GP: Will players be able to play as Raiden?
Kojima: Are you suggesting that the players should play as Raiden? [laughs]
GP: Well, that question was provided by one of our editors back in the States...he's very excited about using Raiden's sword.
Kojima: I don't want to repeat the same faults from MGS2, so it will not happen.
GP: Will swords or other hand-to-hand combat weapons be a factor for Snake?
Kojima: Yes. And you'll be surprised by the number of weapons that he will use. And you can customize your weapons by putting attachments and upgrades on them.
GP: Would that include [attachments like] silencers and lights and laser sights?
Kojima: Yes. Grenade launchers, scopes.... We have a sort of geeky maniac of military weapons on our team. I can't keep up with him! For the game design, I don't do [intricate weapon design] -- I leave it up to those guys on the team to make attachments and so on.
GP: Will you be able to use multiple attachments per gun -- more than just one or two?
Kojima: You'll be really surprised by how many variations are possible. It's not like anything you've seen in past Metal Gear games before.
GP: How will players get these weapon mods? Will they find them, buy them, make them, or trade them?
Kojima: Excellent question. [laughs] And I can't answer it. [more laughs] Please wait a little more, because that answer is tied to the story and plot.
GP: Is there any possibility that these customizations could be traded online or from player to player in some way?
Kojima: Yes.
GP: Could you elaborate more on the hand-to-hand weapons? That seems to be an interesting addition to the series.
Kojima: That's very difficult to explain right now, because that gives away a little bit of how you...complete the game, actually.
GP: Hmm. You said something about Squad A and Squad B earlier; will the game have a great deal of replayability, giving players a different experience each time?
Kojima: Actually, "replay value" is kind of the old thinking, I think. The game will play differently according to the player, is the bottom line. Whether you team up with Country A, you could fight Country B. If Country A wins with you, you could possibly progress easier. Or vice-versa, possibly.
You could also look at the circumstances of current events. So you first thought you were teaming up with A, but then you think "oh, I shouldn't be with A...I should be with B." You could change that instantly, meaning that the circumstances and the situation always change according to how you play.
So, for instance, say there's a front line ahead of you, Country B. And you're kind of new to Country A, and they have a tank...you can walk with their tank, hide behind it, in order to defeat Country B.
Of course, in that circumstance, you might need to protect the A tank, so you'd have to destroy Enemy B's anti-tank launcher. The player will always have a choice about what he or she should do according to the circumstances. That's just an example.
GP: Are you planning to head into futuristic territory, with laser and plasma guns, or will weapons be more realistic?
Kojima: If you're specifying about weapons, there will be loads of weapons as we know today in the military, there will be imaginary weapons, and there will be some new real weapons that we've never seen but are really in progress at the moment.
But yes, I would like to stick to a certain extent to [a more realistic arsenal]. However, I might throw in a couple of weapons because I think they're interesting game design...like, for instance, in MGS1 there was a remote-controllable missile. And that's because it was fun in the game, so I may add other weapons like that for MGS4.
GP: We've been holding off on asking this, but we can't wait any longer: what are your plans for online and Metal Gear Solid 4?
Kojima: Well, actually, Sony has not really spoken with us about their online plans. What I have is Metal Gear Online, and I'm always thinking of how we can conduct this plan on the Sony platform.
One example is the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. That's, in a way, one our plans for MGO that we have in mind. It's not about the platform. In an ideal MGO world, no matter what the platform is -- PC, Xbox 360, PS3, handheld, Wii -- we wish that we could create a kind of community where everyone can play. That's kind of the MGO way of thinking.
GP: With games becoming more expensive and bigger, do you feel obligated to cram an online mode in MGS4? Or is there still a place for single-player-only games?
Kojima: Well, I think both online and single-player. Online has its [advantages], but at the same time, the single-player mode lets people concentrate for hours and hours to become heroes, or gain something else from the game. I think there's a lot to put in there as well. So online and single-player are two separate things that are important.
GP: Is there a possibility MGS4 will not have an integrated multiplayer mode? Following in the footsteps of MGS3, which released multiplayer later on another disc?
Kojima: That's something I can't say right now because... we're considering it, actually.
GP: Do you have any plans for PSP-to-PS3 interoperability between Mobile Ops and MGS4?
Kojima: Yes, of course.
GP: Are you willing to share a bit about how that would work? Would it be a separate view, like a radar view, or would it have a collection element?
Kojima: Obviously, at this stage it's very difficult to share that.
GP: Is 1080p a goal for Metal Gear Solid 4? Do you think 1080p is an important feature to have?
Kojima: In that sense, the answer is simple: we're not really insistent on sticking to HD. We're not the ones who are saying we want HD. We want something really pretty on a very small screen. But 360 and PS3 don't allow that because HD is kind of a must-have...
I'm not interested, myself, about HD at all. Because if it gets prettier and prettier with more details, that means more mistakes [on the game development side].
As you know, MGS games tend not to care about how clean the screen looks. It's more about the atmosphere that we give it. Meaning, once we create graphics in a scene, we deliberately make them look dirtier to give the atmosphere more life. My team and I think that high-res is not needed for the next two or three years.
GP: On that note, do you have any fantasies about working with the Wii, which doesn't use HD graphics?
Kojima: Wii! [laughs] Yes, I will do it. I'm saying this every day. [laughs] But first, I have to face this giant that is called Metal Gear Solid 4, so until I'm finished with that, I can't do anything.
GP: Back to PS3 hardware: has it been challenging to work with the PS3 Cell CPU?
Kojima: Of course I don't actually work with all the programs, so I can't tell you specifically what's difficult. But overall I think it is difficult, of course. But if it's easy and simple, then how can you differentiate from other games? Other people will do the same thing as you. Therefore, we're trying to use [the Cell's] difficulty to create something different.
If I say too much, Mr. Kutaragi might get really upset. I think that the PS3 is difficult to work with, but so was the PS2.
GP: Is MGS4 still planned as an exclusive PS3 game? Do you have any interest in Xbox 360 development?
Kojima: Well, yes, I do have strong interest in creating something for the Xbox 360. In the US and Europe, it is selling, and I think it will sell a lot this year as well. I'm a fan of Gears of War as well, it's very interesting.
Frankly speaking, I want to create something on the PC. It's a multi-platform [format]. I've been regularly studying work on the PC anyways, and I want to provide something as a world-wide platform because of the consequences with timing on the PlayStation platforms, MGS4 is actually for the PS3 only so far.
GP: Speaking as a PC gamer, I'd love to see you work on a PC project.
Kojima: I want to do it. But our staff, especially the younger ones, don't so much like to work on the PC. If it was PC, we don't have to go into some crappy things with the first parties (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo).
GP: The majority of MGS fans love the rendered cut scenes, but there's a vocal minority who feel that they are too long or too frequent and interrupt the experience. Have these complaints influenced the cinemas in MGS4?
Kojima: Actually, every time I make a game, I am always influenced by all this feedback, and I personally think that the cutscenes are long as well. We are not creating a movie.
But we [didn't make cinemas shorter] because we might lessen the emotional factor or fail to give enough explanation to the users. So it happens to be that length. This time, yes, I am thinking about making them shorter.
Actually, one example is in Zone of Enders 2. Good players shoot before they notice the difference between the different enemies, meaning that it doesn't matter how much effort we put into creating new characters. So we deliberately added cut-scenes to show new characters or enemies. Games are like this -- sometimes we need to explain the differences and things like that.
Kojima: This time, for MGS4, the cinemas might be long. But according to our original plan right now, it's much less than past series.
GP: Half-Life and even MGS3 contained "living" cutscenes, where the player can do as he chooses as the story unfolds. Are you interested in interactive storytelling, or more the traditional cinematic approach?
Kojima: Of course I'm interested. And of course MGS4 will be as interactive as possible...that's one reason why we do [cinemas] in real time. If we're allowed to just show something pretty, we can show that in a movie scene.
GP: Resistance: Fall of Man uses 22 GB [edit: recently changed to 16 GB] of Blu-ray storage. Is that necessary for next-gen development? Is that massive storage something you'll need to make MGS4?
Kojima: Right away. We'll need more.
GP: We recently spoke with Sony's Phil Harrison, who told us that he thinks PS3 games will soon use 50 GB. Do you agree with that prediction?
Kojima: Yes, I do. It's high-def, and just to make it high-def, the data requirements are huge.
Back in the days when I was working on 8-bit, 1 MB ROMs came out and I thought, "wow, great!" But it wasn't enough. When the CD-ROM came out, we thought we had so much space. But when we started to add sound, there was a lack of storage already. Even Blu-ray, I don't even feel that it expanded data so much. With cinematic, the space fills up right away. You may hear Blu-ray is huge, gigantic, 20 GB or so, but that's not really that big to us. One basic [gameplay] frame with HD and 5.1 takes up so much space that the capacity will become too small in no time. If we maintain the same level of graphics and sound as the PS2, then Blu-ray is spacious. But that's not the case.
GP: Is that intimidating for a developer to have to work with so much storage? Do you worry about being buried under a mountain of data?
Kojima: I don't care so much about the space. In the past, we spent so much time creating programs for compressing. But now, we don't have to do that so much. So in that sense, it's gotten a little easier.
GP: If you ever made an Xbox 360, would you find it difficult to work with because it uses a standard DVD?
Kojima: It's not necessarily challenging or difficult, it's just a matter of how we do it. It might be a couple of discs, or possibly a new form of dual-layer.
GP: Our readers are very curious about the whereabouts of the returning characters, like Otacon and Meryl. Can you elaborate on what role they fill in MGS4?
Kojima: I can't really say...they'll be plenty more to come. It'll be almost like a class reunion. [laughter] And I think it's not good right now to say something about what they have done, and what has happened to them, just for the fun of it. So I'd rather not say anything.
GP: Obviously, the E3 trailer hinted at a 2007 release date. Are you shooting for a release at the end of the year, or the summer?
Kojima: We don't know, because the guy who said 2007 was Raiden, and not me. [laughter]
ZWAME Jogos: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth já se encontra disponível para a PlayStation 5. Podem ler a nossa análise no Portal Jogos.
(atenção eu secalhar expressei-me mal a entrevista é verdadeira agora as conclusões que certas sites e pessoas chegaram é que são invenções pelo menos para já...)
