Gray Fox Was Supposed To Be The Star Of Metal Gear Rising

Hideo Kojima recently spoke with IGN, and a number of topics are touched upon, including the FOX Engine and the Phantom Pain. But it's a revelation that pertains to the upcoming MGS spin-off that has everyone talking.

Apparently, Metal Gear Rising was originally going to star Gray Fox, aka the original Cyber Ninja, and not Raiden…

"It was actually not my idea, it was my staff in Kojima Productions that insisted on Raiden, and I respected their idea. I wanted to really focus on production than development, and they wanted to come up with a really cool hack-and-slash title with some Katana action and Raiden in it, and I thought ‘okay, that’s fine, I respect that’.

But in my personal opinion, I wanted to go for Frank Jaegar or Gray Fox."

Though Kojima goes on to explain that, if they had gone with his original idea, he would have then had to commit much time and energy towards the project. Which goes against his goal of passing along Metal Gear into the hands of younger, up and coming members of his team. In the end…

"Besides, if I had created the game and directed it, it wouldn’t have been this game. I am very happy to see the growth in my team and how they have developed such an incredible game."

Still, those who have been looking for any reason to harp on Revengence now have additional fuel to their fire (though these days, much of the ire about Raiden being the front man of the game has shifted towards Platinum Games being the new stewards).