Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Wiki

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a spin-off of the popular Metal Gear Solid series, and features Raiden as the primary protagonist. Raiden has been found in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, and this is Konami’s attempt to give him a fully-fledged game.

Developed by Platinum Studios, the game is a hack-and-slash action title, reminiscent of the games Platinum have developed in the past.

It was released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and initially there was a PC port rumored to be in development, but not confirmed then. However later on it was confirmed that the PC version is a reality and launched on January 9th, 2014. The game did not released on the Wii U and on the Xbox 360 in Japan.

It was a joint project by Kojima Productions and Platinum Games, and the game is published by Konami.

The release window is confirmed to be in February 2013, and a lot of special editions have been announced by Konami. The game is set in 2018, four years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4.

• 1. Development
• 2. Gameplay
• 3. Story
• 4. Characters
• 5. Initial Concept
• 6. Marketing

Development

The development of this game has been turbulent at times, with Platinum Games taking over the reins from Kojima Productions. It was revealed that Kojima was looking for a studio to develop the game and found Platinum to be more suitable for Rising.

Platinum Games gladly accepted the challenge and began developing the game in 2010, and a brief announcement was done at E3, with the platforms revealed as well.

Here’s what Platinum’s Atsushi Inaba had to say about how the relationship started.

“The first time I approached Mr. Kojima was at a party, I asked how Metal Gear Rising was doing, and there was no response from him at the time. The second time was at another party, and Mr Kojima actually asked, “Do you want to develop Rising for us?” And this was very… not business like… It was just instantly, “Do you want to make Rising for us?” So I thought it was a joke,” he said.

“The third time it was official and at that meeting Mr Kojima asked us if we could make the game. As an independent studio we have to think about the staff members we have available to complete the project, and truthfully there wasn’t much opening, but I felt that this was a title we had to do. At that meeting I knew I wanted to do that game.” [reference]

The first trailer that was shown at E3 2010 featured a CG Raiden cutting up a cyborg and extracting something that gives him more energy. It was the entire concept of the game, which revolved under the “cut” mechanic.

A lot of bosses created by Kojima Productions that were handed over to Platinum were scrapped, and one of the bosses included Volgin as well. They wanted to do something entirely new and created a bunch of original designs for the game.

“When Kojima studios were first making Rising, Boris [Volgin] was included in the initial concept. We did of course look at it and refer to it, and there are some characters we reused from the original concept, but ultimately, the most important concept that we needed to stay within is the Metal Gear world,” he said.

“The boss battles and the bosses in general were completely different in the original concept. There were a lot of stealth concepts that they were doing internally at Kojima studios, so now that it’s solely an action game the design and the action sequences are completely different.” [reference]

The game features customizable weapons, it has a good sense of humor, and for example, Raiden can hide in a cardboard box which is something most Metal Gear fans know about. The game also runs at 60 frames per second. [reference]

You can customise the HF Blade and also use sub-weapons like RPGs or grenades. And by range weapons, they probably mean firearms which won’t really do a lot of damage but are good at softening enemies up allowing you to get up close and personal. [reference]

Gameplay

The gameplay is fairly hack-and-slash, with some action elements like running on walls and QTEs that occur when facing bosses or random enemies.

The game progresses in a linear fashion with Raiden meeting some of the enemies and other story characters including his side kick, a giant robotic dog. The “cut” mechanic is something that has been talked about since the game was revealed.

It allows Raiden to slow down time and cut an object—buildings, machines, watermelon—and other things into finely sliced objects. Yes it also works on human guards and other enemies. It is something that brings a unique flavor to the game according to the game designers. Other than that, with the ability to upgrade weapons and take advantage of weapons littered around the ground, Raiden can use a lot of them which increases the combo potential of the game.

The game is playable in 3D on the Playstation 3 it was confirmed earlier this year by Sony. A PS Vita port of the game was rejected because of the cut mechanic which Kojima said would be too hard to pull off on the Vita. [reference]

Have a look at the demo here that shows you all the gameplay mechanics you can encounter in the game.

You can also play using a Cyborg Ninja costume, and it looks pretty good as well. The picture shows a colorful costume and Raiden standing stationary ready to slice enemies, or not. [reference]

Since the initial launch of the game, there has been DLC released in the form of classic Metal Gear VR missions as well as two additional short campaigns that detail the story of Raiden’s rival Samuel Rodrigues.

Story

Raiden is said to grow as a persona during the game. He is just an ordinary guy at the beginning of the game working for various PMCs to raise money in an African country. The main enemies in this game are the cyborgs from Desparado Enterprises that has been involved in terrorist attacks.

Story moves on from here and Raiden gets a new black cyborg suit that is not only powerful but also makes him a lot more flexible when it comes to performing rapid movements. One downside of the suit is that it makes Raiden require constant recharge, hence, the initial trailer shown makes a lot of sense.

Solid Snake won’t be making an appearance in this game as well, and it has been confirmed by Kojima. [reference]

Characters

Raiden: He is the game’s primary character and during the start of the game is just a PMC doing jobs to earn money and support his family, however, after a few incidents the theme changes to revenge and Raiden slices and cuts whoever comes in his way. It is said that Raiden grows as a character through the game and become more mature.

Bosses: Most of the returning bosses from Metal Gear Solid saga were cancelled by Platinum Games because they wanted to something different with Rising. They have created a bunch of new bosses which they have also released the pictures for. One of them is also a robotic dog that becomes Raiden’s companion after he defeats him.

Some of the bosses in this game are quite intriguing, one is a tank type boss, the other with a bunch of hands which is shown in a gameplay video. Metal Gear Ray makes an appearance in the game too and Raiden is shown chopping it up. Ray and Rex are machines that were created for world domination, and they feature in this game in some capacity.

Here are some of the renders released by Platinum Games.

Initial concept

The game was revealed at E3 2010 at the Microsoft’s conference with Kojima appearing on stage and Rising word loudly being announced on screen. People thought Metal Gear Solid 5 has gone to the Xbox 360, however, it was later revealed that the game was actually a spin-off containing Raiden, and a PS3 port was also confirmed later.

It was revealed that the game runs in 3D on the PS3, and a bunch of gameplay videos were shown at TGS 2010, which you can check out below.

Marketing

Taking place four years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Revengeance’s European Limited Edition comes with a 30 cm figurine of Raiden from the Play Arts KAI series, dubbed “Raiden White Armour”, of which there were only 25,000 units available across Europe for 99.95

Euro each. A special DLC code to access the white armour comes with it, which allows Raiden to carry more recovery items in the game. One of the pre-order incentives is the Raiden illustration by character concept artist Yoji Shinkawa, with the accompanying DLC unlocking the Inferno Armour for increasing throwing items. The second steelbook features a Raiden render, along with DLC for the Commando Armour for increased projectile weapons. [reference]

The Rising bundle includes a Super Slim PS3 and a painted controller priced at ¥31,960, a copy of Revengeance, and download codes for PlayStation 3 theme and Cyborg Ninja skin. This is exclusive to Japan and won’t be coming to the west.

The Japanese demo turned out to be region locked. Luckily, it seems that every other region was able to download the demo for Revengance demo in January. Featuring some of the game’s second level and a boss fight with a cyborg wolf, the demo originally released as part of a separate disc along with Zone of the Enders HD Collection. [reference]

This wiki was last updated on 1st, January, 2015.