Why did Metal Gear Solid 2’s main protagonist get so much hate?
Some people may not remember it but before Raiden became the cool cyborg ninja he is today, he used to be one of the most hated characters in the Metal Gear franchise and frequently the butt of jokes. As the lead protagonist in 2001’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, why exactly did Raiden receive so much hate at the time and what were Kojima’s aims in creating the character?
Hideo Kojima’s deception during Metal Gear Solid 2’s pre-release period
Raiden’s androgynous appearance isn’t entirely to blame for the character’s negative reception. Kojima deliberately misled people into thinking that the popular main character from 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake, would be the main protagonist for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Interviews, trailers, gameplay, and other forms of promotional material for the game were doctored by Kojima and his team to feature Solid Snake in the traditional third-person perspective and a faceless protagonist in the series’ then-new first-person camera. People assumed that the character being controlled in both perspectives was Solid Snake because these scenes were cut so closely together.
In reality, the majority of the material featuring Solid Snake (including the playable demo included with Kojima’s Zone of the Enders game) is set in the final release’s Tanker prologue. This segment has players controlling Solid Snake in his search for a new type of Metal Gear alongside his friend Otacon. The operation goes sideways, Snake and Otacon are framed for the destruction of the tanker, and the game fast forwards two years and shifts control to Raiden onboard the Big Shell decontamination facility.
Raiden was meant to show the Metal Gear franchise from a fresh perspective
The choice to make Raiden the main protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty wasn’t a haphazard one. According to a 2012 Gamespot interview, Kojima was getting tired of having players control a legendary soldier and wanted his fans to experience Solid Snake’s deeds from another perspective. Switching to Raiden also made the idea of tutorials more understandable, as his prior combat experience only came in the form of VR missions.
What Kojima perhaps didn’t realize was that switching to a greenhorn like Raiden after playing a character as cool as Solid Snake for so long would rub players the wrong way. It also didn’t help that some of the things Raiden did in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty were questionable at times and downright humorous in others. No one who has played the game would ever forget the infamous segment where Raiden is forced to sneak through Arsenal Gear completely naked.
As for Raiden’s feminine appearance, this was to make him more appealing to a female audience. Kojima and his team endeavored to make the new character younger and more good-looking after they overheard a group of female debuggers mention that the grizzled character of Solid Snake wasn’t doing it for them (Source: Gamespot). While Raiden’s appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty would not draw too much attention nowadays, it definitely got fans talking back in 2001.
After poking fun at Raiden through Colonel Volgin’s second-in-command and lover Ivan Raidenovich Raikov in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (and some videos in Subsistence’s secret theater), Kojima made Raiden the next cyborg ninja. The scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots where he demolishes a horde of Gekkos and fights against Vamp multiple times are just a few instances where players wish they got to control the new and improved Raiden. They would get their wish years later with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – an action-adventure game developed by Platinum Games known for its high-octane sword fights and meme-worthy sequences. Though Raiden’s initial appearance and presence turned some players off, both the character and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty were eventually accepted by Metal Gear community.
