Metal Gear’s Hideo Kojima almost named Metal Gear Solid 2 ‘Metal Gear Solid 3’

Modern games often cop a lot of flack for wacky numbering conventions. Sure, it happens with movies too – the Halloween franchise in particular seemed to lose its way somewhere around the 95th direct to video cesspit – but when it happens in gaming, it seems to stir up a special kind of irritation.

Let me pull from personal experience for a prime example here. Picture the scene: there I am (imagine me however you want, I won’t be offended) chatting with a mate about his recent gaming exploits. “What’s that, you say? You’ve just played – and enjoyed – Kingdom Hearts? The first instalment? Well, I can’t say as I blame you; it is a classic, after all. Ah, and now you’re wanting to continue onto the next one? Good, good – wait, you’re not booting up Kingdom Hearts 2, are you? You fool!”

Metal Gear development secrets

I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea. For you see, my comrade-in-arms had made the fatal error of thinking the number 2 comes after the number 1. Not in the world of Nomura. Nay, in that hellish dimension, you’ve got to play a thousand-and-one spinoffs – numbered anywhere from 0.5 to 358/2 – to have any hope of following what could only very generously be described as the ‘plot’ of the series.

Which, somewhat tangentially, brings us to today’s story. Another famed Japanese developer apparently came close to cocking up the order of another beloved Japanese game series – this time, it’s Hideo Kojima, of Metal Gear fame. As TheGamer reports, Solid Snake came inches away from having his second outing labelled as his third. Well, that’s no good; how is he ever going to keep count of how many necks he’s snapped if he can’t even get that right?

“This week marked the 20th anniversary of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and to celebrate, Kojima has been sharing some development secrets about the game,” the report states. Said secrets include an origin story for Raiden, and details of a child-oriented movie pitch Kojima put together at one point. Wonder why that didn’t take? Sounds like instant gold.

Kojima and his Metal Gear story

On Twitter, Kojima said: “This is another backstory I mentioned somewhere. When I first ordered the logo design for MGS2, the concept was “MGS III”. The person in charge said to me, “Why the ‘3’? He said, “You’re leaving out the ‘2’. So I answered. I said, “Well, you must be wondering. That’s what we’re aiming for. That’s what I’m aiming for”. I can’t remember if I was serious or not.”

So, in other words, Kojima must have been nipping at the communion sake at the time, and in his stupor thought it would be an utterly hysterical idea to confuse gamers into believing they’d skipped over a game. Here I was thinking there’d be some hidden plot significance to the decision, but nope, just a troll. Never change, Hideo. You and your japes.

The article also makes reference to a design document for Metal Gear Solid 2, which declares: “instead of proceeding on to MGS2, as one might expect, we are making MGS3. The question in peoples’ minds, ‘why is it 3 and not 2?’ will have a big impact.” Who wrote this? Rian Johnson?

At any rate, I think we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that this doomed attempt at subversiveness was pulled at the last minute, and the comforting sanity of regular numbering was embraced once more. Who knows? If things had continued unchecked, we might be on Metal Gear Solid 75 by now.

Are you amused by this anecdote? Are you a fan of the series? Let us know!

Via, TheGamer.