This week acclaimed designer Hideo Kojima offered the latest stunning glimpse of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Microsoft's Xbox E3 conference opened with a stirring gameplay trailer confirming that the much-anticipated cross-gen sequel will feature open-world gameplay, real-time weather, various modes of transport, realistic passage of time, deeper stealth action, and dynamic CQC. But as Kojima reveals to CVG, there are many more surprise to come. At E3 we met with the designer to discuss next-gen, open worlds and just who that great white Whale might be...[quote][u]So MGS V has been announced for next-gen consoles. How will the new machines change the series? [/u] For MGSV it's definitely the multiple device support and the interactions between handhelds such as smart phones and tablets, which you can use to interact with the world. And for us we also want to see what we can do with the cloud in the future. That's why we did an open-world, because we thought about all of these interactions on multiple devices, with the power to interact with the MGSV world. We'd like to see how that moves in a social direction as well. [u]How did senior Konami executives react when you told them the theme of 'race' in MGS5 and what do you think are the dangers of tackling such a theme? [/u] Well actually I never told them. So I guess they didn't have anything to say about it. We'll see what happens afterwards. I thought about the theme and it was a story that I wanted to tell. Game technology and hardware has always been evolving and becoming great, but we're always fighting against aliens and shooting. I didn't want to be like that - I wanted to make a game with a deep theme and change the industry. So we went and made a game that most suited the story that I wanted to tell. [u]To clarify, will Ground Zeroes be part of The Phantom Pain or released separately?[/u] So you can think of it that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the big game and within that the first prologue to it is Ground Zeroes. As you saw in the trailer, The Phantom Pain provides a vast world where the player can really go anywhere and get lost. But for past Metal Gear fans used to a linear experience it would probably be hard for them to get used to that without having a prologue and a way to get used to it. So Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes is an interpretation to really give them a very short, smaller version of that scale. In The Phantom Pain there are real-life day and night cycles but in Ground Zeroes the weather doesn't change and it's at night time. This is to help the past Metal Gear fans to get used to the fact that it's now open-world. [u]But will it be released separately?[/u] We can't talk about how we're going to release it because we still haven't decided yet. "PHANTOM PAIN PROVIDES A VAST WORLD WHERE THE PLAYER CAN REALLY GO ANYWHERE AND GET LOST" [u]Kojima-san, you are famous for breaking the fourth wall in your games. How might you use to features of the next-gen consoles to do this in MGSV?[/u] Specifically for the next-gen and Metal Gear Solid V, it's not necessarily about breaking the fourth wall, but we do have a big surprise for the players in this game. We have challenged and pushed ourselves with something that movies can't do but only games can do. It hasn't been done before. [u]What about the new Kinect? Does that interest you with its ability to track the players' heartbeat, facial expression etc?[/u] I'm very interested in that stuff whether it be the facial expression readings or something also. But we're having a hard time with that and we're not sure if we'll be able to implement something for MGSV. But we're still looking at it and are really interested in the new Kinect. [u]Would you say that MGSV is more action focussed than previous Metal Gear Solid games?[/u] That's something that the player gets to decide. Whether you want to go in gun-ho or go in stealthily that's really up to the user. There's a goal, and you have to go in and out, but whether the player uses stealth or goes straight into it - that's up to the player. So it depends on the player's play style. This time round we didn't include any explosions or destruction really because I expected that a lot of the other shooters might include a lot of collisions and damage in their trailers. It was planned to have this as more of a slow trailer - it was planned that way. [u]How do you need to evolve the classic stealth gameplay for an open world?[/u] Now that it's open-world you get the freedom to create your own strategy for espionage. Getting used to it as a case of simulating how you want to infiltrate a base. You're given a mission and in order to execute this mission you need to plan, strategise and execute. There are many ways to do this; all the freedom is up to you and there are no rules lined out like the linear games in the past. Distance is a very big factor as well. In the new trailer you saw Snake riding a horse, but you can also walk to a mission or take another mode of transport. But by the time you walk to the base, it might be dark. So that ruins or changes your strategy. Equally if you go by horse it might be day still, so you have to think an execute based on the time of day too. [u]Is open-world something you always wanted to do? Were you limited by the console hardware?[/u] It's not necessarily about the hardware - GTA was able to do it on PS2. The first reason why I wanted to go open-world is because I wanted to create a world that had a lot of freedom and allowed users to create their own gameplay. We're developing alongside the Fox Engine and we wanted to make sure that we were doing the most difficult and challenging thing, which is open-world. We want to create a standard for our team and then later on once we finish developing MGSV on Fox Engine we can use it for other games within Konami and it will get better and better graphically. The other reason for the game going open-world is that we wanted to use multiple devices for this game. So using tablets and smart phones you can also enjoy MGSV and create user-generated missions within the world. That's another reason we had to go open-world - if it was linear we wouldn't be able to do that. [u] Will MGSV have an online multiplayer mode like the previous game?[/u] Yes, we plan on creating Metal Gear Online. Multiplayer right now is being created at our LA studio as well as us. We're working closely to create a vast multiplayer for all the fans. Keifer Sutherland was cast as Snake because of their comparable age. Solid Snake would be about 12 in this time line... who would be your ideal candidate to voice him? Well he's a child... I don't know if I have someone to recommend but let me think! (laughs) At the same time I don't even know if Solid Snake will make an appearance in this game. If we said anything right now it would be a spoiler and bad for the fans, so we're going to stay away from that question. "I WANTED TO CREATE A WORLD THAT ALLOWED USERS TO CREATE THEIR OWN GAMEPLAY." [u]Moby Dick seems to be a big theme in the game too. If Snake is the captain full of revenge, who plays the part of the whale? [/u] We can't say at this time! We're still putting out the first couple of trailers and that will be a great surprise. It would ruin a lot of people's excitement to the game if we revealed that. When we're a bit closer to release we can talk more about it but right now we are not at the stage to discuss the villains. We've actually been getting a lot of questions like this and as much as we'd like to say who the villain is, we need to make sure that information comes out at the right time. Stay tuned. You've clearly put a lot of effort in to planning the PR campaign for MGSV. How many twists and turns are left before fans have a full sense of what to expect in the final game? It's hard to say exactly how many times but we're always looking for ways to surprise our fans. It's always great to announce things and timing is essential, but behind it we're always thinking about ways to surprise people. I'm sure that you will see that again in the future. What you saw in the E3 trailer is really the first couple of missions. The world of MGSV is a lot bigger than just what you're seeing at the beginning. [u]Finally, you're here at E3. How has the event evolved for you over the years?[/u] Well the main difference between E3 and Tokyo Game Show is that at TGS the fans and consumers are allowed to come. E3 is more about industry people coming in, so the mood and how we present is different. Unfortunately at the Japan show there are only really games that the Japanese enjoy and if you look at E3 there are not a lot of Japanese games. Back in the day about ten years ago E3 and TGS has pretty much the same line-ups but now days you can see the difference in the industries and countries themselves. it's kind of fun to watch. [/quote]