Ryan Payton Drops a Few Hints About MGS4

October 24th, 2007

Gametrailers and Joystiq both recently interviewed Ryan Payton(an Assistant Producer on MGS4). Although this is a few days old, it won’t stop me from writing about these meaty tidbits that he gave away. I’m just way too excited about this game, its hard to refuse. Lets take a look at the Joystiq interview:

Where the Game is at in Production

Payton states that the latest development build is a step up from the E for All demo. Differences include altered menus and the inclusion of more gameplay elements. At this stage, they are tweaking the AI for the games difficulty, stages and working on scripted enemy events. He believes that the demo is 80% of what the final game will be like.

Payton later continues that because the AI is still not done Konami don’t want to release a demo of the game(via PSN) as they think that people will exploit this. They think that even the demo at E for All isn’t up to Beta stage yet, so they want it to be perfect first, before releasing anything.

old snake mgs4

Ending

He knows what happens for the ending, says that there are no gimmicks. The use of “it’s the final chapter of Solid Snake” and “the final chapter in his life” kinda allures to an ending where Snake dies.

The ending is meant to pay homage to the legend, its meant to be something that people won’t believe and will talk about for some time.

Other Gameplay Modes

Payton states that there will be other gameplay modes beyond the main stealth/action gameplay design. These modes are meant to borrow from other genres and each bit lasts about half an hour. Although the interviewer suggests that this could be some sort of racing component(which sounds very reasonable) Payton declines to comment on these features. He thinks people will be pleasantly surprised by these additions.

Western Game Version

Payton states that Hideo has put him in charge of the western version of the game. So he gets to control difficulty settings etc. So he reckons that the western version will be more difficult than the Japanese version. He wants to focus more around the over the shoulder cam(Resident Evil 4) instead of auto aiming. This judgement is based from the different play styles between cultures.

Opening and Closing Movies

This part was quite interesting, theres little point in my paraphrasing it for you:

“I think that the opening movie and the ending of the game are going to be the two talks of the town. The opening movie is something that has never been attempted, and will never be attempted again. It’s something that could only come out of Hideo’s mind.”

Other Quick Tidbits

Payton hesitanty reckons that MGS4 will be longer than MGS3
Konami heard about the PS3 Rumble features about a week and a half before the TGS
there will be no sections in the game where you play as an older Snake
the treat ring gameplay mechanic was in both the TGS and E for All demos
Payton isn’t sure about how Konami will bundle MGS4 and MGSO together in the US

Some very interesting tidbits indeed. And in some ways a bit of a relief to know the extent to which the team are putting in for this game. My anticipation is still running at an all time high. I’ll be sure to keep you all up to date on any more significant advancements.

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