Konami’s upcoming action title Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was a rather different game prior to the involvement of Platinum Games. In fact, it appears that before the studio jumped on board, Kojima Productions had crafted some pretty excellent boss battles that had to be thrown out.
KojiPro producer Yuji Korekado told OPM that unfortunately they simply couldn’t find a place for the bosses within the experience that PlatinumGames created.
The script was finished and the boss concepts were finished. The design was finished with those levels, and the levels were at the point where we could play it through in a white box – but we couldn’t come up with a core concept to tie it all together. In the end, we couldn’t finish the game.
Just to brag a little bit about our designs. We believe that the bosses we created for Metal Gear Solid: Rising were probably some of the best in the series, but Saito came in and said, ‘We’re not going to use these bosses.’ So you’ll not be seeing them this time around.
We’ll have no way of knowing just how amazing these bosses really would have been, but if Korekado isn’t exaggerating, that is one heck of an achievement. From the original Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid to foes like The Sorrow and The End in Snake Eater, claiming that Rising’s former bosses were among the best in the franchise is quite a lofty statement.
Here’s to hoping they somehow find a way to squeeze them into Metal Gear Rising 2 should they decide to make a sequel.
