IGN: Do you feel that with MGS3 you are tying up all the loose ends of the story of the trilogy?
Kojima: With the gameplay, the story, and even the skills of the guys on the team who've been working on the MGS series for the past 10 years I think we've been able to wrap up the trilogy.
IGN: What kind of role will you have in the next Metal Gear game?
Kojima: (laughs) There is no actual team that is working on MGS4 right now, but now that we've pretty much finished up MGS3 and if there are a lot of fans who want a MGS4 there will be one. There's planning going on in my head, but there is no staff working on it.
IGN: So for right now what is the staff doing? Is everyone about to go on a well-deserved vacation?
Kojima: We're still working on the European version right now. We're done with the U.S., Japanese, and Korean versions, but we still have the European version so the guys are still working on the game.
IGN: Will there be any gameplay differences between the U.S. version and the European one?
Kojima: We feel sorry for the American fans, but the European fans have to wait until the very end, and so to compensate for that we're going to add a few modes and some extra features for the European version.
IGN: Will we ever see those modes and features in America?
Kojima: In the past you've seen additional versions like Integral or Substance. It could happen, but we have no plans right now.
IGN: Can you say what any of these modes might be for the European version?
Kojima: We can't really talk about them now. One thing we can say now is that we will be adding a new difficulty level called the European Extreme. We've always added that in the past. It's a very difficult mode.
IGN: Do you feel like you've really nailed the Metal Gear Solid feeling of a game that is very fun the first time, but rewards players for playing through it multiple times?
Kojima: I always say when I come up with a new Metal Gear Solid game that it's a masterpiece, but this time I think we nailed it in terms of gameplay and in terms of volume as well because it's a big, long game. I think it is a masterpiece and Yoji Shinkawa is a critic and his evaluations can be pretty severe, but this time he thinks it's a masterpiece as well. (laughs)
IGN: That depth shows in the many different situations in the game that provide several different ways of going about solving them. I was curious as to which of these areas you feel best represents this open gameplay.
Kojima: I guess the battle with The End.
IGN: So where did the inspiration from The End come from? It's such a different boss battle from all the others that take place within much more confined spaces.
Kojima: I just wanted to come up with totally different boss battles for MGS3 such as for The End and also The Sorrow. I just wanted to do things that you don't see in other games. And one interesting thing with The End battle is that you can kill him earlier in the game. And so if you kill him there it's a boss fight that you don't have to fight. That's another thing you don't see in other games.
We've done sniping battles before as with Sniper Wolf, but you sort of know where she is so you try a few spots and you eventually get her. But this time we wanted to set it in a real jungle where you don't know where he is so you can fight for hours.
IGN: For people who have not played the demo beforehand and are coming into the game as a new experience there's a very steep learning curve. Was there a fear that that might be a turn-off for players?
Kojima: I always had these worries, especially introducing new game systems like camouflage, the food capturing, and the cure system. The CQC is fighting so I guess you can put that aside. These things are totally new to the players and I had to think of the right timing of when to give which game system to the player in the game so that's something I had to think of.
That's why in the game you can start out by changing your camo. The first enemies you see in the game are the crocodiles, there are no human enemies. That's where you can try out your food capturing for the first time. After that there are human enemies so you can use your camo when there are humans around you. And after that you don't even get to use the cure system, you don't get any sever injuries. Only after you enter Operation Snake Eater, then you get to treat yourself when you get injured severely. That's why we lay these things out separately early in the game so that people can learn them one by one.
IGN: I loved the fact that the tools are reduced in this game and that players need to use the sonar with the AP sensor and all of that. Was this decision to go back in time to a more limited system because it was too easy for people to use the radar system before?
Kojima: The series was turning into a radar game where you just pay attention to the radar and not use your visual senses or listening. That's what I wanted people to depend on instead of the radar so in the jungle I wanted people to listen to the grass moving or noise and so that's why I got rid of the radar.
IGN: Good decision.
Kojima: (laughs)
IGN: With all of the change to the gameplay, why is the camera the same system as before? Why aren't players allowed to move around within a first-person or third-person perspective this time?
Kojima: As the game is wrapping up the trilogy, I didn't want to change that. Metal Gear Solid is about the top-view camera, the corner-view camera, and the first-person view camera. The fact that the player can switch through these three camera angles and these three angles give cinematic views and that is something that I did not want to change. Another reason is that if I brought the camera right behind the character I myself would feel 3D sick while I was testing the game. (laughs) In the next game, MGS4, you might see a change in the camera system.
IGN: Speaking of the camera, why does the camera go into a forced intrusion mode or first-person view while crawling through the grass?
Kojima: It's the intrusion mode that you've seen before when going through ducts or when you're in a cardboard box. We did it because we wanted the player to feel fear while they're hiding in grass. They're hiding in grass, but they can't see the enemy around them so I wanted them to feel scared when doing that.
IGN: So this was intentional limitation?
Kojima: If we did bring the camera up and you saw the enemy while crawling in the grass, there's no tension in hiding from the enemy.
IGN: I have a question for both of you. Who had the input in the creation of the different characters and bosses this time around?
Shinkawa: Mr. Kojima gave me all these key words, basically the emotions that soldiers feel in battle like The Fear, The Fury, and all those and I came up with some rough sketches. I also have an assistant, Miss Uchiyama. We came up with ideas together and presented them to Mr. Kojima.
Kojima: I basically come up with ideas for characters that would work in the gameplay. Like a boss character that fights like this and hops around in this manner and I present them to Mr. Shinkawa. Then Shinkawa comes up with the visual look of the bosses based on the ideas and the gameplay I require from these boss characters.
For example, The Pain. I first came up with this character who controls bees and also has bees inside him and spits out bees. I tossed that to Shinkawa and Shinkawa comes up with the visuals for this guy called The Pain where he has this huge backpack on his butt so he looks like a queen bee. And then I get an idea from Shinkawa and then I add on to that what kind of guy he would be.
Shinkawa: Initially, Mr. Koima told me that these bosses were supposed to be monsters or creatures while they're humans. When I came up with my initial designs they were too "monster-y." They weren't human so I ended up changing them. In the future sometime I would like to come up with some non-human creature characters.
IGN: Especially towards the end of the game there are several cinematic action sequences. Are there any specific movies or directors that you got inspiration from for this game?
Kojima: About three years ago team members went on an overnight field trip where we stayed the night at a hotel, brainstorming to try to come up with a bunch of ideas. We do this for all our games and when we did that the movie we saw together was Predator.
And you know there's a love scene between Snake and Eva [behind the waterfall]? My inspiration for that came from the first Pink Panther film. That's something I had Shinkawa watch. It came out a little different, but that's what I wanted to do.
Shinkawa: What we always wanted to do was give the 60's flavor. That's something we always wanted throughout the game and we saw a lot of old films from that time period. We also watched real documentary footage from the Vietnam War so we could give that flavor. And also the lighting of the 60's, especially in the cutscenes.
IGN: Speaking of those cutscenes, why is The Sorrow so happy to be showing the countdown for the bomb exploding towards the end of the game?
Kojima: First of all, The Sorrow faced The Boss two years ago and he chose death and is dead and remained in that area as a ghost. Now when Snake came in he snuck on to Snake and he's basically moving around with Snake and he was able to meet The Boss again so he's really happy to be with The Boss again. That's one thing and another is that he's been floating around in that area as a ghost and now that everything's been completed he's able to move on. To not linger on as a ghost, but move on to the next world. He's happy that his soul is at peace now.
IGN: We also heard yesterday that Kojima has mentioned the possibility of making a Metal Gear solid movie. Is there anything you could say about this?
Kojima: (laughs) We don't know about that rumor. We get contacted every day, you know, "can we make a movie?" People just come up to me and say "Hi, Kojima-san, want to make a Metal Gear movie?" It happens every day.
Quelle: IGN
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