles, like the thermal or night vision [ones]. Now those will be integrated with the radar system in order to make it more user-friendly. Of course, I thought about this from a gameplay point of view, but I also wanted Snake to wear an eye patch, so I said to the design team to integrate it all together.
EGM: You've chosen a specific keyword for the theme of each MGS game: meme (MGS), gene (MGS 2), theme (MGS 3), and now sense. What does "sense" mean in the context of MGS 4?
HK: In the past MGS games, we focused on the theme of passing genetic information on to the next generation, and how the next generation evolves in its new era. So, with technology advancing, the very nature of genetics can be transformed into digital information, and you could control exactly how your DNA is passed on. At the same time, the internet evolves, allowing all the people the free and open transfer of information. And what's important is to digitally maintain the memory, the sense of a person, after they have passed. What's not possible is for their will, or their spirit, to be passed on or kept forever. People create socieity, and we felt that the "sense" of a person is the core of what everything is all about.
EGM: Uh, yeah...we'll figure that out later. So, will the healing, hunting, camouflage systems from MGS 3 return in MGS 4?
HK: I felt that the new systems of MGS 3 were appreciated by many users, and in the end, the development team was very happy as well, even though there had been some internal battles about these systems within the team. Those systems all occured, though, because survival was the theme of MGS 3. Some of them might carry on into MGS 4, but since the theme is battlefield, we might implement them differently. There are bullets flying around everywhere, so you don't have time to go hunting for a frog to eat.
EGM: In the trailer we see Snake's old friend operating a remote-controller Metal Gear Mark II unit. It looks alot like the one from your classic SEGA CD graphic adventure game, Snatcher. Is there any connection between the two games?
HK: You should probably forget about that since these are totally different worlds. I always dreamed of having a remote-controlled robot in MGS, but we never had enough memory to actually do it. But now with PS3, we can finally pull it off.
EGM: In the trailer we see Snake fighting enemy troops in a city. Will there be bystanders in the final game?
HK: Yes, there will be innocent people in the game, just not in the trailer, since we didn't have time to show that many people onscreen. In the previous games, Snake infiltrates enemy facilities, so from his point of view, anyone inside there is a bad guy. And from the bad guys' perspective, Snake is the bad guy. So this time, the battlefield is vast and varied.
For example, imagine that Snake has teamed up with country C. And he goes into a battle where country A and country B are fighting and Snake is kind of neutral. So, in that situation, Snake's mission might be to sneak in and get something. It's possible that he could get in and complete his mission with neither side ever finding him. Or, if he's not successful and get's caught by country A, then he'll have to fight against them. And of course, country B could also spot him, and then they'd fight him...so then it's possible for both those countries to become your enemies.
There's also a strategy at work where if the item you need is in the area controlled by country A, you might team up with them to make it very easy to get the item. Of course, if you become an ally, you'll have to fight alongside them against their enemies. Or another strategy is that Snake can wait until the war between A and B is over and then get the item. Of course, I doubt anyone will play it that way. So, the new thing is that Snake will definitely have to go the battlefield, and he will have the opportunity to interfere with the war, and the interference will affect the next stages. This is the new plot.
EGM: Is it your intention to make this is a more open-ended adventure?
HK: Well, there is still only one main story line, but heading toward that ending, you will alter the circumstances along the way. Here's an example: When you play in a battlefield with country A and B at war and Snake allies with country A and then Snake destroys country B, in the next stage, there was supposed to be an ongoing war between A and B, but now that will not occur.
EGM: Now that Snake is older, will that change the gameplay? We see him injecting himself in the trailer...
HK: Well, we don't want to the players a lot of stressful upkeep, but the player does have to be Snake. And our intention of Snake is an old man still trying to be a hero. There is something else that we're thinking about that's actually relevant, but we can't quite tell you. I want you to know that Snake is not merely just an old man...
EGM: Fans were a bit surprised by Snake's new mustache...
Hideo Kojima: Of course, the team researched many different beards and mustaches, and we eventually decided on this Lee Van Cleef-inspired look. And the power of PS3 allows us to represent the facial hair with such amazing detail, along with his facial features, like wrinkles. It's very easy to create a simple texture, like the skin of a young beautiful lady, so we decided to use the machine's power to create something far more complex...an old guy.
EGM: We were wondering if Snake's beard grew in real time and you had to shave it in a minigame?
HK: We actually first had that idea for MGS 2, but we weren't able to do real-time whisker shaving. So this time we also want to include that...hopefully we'll be able to get it in the final game. Also we'd like Snake's face to look older and to show realistic expressions of fatigue as he goes through the game. Well I told my team that, and they said, "Please, we don't want to have to do that." We're not sure what's going to happen with that.
EGM: MGS has always seemed to be inspired by real-life events. With all the wars raging right now, have these conflicts inspired MGS 4?
HK: Of course, what's happening today--not just one specific war, but all the global conflicts--influences my works. I haven't really gone to actually see the fighting, but I plan to go near it. I'm not sure if I'll come back alive but I really want to go by the end of this year. MGS 4 will not be based on a specific location: we just call it "the battlefield." It's any location where a war is raging: many different situations and several different countries.
EGM: Has Mr. Mori, your military advisor, been by to teach you new combat tactics for urban combat?
HK: Yes, Mr. Mori is backing us up in the combat department. We're actually going to have more training sessions very soon. And since MGS 4 is a wrap-up for the whole series, I'm planning on visiting the most dangerous places possible with Mr. Mori. But since we're a company, and I'm important to Konami, I have a hard time convincing my bosses to let me go. When I say dangerous, it isn't just physical danger though -- this time we're also trying to highlight the psychological effects of war. I'm worried that some of my team might suffer some serious mental damage and be unable to return to the real world.
EGM: How will Snake's new "Solid Eye System" affect gameplay?
HK: In the past, Snake wore several different types of goggles, like the thermal or night vision [ones]. Now those will be integrated with the radar system in order to make it more user-friendly. Of course, I thought about this from a gameplay point of view, but I also wanted Snake to wear an eye patch, so I said to the design team to integrate it all together.
EGM: You've chosen a specific keyword for the theme of each MGS game: meme (MGS), gene (MGS 2), theme (MGS 3), and now sense. What does "sense" mean in the context of MGS 4?
HK: In the past MGS games, we focused on the theme of passing genetic information on to the next generation, and how the next generation evolves in its new era. So, with technology advancing, the very nature of genetics can be transformed into digital information, and you could control exactly how your DNA is passed on. At the same time, the internet evolves, allowing all the people the free and open transfer of information. And what's important is to digitally maintain the memory, the sense of a person, after they have passed. What's not possible is for their will, or their spirit, to be passed on or kept forever. People create socieity, and we felt that the "sense" of a person is the core of what everything is all about.
EGM: Uh, yeah...we'll figure that out later. So, will the healing, hunting, camouflage systems from MGS 3 return in MGS 4?
HK: I felt that the new systems of MGS 3 were appreciated by many users, and in the end, the development team was very happy as well, even though there had been some internal battles about these systems within the team. Those systems all occured, though, because survival was the theme of MGS 3. Some of them might carry on into MGS 4, but since the theme is battlefield, we might implement them differently. There are bullets flying around everywhere, so you don't have time to go hunting for a frog to eat.
EGM: In the trailer we see Snake's old friend operating a remote-controller Metal Gear Mark II unit. It looks alot like the one from your classic SEGA CD graphic adventure game, Snatcher. Is there any connection between the two games?
HK: You should probably forget about that since these are totally different worlds. I always dreamed of having a remote-controlled robot in MGS, but we never had enough memory to actually do it. But now with PS3, we can finally pull it off.
EGM: In the trailer we see Snake fighting enemy troops in a city. Will there be bystanders in the final game?
HK: Yes, there will be innocent people in the game, just not in the trailer, since we didn't have time to show that many people onscreen. In the previous games, Snake infiltrates enemy facilities, so from his point of view, anyone inside there is a bad guy. And from the bad guys' perspective, Snake is the bad guy. So this time, the battlefield is vast and varied.
For example, imagine that Snake has teamed up with country C. And he goes into a battle where country A and country B are fighting and Snake is kind of neutral. So, in that situation, Snake's mission might be to sneak in and get something. It's possible that he could get in and complete his mission with neither side ever finding him. Or, if he's not successful and get's caught by country A, then he'll have to fight against them. And of course, country B could also spot him, and then they'd fight him...so then it's possible for both those countries to become your enemies.
There's also a strategy at work where if the item you need is in the area controlled by country A, you might team up with them to make it very easy to get the item. Of course, if you become an ally, you'll have to fight alongside them against their enemies. Or another strategy is that Snake can wait until the war between A and B is over and then get the item. Of course, I doubt anyone will play it that way. So, the new thing is that Snake will definitely have to go the battlefield, and he will have the opportunity to interfere with the war, and the interference will affect the next stages. This is the new plot.
EGM: Is it your intention to make this is a more open-ended adventure?
HK: Well, there is still only one main story line, but heading toward that ending, you will alter the circumstances along the way. Here's an example: When you play in a battlefield with country A and B at war and Snake allies with country A and then Snake destroys country B, in the next stage, there was supposed to be an ongoing war between A and B, but now that will not occur.
EGM: Now that Snake is older, will that change the gameplay? We see him injecting himself in the trailer...
HK: Well, we don't want to the players a lot of stressful upkeep, but the player does have to be Snake. And our intention of Snake is an old man still trying to be a hero. There is something else that we're thinking about that's actually relevant, but we can't quite tell you. I want you to know that Snake is not merely just an old man...
