20 Mind-Blowing Things You Didn't Know About Metal Gear Solid 2

Australian Cinephile

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Transcript

00:00Get ready to feel old. Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty just turned 20.

00:04Hideo Kojima's sequel to his massively successful, hugely innovative 1998 stealth action masterpiece

00:11was one of the most anticipated games of the era.

00:13Though the writer-director has been all too keen to discuss his process and how the game finally got into our hands.

00:19From mind-blowing metrics to cut characters, and some frankly insane decisions by Kojima,

00:24and so much you may not still be aware of 20 years later.

00:27And with that being said, I'm Ben Roy from WhatCulture.com,

00:30and this is 20 mind-blowing things you didn't know about Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty.

00:34Number 20. The script was over 800 pages long.

00:38Now it's no secret that basically every game in the Metal Gear Solid franchise has an absolutely colossal script,

00:43given that Kojima's characters like to go on a bit and explain every aspect of what they're doing.

00:48Incredibly though, the second game expanded the scope tenfold, it felt like,

00:52and resulted in a whopping 800-page script.

00:55Just to put this in perspective, that's around seven times longer than the average Hollywood movie script.

01:00So you could easily picture Kojima using a briefcase to carry this thing around.

01:04Number 19. Kojima went to extreme lengths to hide the Raiden twist.

01:08Considering how basically every major video game is spoiled by leaks these days,

01:12it's fascinating to see such a large aspect of a video game not be spoiled,

01:16with the Raiden twist being, well, unspoiled until launch.

01:19Kojima is admittedly an uncommonly cagey storyteller,

01:21and went to all-time extreme lengths to hide this twist,

01:24by swapping out Snake in game trailers,

01:26and then putting them in the big shell sequences,

01:28giving us all the impression that we were going to play Snake in this game.

01:31And then beyond that, critics who reviewed this game,

01:33were under such strict embargoes, they couldn't give anything away.

01:36So when players got their hands on this one,

01:38they had no idea what was coming.

01:40Number 18. A Mantis Mask mechanic was scrapped during development.

01:44Kojima's games are always packed with wonderful, creative, out-of-the-box ideas and mechanics,

01:48and one that was infuriatingly cut from Metal Gear Solid 2,

01:51was the inclusion of a Mantis Mask.

01:53What would have been a nice callback to the telepathic boss from Metal Gear Solid 1,

01:57the mask would have let the player read the minds of anyone in the room,

02:00which goes without saying would have been a highly eccentric and hilarious outcome for sure.

02:04I mean, this is the franchise where we have guards crap themselves for God's sake.

02:07The original plan for this would be to unlock it during the second playthrough,

02:11and players could use this to learn the identity of Plissken before the big reveal.

02:14Sadly, it's never been publicly stated why this didn't make it into the game,

02:18though it probably just didn't make it in because it was too complex.

02:21The Mantis Mask is such an ingenious idea,

02:23and it's such a shame we never got it in another Metal Gear game.

02:26Number 17. Kojima originally wanted to call it Metal Gear Solid 3.

02:30In what might be one of the most Hideo Kojima decisions ever,

02:33he originally wanted to call the sequel to Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid 3,

02:36as a reference to the skyscrapers in the New York skyline,

02:39and to also screw with the fans that were expecting Metal Gear Solid 2.

02:43Unsurprisingly, Kojima's suggestion was metal resistance,

02:46and so it was ditched for a more familiar title,

02:48and one that was less confusing.

02:50Number 16. It cost just $10 million to make.

02:54Considering its high degree of polish and massive ambitions,

02:57it's extremely impressive that Metal Gear Solid 2 only cost $10 million.

03:00For comparison's sake, Final Fantasy IX cost a whopping $40 million the year prior,

03:05and 2015's Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain was an $80 million production.

03:09To deliver a game that well-aged,

03:11and masterfully engineered on a modest Hollywood horror budget,

03:14is frankly staggering.

03:15Needless to say, this investment from Konami paid off.

03:18Number 15. The tanker chapter had a different ending.

03:21The game's tanker prologue ends with Ocelot stealing Metal Gear Ray,

03:24and the tanker sinking,

03:25at which point Solid Snake is presumed dead by the outside world.

03:28But originally, the level didn't end with a lengthy cutscene,

03:31but instead Snake trying to escape the tanker.

03:33The set piece reportedly had Snake running through the tanker while taking on guards,

03:37racing against the clock as water began to rush in.

03:40Those snippets of the sequence were used in cutscene flashbacks later on,

03:43and clips were also included in early trailers.

03:46Kojima allegedly scrapped this because it wasn't deemed fun enough.

03:49It's a damn shame because that sure sounded like a blast.

03:52Number 14. The game changed significantly due to 9-11.

03:55Countless movies, TV shows, and video games changed a lot due to 9-11,

03:59and some were even cancelled.

04:01And with Metal Gear Solid 2 just two months away,

04:03Kojima and his team had to work fast to reconfigure aspects of the game.

04:07The New York finale was originally more elaborate,

04:09and had Metal Gear Ray crashing into Manhattan.

04:11Elsewhere, American flags were removed from the final boss battle against Solidus.

04:15And Raiden's name spelling was even changed in Japan,

04:18from Katakana to Kanji characters because of the former being very similar to Bin Laden.

04:22All in all, it's impressive that these changes were made in such little time,

04:25especially before the game went gold.

04:27This was before the era of day one patches, after all.

04:30Number 13. The E3 reveal is widely credited for the PS2's success.

04:34Though it's no secret that this first gameplay demo blew people away,

04:38you might not appreciate just how widespread this truly was.

04:41The game's extremely high graphic fidelity and gameplay mechanics

04:44offered us such a strong advertisement for the PS2,

04:46which had already released in Japan but hadn't hit stores elsewhere just yet.

04:50And out of the gate, the PS2 sold like hotcakes,

04:52and sustained this for the entire generation.

04:54It left the Xbox, GameCube, and Dreamcast in the dust.

04:57And many credit this to, well, Metal Gear Solid 2.

05:00Number 12. Vamp was originally supposed to be a woman.

05:03Though it's different to see Vamp in any other way,

05:05his character went through a lot of changes in pre-production,

05:08with Kojima originally envisioning him as a woman.

05:10But once Kojima came out with the character of Fortune,

05:13he felt the duo made more sense if they were both different genders.

05:16And so Vamp was made a man instead.

05:18And now it's hard imagining Vamp in pretty much any other light.

05:21Number 11. It almost had a cel-shaded art style.

05:23It's basically impossible to imagine Metal Gear Solid 2

05:26looking any differently to what it does now.

05:28But early in the game's development,

05:29Kojima toyed with a cel-shaded look.

05:31Konami have released a few clips over the years

05:33featuring Snake and Mei-Lin looking cel-shaded.

05:36But that wasn't really the look that fit this game.

05:38And it's safe to say that Kojima was probably smart to stay the course.

05:41Though we did end up releasing a Metal Gear spin-off

05:43with a cel-shaded look years later,

05:45the PSP game Metal Gear Acid 2.

05:47Given the historically diverse nature of cel-shading,

05:50especially with franchises that didn't start out that way,

05:52and given how basically timeless Metal Gear Solid 2's final art style was,

05:56everyone here made the right choice.

05:58Number 10.

05:59The game passes commentary on Japanese censorship.

06:02Though much of Metal Gear Solid 2 feels massively ahead of its time,

06:05as it tackled complex issues,

06:07it also took sly aims at aspects of Japanese society,

06:10which you probably missed.

06:11In the year 2000, when Kojima was working on the game,

06:14the Japanese government approved textbooks which downplayed Japan's role in World War 2.

06:18This has been a major issue in Japan's society ever since then.

06:21And then when these textbooks were put out there in 2000,

06:24Kojima felt he had to comment upon this in his new game.

06:26And so he did in the final cutscene.

06:28We need to pass the torch,

06:29and let our children read our sad, messy history by its light.

06:33We have all the magic of a digital age to do this with.

06:35And ultimately, these textbooks were eventually scrapped

06:37in almost all of the school districts.

06:39Number 9.

06:40Jack and Rose's dialogue was inspired by Kojima's own marriage.

06:43Hideo Kojima sure does love movies,

06:46so it's no secret that Raiden slash Jack and his partner Rose

06:49are inspired by James Cameron's Titanic.

06:51Yet the actual beat-to-beat dialogue is informed by something else entirely,

06:54Kojima's relationship with his wife.

06:56According to Kojima, when Rose asks Jack what day it is,

06:59and he forgets the anniversary of their first meeting,

07:02it's intended to mirror Kojima's own forgetfulness while dating his wife,

07:05who would similarly ask the same question to prompt his own memory.

07:08This is one strange but yet sweet tribute.

07:10Number 8.

07:11Two planned bosses were cut from the game.

07:13The game originally featured two more bosses against Dead Cell,

07:16the questionable moniker of Chinaman and Oldboy,

07:18who were actually mentioned in the final game.

07:20The former was apparently modelled after Jet Li,

07:23and would have been a martial artist with the ability to walk on water and walls.

07:26His boss fight was set to take place in the same chamber that you fought Vamp for the first time.

07:30As for Oldboy, he was meant to be a mutant world war veteran,

07:33who was over 100 years of age, and was a mentor to Big Boss.

07:36His fight would have involved sending in a fleet of paratroopers to fight Raiden.

07:40But ultimately, the Oldboy concept was scrapped for the end,

07:43in Metal Gear Solid 3.

07:44Number 7.

07:45Raiden was created to make the game more appealing to women.

07:48The game's big protagonist, Switcheroo, of course rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

07:52But beyond Kojima wanting to troll his fanbase by swapping out Snake for Raiden,

07:56he also did it for a more earnest reason.

07:58Kojima claims that he created Raiden after hearing female debuggers,

08:01who worked on the original Metal Gear Solid, noting that it didn't do much for them.

08:04And so his solution was to give them a more accessible hero.

08:07And comparing Raiden to Solid Snake, it was meant to be a bit less standoffish.

08:11Despite the obvious controversies over Raiden, it didn't hurt the game's sales in any way.

08:16Number 6.

08:17Plissken originally had blonde hair.

08:18Supporting character Plissken is eventually revealed to be a lot more important,

08:22and none other than Solid Snake in disguise.

08:24And obviously Kojima didn't make much of an effort to conceal this.

08:27And as players, we all pretty much knew who it was from the get-go.

08:30However, Kojima's original plan was to give Plissken blonde hair,

08:33so it would leave players more unsure if it was Solid Snake or maybe even Liquid.

08:37But Kojima decided to drop this one as the look was a bit too distracting.

08:41While it would have been another layer of mystery and tension in the game,

08:44Metal Gear Solid 2 was also juggling too much else at the time,

08:47so it was deemed a bit unnecessary.

08:49Number 5.

08:50It predicted fake news and other modern phenomenon.

08:52It's wild to go back to Metal Gear Solid 2 now and just see how much it was predicted back then.

08:57Sure, a lot of these things aren't one-to-one, but it seemed to get some social trends right.

09:01And upon release, this game was considered to be a bit out there.

09:04But in recent years, it's been strangely precise with some aspects of life.

09:07What with the intrusive nature of technology in our lives, and the very notion of fake news.

09:12During Raiden's late-game chat with the Colonel,

09:14it's so strange how he was so accurate about misinformation in the internet age,

09:18or algorithms exploiting the human nature,

09:20wherever it'd be for hate or for joy.

09:22Now, this isn't to say that Kojima's an oracle,

09:24but sometimes this was a bit on the nose.

09:27So, bravo for predicting how twisted our future would really be.

09:30Number 4.

09:31A multiplayer mode was scrapped.

09:32Though more recent Metal Gear games have featured an online multiplayer mode,

09:36Kojima originally planned for Metal Gear Solid 2 to feature a local two-player versus mode,

09:40chief for either split-screen or console-to-console system link.

09:43The modes would have had straight-up battles between two players,

09:46or a stealthy hide-and-seek mode.

09:47Though unfortunately, this was eventually just scrapped.

09:50But hide-and-seek multiplayer rather than deathmatch in Metal Gear would be kind of fun.

09:54Number 3.

09:55It was originally about Solid hunting Liquid in the Middle East.

09:58Though the final game is set in New York,

10:00Kojima originally intended to sell it in the Middle East,

10:02with Liquid somehow surviving the events of the first game.

10:05Liquid would again commandeer some more nukes,

10:07and prepare to launch them with a new Metal Gear.

10:10But roughly six months into development,

10:11the plan was dropped,

10:13what with tensions growing in the Middle East.

10:15Kojima would rework some of these ideas for the Tanker Prologue instead,

10:18whilst totally reconfiguring the big shell portion of the game.

10:21Kojima of course finally went to the Middle East with a fourth game.

10:24Though presumably for political reasons,

10:26they don't say where it is.

10:28But then Metal Gear Solid 5 however takes place in Afghanistan.

10:31So he finally got there in the end.

10:33Number 2.

10:33Vamp is hidden in the ending cutscene.

10:35Despite defeating Vamp in the game,

10:37he obviously lives to fight another day,

10:39and makes a sneaky reappearance as an easter egg in the final cutscene.

10:42After Raiden removes his dog tank,

10:44you can manipulate the camera and zoom in to find him.

10:47Kino players will spot Vamp hanging around a taxi in the background,

10:50just for a few seconds.

10:51Seemingly watching Snake and Raiden having their little moment without their knowledge.

10:55Better yet, you'll even pop a trophy.

10:57Vampire.

10:58And as for Vamp,

10:59he would return years later in Metal Gear Solid 4,

11:01where you'd finally get to fight him one more time.

11:04At number 1.

11:05Raiden's journey was inspired by Pinocchio.

11:07And if you're wondering what Pinocchio has to do with a giant mech which shoots nukes,

11:10well, let me tell you.

11:12A lot of Kojima games are inspired by movies,

11:14but the bulk of Raiden's character arc is actually influenced by Pinocchio.

11:18In a recent tweet,

11:19Kojima confirms that Raiden's journey follows that of Pinocchio in a metaphorical way.

11:23And really, nobody can put it better himself.

11:25Raiden, swallowed by a huge white whale of information society,

11:29is digested through the stomach and vomited through the anus.

11:32After that,

11:32his puppet of information control cuts the strings,

11:35and starts to walk on its own legs.

11:37That's MGS2.

11:39I mean, Raiden does spend a large part of the game's final act in Arsenal Gear,

11:43where many areas are named after human body parts,

11:46namely Ascending the Colon,

11:48Sigmund Colon,

11:48and Rectum.

11:49Never change Hideo,

11:51you're an absolute madman.

11:52And that's our list,

11:53that's 20 mind-blowing things you didn't know about Metal Gear Solid 2,

11:56Sons of Liberty.

11:57Did we miss any major facts?

11:58Let us know down in the comments below,

12:00and don't forget to like, share, and subscribe.

12:01And while you're down there,

12:02go and follow us at WCultureGaming,

12:04and follow me,

12:05at BenRoyTurner,

12:06and on Instagram as well,

12:07why not?

12:07Anyway, until next time,

12:08never be game over.

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