{"id":46807,"date":"2025-04-08T15:02:26","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T06:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=46807"},"modified":"2025-04-08T15:02:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T06:02:28","slug":"metal-gear-solid-snakes-silent-tough-guy-personality-was-influenced-by-technical-limitations-of-the-first-game-kojima-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/metal-gear-solid-snakes-silent-tough-guy-personality-was-influenced-by-technical-limitations-of-the-first-game-kojima-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Metal Gear: Solid Snake\u2019s silent, tough guy personality was influenced by technical limitations of the first game, Kojima says\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Metal Gear\u2019s stoic and intelligent agent Solid Snake is one of the most iconic characters in gaming. Although his depiction has varied throughout the series \u2013 especially in terms of how talkative he can get \u2013 the quiet, tough core of his personality was formed in response to what Hideo Kojima was working with when developing the inaugural <strong>Metal Gear <\/strong>title.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a recent essay written for <a href=\"https:\/\/ananweb.jp\/categories\/entertainment\/49804\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">An-An<\/a> magazine, Kojima comments, \u201cIt was 1986 when I entered the game industry. Games still couldn\u2019t speak. Characters did not have voices. Kanji fonts weren\u2019t supported, and you could only show one katakana character at a time. Solid Snake, the protagonist of my debut title Metal Gear (1987), was born as a silent \u2018tough guy\u2019 because of these circumstances.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1111\" height=\"627\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1111px) 100vw, 1111px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-001.jpg\" alt=\"Snake and Raiden\" class=\"wp-image-46811\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-001.jpg 1111w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-001-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-001-768x433.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Metal Gear was originally released for the MSX2 home computer. Memory constraints made it impossible to display kanji, so the game was written entirely in katakana, Japan\u2019s simpler phonetic script. Obviously, voiced lines were out of the question too, and Kojima suggests that these limitations contributed to him choosing a stoic and silent protagonist for the game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, with 1998\u2019s Metal Gear Solid, Snake got his voice. \u201cNow, the silent Snake could speak, delivering snappy lines reminiscent of 007 or Lupin the Third,\u201d Kojima comments. Although he debuted as an essentially mute character, a big part of Snake\u2019s popularity came from the performances of voice actors like Akio Otsuka and David Hayter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1267\" height=\"707\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1267px) 100vw, 1267px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-002.jpg\" alt=\"Solid Snake\" class=\"wp-image-46812\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-002.jpg 1267w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-002-380x212.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-002-768x429.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But despite technological advancements allowing Snake to deliver his \u201csnappy lines\u201d (and have a voice in the first place) his silent nature remained important for his fundamental role in the Metal Gear series. Commenting on Snake\u2019s very palpable lack of dialogue in 2015\u2019s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Kojima told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/2015\/03\/04\/snake-wont-really-speak-much-at-all-in-metal-gear-solid-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IGN<\/a> that \u201cSnake is and always has been nothing more than an extension of the player. He&#8217;s your alter ego. Therefore, I made a very conscious effort this time to bring Snake closer to the player&#8217;s perspective.\u201d These efforts included limiting spontaneous comments from Snake and making him, essentially, a silent protagonist (Kojima compares him to Mad Max in Mad Max 2).&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hideo Kojima talks about technical constraints that drove him to make Metal Gear&#8217;s Solid Snake a stoic and nearly mute protagonist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":46810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-46807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Metal Gear: Solid Snake\u2019s silent, tough guy personality was influenced by technical limitations of the first game, Kojima says\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hideo Kojima talks about technical constraints that drove him to make Metal Gear&#039;s Solid Snake a stoic and nearly mute protagonist.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/metal-gear-solid-snakes-silent-tough-guy-personality-was-influenced-by-technical-limitations-of-the-first-game-kojima-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Metal Gear: Solid Snake\u2019s silent, tough guy personality was influenced by technical limitations of the first game, Kojima says\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hideo Kojima talks about technical constraints that drove him to make Metal Gear&#039;s Solid Snake a stoic and nearly mute protagonist.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/metal-gear-solid-snakes-silent-tough-guy-personality-was-influenced-by-technical-limitations-of-the-first-game-kojima-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-08T06:02:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-08T06:02:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20250408-46807-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1261\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"708\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Metal Gear: Solid Snake\u2019s silent, tough guy personality was influenced by technical limitations of the first game, Kojima says\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46813,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46807\/revisions\/46813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}