Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Continuing to improve the quality of a game by using every last bit of time available
is a tenet of Kojima's game philosophy.
2008/2/25 LEADER'S MEETING An important announce is made on february 25th.
PROGRAMMING LEAD: YUJI KOREKADO We'll continue doing checks and revisions until Wednesday.
As long as there aren't any big revisions left on Thursday,
then on Friday we'll create the first master.
The first master is the disc submitted to hardware companies. It's used to carry out various tests.
If any bugs are discovered, the master will have to be resubmitted.
The mood in the studio is strangely upbeat.
We ask Kojima why.
It's kind of like how runners get runners' high.
There's a period of time you could call "game developers' high,"
when the whole thing just becomes incredibly fun.
You do have a schedule to stick to in order to make the game better,
and you want to keep adding things to make it better.
Then the next day the game is better than the previous day.
It's just this powerful feeling it gives everyone.
The team continues to polish the game as much as time allows.
3D ENVIRONMENT LEAD: MINESHI KIMURA We readjusted the color of the sky a little.
It Iooks Iike the third time's a charm, and it's just bareIy going to make it in.
We naturaIIy want to make the game as fun as possibIe,
SCRIPTING LEAD: HIROAKI YOSHIIKE so if we think up something,
we'll bring one of the programmers in and
ask them to do if for us.
I'm a programmer, so one of my jobs is fixing bugs.
PLAYER PROGRAMMER: JUNJI TAGO If I see anything else I think needs fixing, though,
I'll spend as much time as I can with those.
2D ART LEAD: TAKAHIRO OMORI With games, everything comes together right at the very end, and when you get to that point,
you feel the pressure.
Taking a moment to amend something despite your development schedule takes a lot of guts,
but if you can get it done,
the game will be better off for it.
You always want to make the game as good as possible
regardless of your development schedule.
That sentiment increases the final quality of the game in a very short span of time.
What did you do?
This is from MGS1 Snake...
Wow!
Let me tell you about that.
CINEMATICS LEAD: MASAYA KOBAYASHI When you see Snake in the helicopter there,
for a split second at first his face is actually
his low-polygon model from MGS1 .
I thought it'd be fun to do,
so I asked someone if they could do it.
Then about an hour later they told me they'd done it,
and when I went to go take a look,
it has this kind of morphing
look to it.
- It's totally seamless. - There it is there.
- Is it a kind of morphing? It's not a kind of morphing? - No, no, no.
There it is there.
Bam, the face appears, then it changes back immediately.
FACIAL ANIMATION: KUMI SATO Sunny's voice originally made you feel like she as shutting everyone out.
She had this low, menacing sort of voice,
so we made her expressions match that gloominess.
The second time through we made her face more sad and lonely.
When she smiles she has this soft smile,
which I think makes her cuter.
CINEMATIC ARTIST: NORIFUMI HOSOYA I hope people will pay attention to the last part of the Eastern Europe section,
since it involved a lot time and effort. The scene when the US military has surrounded Liquid.
You have all these characters, effects,
and buildings.
It involved a lot of work,
but I think it really lives up to the Metal Gear tradition of quality.
I'm proud of it.
3D ENVIRONMENT ARTIST: TOMOYUKI KAMEI My main task was serving as stage leader for Shadow Moses,
so I oversaw its production.
THREE MONTHS EARLIER At first the look of the snow wasn't right, so we varied it's presentation,
CURRENT STATE and now you also have a real blizzard blowing through it. It really suits the atmosphere.
Everyone's perseverance helps add that extra bit of polish to the game.
2008/2/29 Then comes February 29th.
On this day, the first master is completed.
2008/3/10 On March 10th, foreign media are invited to evaluate the near-finished game for the first time at another Bootcamp event.
The collection of journalists from around the world gasp in shock.
Hideo Kojima himself has made a surprise appearance.
He's a man who truly enjoys surprising others.
Before leaving, he's asked about the future of Metal Gear.
Will there be another Metal Gear game?
We still haven't decided exactly what's going to happen,
but I'd like to have a younger person direct it while I take a step back and watch the birth of a new Metal Gear
along with everyone else.
I'd like to produce a game in the series
that's entirely new instead of one of my own.
That was my plan ten years ago,
but I'd really like to see that happen more than anything else.
Time moves quickly when you're busy thinking about
how to design something, or how you need to study
the background to something more through books and research trips.
I'm trying not to think about it at the moment.
Right now my main focus is MGS4.
With the completion of Metal Gear Solid 4, Kojima now steps away from Metal Gear to focus on developing new games.
Metal Gear's genes, however, will be inherited by its next generation of designers.
Like a flower scattering its seeds, new life will arise.