Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

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"I think it's time for Jack to LET 'ER RIP!"

One sword keeps another in the sheath. Sometimes the threat of violence alone is a deterrent. Sometimes by taking a life, others can be preserved. It's the code the Samurai lived by.

—Raiden, VGA 2011 trailer

REBOOTED
REARMED
RECHARGED
REBUILT
RESURRECTED!

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a 2013 spin-off of the Metal Gear series starring a cybernetic Raiden (similar to his Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots appearance), and is being developed by Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Vanquish) & overseen by Kojima Productions. The game is scheduled to be released for the Xbox 360 and Play Station 3 making it the first multiplatform Metal Gear title since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Substance. The game is an action-adventure title in the vein of titles such as Devil May Cry, heavily divergent from the franchises' stealthy roots, and focuses on Raiden's acrobatic swordplay, placing particular emphasis on cutting things apart.

The game started life some time after Metal Gear Solid 4 went gold, as a Kojima Productions title known as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, handled mostly by the younger staffers entrusted by Kojima himself. It originally intended to strike a balance between the series' trademark stealth action and a new combat system based around being able to cut almost everything in the game. However, this build was cancelled several months after being shown at E3 2010 due to a difficulties achieving a balance between the old and new gameplay concepts, and the project was handed over to Platinum in early 2011.

The story was initially intended to act as an interquel, taking place between Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4 and explaining what happened to Raiden during this time. This also changed with the switch to Platinum Games, now taking place 9 years^[1] after Metal Gear Solid 4 and having a less dark and gritty tone.

Tropes used in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance include:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Raiden's cut-anything sword returns. Early trailers showed it slicing straight through men, stone columns, and watermelons with equal ease. The Platinum Games build allows Raiden to hack up entire Metal Gears.
• An Arm and a Leg: Various viral marketing materials imply that Raiden had his left arm amputated during a battle. A gameplay scene from the Pre-E3 show reveals that he lost it during the battle with Sam.
• Axe Crazy: Raiden can reverted to his ruthless "Jack the Ripper" persona. This is a game mechanic called "Ripper Mode".
• Alien Blood: As seen in Metal Gear Solid 4, Raiden's blood is actually artificial and white in colour. This is due to his body being almost completely cybernetic; as such, the cyborg enemies in Rising also have white blood.
  • The VGA trailer shows off cyborgs who bleed a dark red oil. If the viral marketing materials as well as a brief gameplay clip shown during an interview with the staff at Rising is anything to go by, Raiden will also have used the same oil. Justified, as the game takes place nine years after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, so advancements in Cyborg Technology would be expected down to the "blood" used.
• Bullet Time: What Blade Mode basically is.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Judging from what information has been released, a large part of the game's concept is cutting the player's enemies apart at angles they choose.
  • Cranked Up to Eleven with Platinum Games's build, which is even more gratuitously gory than the KojiPro prototype. To give you an idea, a shot of the trailer consists of Raiden slashing a soldier's body for five seconds, each cut leaving a visible mark, before a final cut up and bursts the poor fellow into a hundred bloody bits. Comepletely unnecessary after the first cut? Perhaps. Incredibly cool? Hell. Yes.
• Cool Bike Sam's tricked out Harley.
• Cool Car Raiden uses a customized car during the game. Since Metal Gear isn't that kind of game it gets destroyed.
• Clean Cut: Just about anything Raiden's sword slices will be cut through with a perfectly straight slice.
• Corrupt Politician/Well-Intentioned Extremist: A leaked conversation from Colorado Senator and current 2020 Presidential candidate Steven Armstrong with his speech writer has him basically talking about the boost in his approval rating in such a way that implied that he conned the populace by putting a "spin" on things. On the other hand, the speech also implies that he genuinely wants to restore America as the sole world superpower, albeit by instigating a new American Revolutionary War.
• Downloadable Content: Quite a bit. Some of them used to be Pre-order Bonuses. A full list available here. []
• Engineered Public Confession: Assuming that the conversation on https://web.archive.org/web/20130717221826/http://waronourshores.com/ from Senator Steven Armstrong was actually leaked as the video description implies, this trope might play a part in the game for the Senator.
• Guide Dang It: If you want to get everything your going to need one.
• Finishing Move: Executions and Zandatsu.
• Flying Mook: The cyborgs equipped with Sliders and the Hammerheads.
• Genre Shift: The first installment of the Metal Gear series to be an Action Game rather than a Stealth Based Game; and to top it off Platinum Games seem to have taken some cues from the Devil May Cry games.
  • Taking cues? It is pretty much a true Spiritual Successor to the series since the head of the game created the series to begin with.
• Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: Revenge with a Vengeance. Revengeance.
• Here We Go Again: The Demo for Revengeance will be bundled, once again, with the Zone of The Enders HD Collection.
• In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You: In previous Metal Gear installments, the player has to hide from the enemy. In this game, enemies actually hide from the player, although namely because they intend to ambush the player, according to a podcast.
  • Before Metal Gear Solid 2 was released, Zone of Enders came with a demo of MGS2. The Zone of Enders HD Collection comes with a demo of Rising.
• Humongous Mecha: The upgraded version of Metal Gear Ray and Metal Gear EXCELSUS
• Infinity+1 Sword: Sam's Murasama after fully upgrading it. Also the Fox Blade DLC, the sword used by Gray Fox in Metal Gear Solid
• Katanas Are Just Better: High Frequency Blades in this form are used by most of the enemy mooks, and Metal Gear RAY's "arms" have been equipped with massive heat blades.
  • Sam's Murasama is a centuries old Katana Upgraded to a High Frequency Blade.
• Large Ham: From Raiden of all people.
• Lensman Arms Race: According codec conversations , troops outfitted with cyborg parts have been on the rise in the global community.
• Le Parkour The other ability of Ninja Run
• Liquid Assets: "Yes, enemy cyborgs should have plenty of electrolytes once you... 'extract' their fluids."
• Mega Corp: World Marshal is one. Though no where near the same level as the Patriots or Liquid were during Guns of the Patriots.
• Ninja Run: Used by Bladewolf, Sam & Raiden. However they don't use the bird arms stance. Though why Bladewolf doesn't is obvious.
• Not Me This Time: Variation: when Sam (the Vamp-lookalike cyborg ninja) attacks Maverick, one of the soldiers wonders if Sam was a member of one of their competing PMCs . Courtney Collins states that the data access on Sam came up, and he was apparently unaffiliated with any of their competitors.
• Origins Episode The DLC chapters for Sam and Bladewolf.
• Pacifist Run: Done by using a wooden sword. That the player has to buy with Battle Points. Upgrading it makes it weaker.
• President Evil: Steven Armstrong, kind of. He was a senator at the time that speech was leaked, and recent presidential posters plastered over various schools in real life hinting at the game imply that he was a candidate for the 2020 Presidency. He's involved in the activities of the enemy group, Desperado Enforcement LLC. Also the Final Boss of the game
• Private Military Contractor: Desperado is the more traditional use of the trope (ie, supporting terrorists and criminals, and overall being evil). Maverick (the group Raiden is a member of), is a more beneficial and protagonistic use of the trope, similar to the Militaires Sans Frontieres in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.
• Robot Buddy: In the original concept Raiden is teamed up with Kogekko, a Fun Size version of the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Dwarf Gekkos (ak.a. Scarabs).
  • Blade Wolf serves this purpose during the course of the game.
• Rule of Cool: Raiden blocks the strike of a Metal Gear RAY and then somehow lifts and throws the entire thing into the air.
  • Let's not forget to mention that after he throws it, he jumps up on it as it is falling, runs along its wing as he slices it with his sword, and then jumps up and slices it in half. Yeah.
  • The title itself - "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance." One would assume that means the rise of the Metal Gear army, but there's nothing on the surface that could justify the word "Revengance" other than it sounds bloody awesome when you say it!
• Saved From Development Hell: The game was cancelled before Platinum Games got involved.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Seems to be the main theme of the game.
• Scary Black Man: The African soldier in the trailers, especially the "Sword" trailer, qualifies. Of particular note is his particularly brutal interrogation of a soldier regarding leaked information to the enemy, to which he threatens to kill his family if he doesn't admit to it, and also implies to planning to rape the interrogated soldier's wife before killing her.
• Shout-Out: Shortly after Raiden kicked a soldier into a black car hard enough to nearly flip the car over and set off the car alarm in the VGA 2011 trailer, Raiden says "Too easy!" in a voice that sounded very similar to Sonic, shortly before cutting the soldier up into salami.
• Spiritual Successor: The combat has a strong resemblance to Platinum Games' Bayonetta.
  • X Meets Y: It looks a lot like a combination of Bayonetta and Vanquish.
• Stock Subtitle: Rising, at least initially. The 2011 VGA trailer appears to indicate that Rising has replaced Solid in the title, with the game now using Revengeance as the subtitle.
• The Stool Pigeon: Going by the comments made by the black soldier when he was torturing a soldier in the "Sword" trailer, apparently the soldier the black guy was interrogating that soldier because the latter was suspected of leaking their strategic information to the enemy.
• Super Speed: Raiden has the ability to run extremely quickly while using Ninja Run. As well as to slow down his perception of time so he can chop one target a hundred times in a second during Blade Mode. Basically, he's like a sword-based version of Sam Gideon from Platinum's previous release, Vanquish.
  • Also used by Sam and Bladewolf.
• Sword and BFG The sub weapon system allows Raiden to carry a Sword and a Rocket Launcher in each hand.
• Take That: Armstrong gives one to the Tea Party Movement in the leaked conversation on https://web.archive.org/web/20130717221826/http://waronourshores.com/.
• That Poor Car: At one point in the VGA 2011 trailer, Raiden kicked an enemy soldier so hard, it triggered a car alarm on the black car behind them upon impact.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the Platinum Games build, after slicing open a box to find an enemy and his access code, you have the option of leaving the man where he kneels, or slicing his head off.
• What Could Have Been: A very notable recent example; the initial Kojima Productions version of the game was to be a combination of stealth and action, deviating somewhat from the Metal Gear Solid formula but still staying similar enough to be part of the series (hence why it still had the Metal Gear Solid name). However, the development team were constantly changing the way the play mechanics worked, as well as finding stage design difficult, and ultimately it was cancelled in late 2010. Kojima originally considered offering the project to several Western studios, before settling on Platinum Games.
  • It was also originally slated to be an Interquel set in between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. As it turns out, it's now set years after Metal Gear Solid 4.
  • The stealth of the original version of the game was pitched as being "predatory." In other words, had it been done (and done well) it would have been like the stealth sequences in Batman: Arkham Asylum, where the player would hunt down enemies relentlessly but need to stay out of sight. Unfortunately they just couldn't figure out a way to make it work. Where as Batman is a mere human with a bullet proof vest, a cyborg like Raiden is capable of enduring insane amounts of damage up to and including voluntary limb removal.
  • Actually, If the pre E3 Konami press conference is anything to go by, the Predatory stealth is still in there. It's just a little more on the aggressive side (like slicing through a pillar to get the unsuspecting soldier behind, backflipping off a building for a foot stab stealthkill or dropping a ferris wheel on them)
• You Look Familiar: The designs for the Mastiff enemies (the hulking cyborgs with the cannon attached to their right arm) were reused from concept artwork from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots that was originally meant to be the designs for the Beauty and the Beast Unit.
  • Also, Sam somewhat resembles Vamp. Sam & Vamp however are distinct characters.

1. ↑ Confirmed via Konami's pre-E3 2012 show