We sit down with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots’ Assistant Producer, Ryan Payton and pick his brain about his contributions to the long standing series, accessibility to newcomers, enhancements in gameplay, competition, the movie, and more. Have at it after the jump.

Q: What has your involvement been with the Metal Gear series?
A: My involvement in the Metal Gear series started with Portable Ops on PSP, where I helped design part of that game and helped with the script. That was my first title where I was actually involved with the design process, from inception to the time when we hand-carried it to Sony in time for Christmas. So that was a very hectic year… what was that, last year? Hard to believe.

So that’s where I really cut my teeth on game design and integrated a lot of Western game design ideas into the titles. For example, giving people multiple paths to get to their objectives, being able to recruit comrades and equip them with the items you want, create your own unique units, basically giving people more freedom to play it.

So I’m bringing some of that to the MGS4 development, with Metal Gear Online in particular, where we now allow players to equip their own skills, so everyone has their own unique skill set, and you can level up your characters with experience, so that as you get better your character gets better too.

Q: How did Konami take to your ideas?
They’re pretty receptive. Mr. Kojima recognizes that until now they’ve always had a 100% Japanese team. So it’s inherent that their game’s going to be more appealing to the Japanese, or feel better in terms of control and game balance. So that’s one of the reasons he brought me on two and a half years ago, to give the studio and the team a different perspective.

“… Mr. Kojima is receptive to it, so I think I’m going to keep my job.”

I’m lucky that he’s given me so much power and leeway in terms of what I want to do. As far as the control scheme in MGS4, I’ve been telling people that there are no sacred cows. We’ve been reworking the control scheme since the inception of the game. So no more bird’s eye view, the gunplay finally feels good, it’s never felt good in an MGS game. So we’re incorporating a lot of game ideas and I’m really lucky that Mr. Kojima is receptive to it, so I think I’m going to keep my job.

Q: Have you had any involvement with the story?
A: Yeah, I’ve been working on the story since day one, and I’m also in charge of editing the script and also directing the voice overs. We did six months of voice over work in Hollywood. So I helped direct that along with Kris Zimmerman, she’s been there since the beginning, we always hire her to direct our VO work.

That was a huge project, making sure that not only does it sound good, but it reads good. It’s the first Metal Gear, I think, that doesn’t read and sound like an anime. And that’s a good thing in my opinion. So making sure the story makes sense, getting people up to date with the story, because we have literally twenty years of fiction we have to cover.

Q: How are you making MGS4 accessible to newcomers?
A: That’s a tough challenge, because hardcore gamers have these expectations that they want us to fulfill. I get emails every day asking, is there going to be a European Extreme mode, is there going to be this and that. We’re working pretty hard to keep the hardcore happy, we’re including these flashback scenes in the cutscenes.

We’re actually tying up every loose end in the story in MGS4, going back to Portable Ops, and Snake Eater, MGS1 and MGS2. Pretty much everything you’re wondering about and you might have complained before about Mr. Kojima’s script, that this doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t Vamp die, or why is Raiden like this, or who is Naomi, really, why is she double crossing and triple crossing people. All of that stuff is answered in MGS4.

In that sense it’s going to keep the hardcore happy, but on the other hand I realize that this is a mainstream title, and I’m not interested in just selling 800,000 units to the hardcore, I want this to sell 3-4 million copies worldwide. Which is why we’re giving players the option to explore the backstory, you know we have these flashback scenes, if you want to watch them it’s your choice.

We also have an encyclopedia in the game, if you want you can bring it up and go into the history, if you want to, but it’s not required. You can just watch the story from start to finish. There’s a clear villain-it’s Liquid Ocelot, there’s a clear objective. So even for people who haven’t played any Metal Gears up to this point, I think they’ll get a lot out of it.

Q: Do you think the gameplay is moving more towards Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six gameplay style, or is it still Metal Gear?
A: Not really. We call it “Tactical Espionage Action”, but I don’t think it’s that tactical still. Ghost Recon, they do a great job in that genre, and we’re not looking to intrude on them at all, because they do great at what they do. Our gameplay is not so much that strategic element of moving around your unit. Snake’s solo, he’s on a solo sneaking mission, you don’t have to worry about giving other people commands.

“…with this demo … gameplay feels so good and the aiming feels so fun, that people just kill everything in sight.”

And that’s one thing we’ve run into with this demo, and the demo at TGS, is that the gun gameplay feels so good and the aiming feels so fun, that people just kill everything in sight. And that’s not really a Metal Gear Solid game, because if they keep killing people, obviously we’re going to keep throwing enemies at them until Snake’s dead, or Snake hides, and then it goes back to normal mode.

With that said, we’re also opening up the gameplay to these warzones, these battlefield areas. So how I like to describe it is a waveform gameplay. The beginning is a sneaking section, and obviously you have to get to your point, like rendezvous with Otacon for example, that’s a sneaking part. But then we lead you onto the battlefield, where you can use these cool weapons without worry about being found. So you can unload on the PMCs, you can join with the militia men, you can kind of change the tide of war to how you see fit.

So that’s a cool way of releasing all that tension that you built up during all the sneaking parts. Then we take you back to a sneaking part, then back to a battlefield. It’s a way of keeping the player’s attention. So obviously that’s different from what Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon does.

Q: This is a very cinematic game. How much of the time is spent watching cutscenes?
A: At first, Hideo and I were talking about keeping the cinematics pretty short for MGS4. Because we felt pressure, complaints that the cinematics were too long. But I think that’s only a very vocal minority. I think people actually enjoy the cutscenes, just based on how popular the trailers are. And so what ended up happening was, we kept adding more and more cool scenes til we got to the point where I know we’re going longer than Snake Eater in terms of cinematics, and that game had four hours of cinematics.

I won’t say how many hours of cinematics we have in MGS4, but I will say it’s impressive. If people don’t want to watch they can skip it, so we’re giving people that option. Using our next-gen graphics engine, really incredible sound… I hate to sound cocky, but I think we’re going to win awards for our sound design this time. It’s really incredible. And people are going to be missing out if they skip those cutscenes.

Like I said, the script actually sounds cool. Maybe that was a problem before, is that the story was so convoluted and it sounded like it was coming from Japan, literally translated into English, and this time it feels like a Hollywood movie. It’s entertaining, the dialogue is witty. So yeah, you might be putting down your controller and watching some cinematics, but it’s going to be entertaining, I guarantee it.

Q: You guys have one of the biggest games at E for All. When did you make the decision to attend, and has it paid off in terms of fan reaction?
A: We made this decision without really knowing how many other vendors were going to be here. We like the idea of having a consumer-only event. We always support big shows like this, we’ve visited Leipzig and GDC, TGS, E3, even GO3 in Australia. So we’re very supportive of these consumer and press shows.

But with that said, are we happy we showed up? Of course. We’ve filled every seat we’ve had since we opened the doors on Thursday. We have literally hundreds of people playing the game every day. Some people are giving this show a Doomsday prophecy, like it’s not going to be around next year, that this is the first and last E for All. But I beg to differ, and I’m not just saying this because I’m here at the show and I want people to come.

I would be curious to see a ratio of attendees per booth compared to E3, compared to E for All, because we have people lined up around the booth to play MGS4. Smash Brothers has a huge line, and so does Galaxy. I’m wondering if publishers are regretting the fact that they didn’t show up, like Capcom, Sony, and Microsoft. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio of attendees is higher than it was at E3. So I’m hoping this is just the beginning of something really cool.

Q: How do you think you can sell millions of copies of MGS4 with all the competition?
A: I’m not worried about the competition, really. I think we’re the leading title coming out on PS3 next year. We’re not looking for a big bang, to sell a couple million copies in two weeks and then just trickle out throughout the year. I think we’re going to sell consistently, we’re going to own the majority of 2008 I think.

“I’m not worried about the competition … we’re going to own the majority of 2008…”

Especially with the online mode we’re including is going to keep people coming back. And we’re just going to keep updating Metal Gear Online. So I’m thinking we’re going to have steady sales all the way through to Christmas 2008. And maybe you think I’m being too bullish, or too cocky, but I have a lot of confidence that this game is going to be the system seller, that people have been looking forward to for the last year and a half.

Q: One last question, how about the Metal Gear movie?
A: The movie is still in pre-production. We’re having meetings next week. It’s still really early. I’m not as interested in the movie, I’m more interested in making games. I didn’t join this industry to make a Metal Gear movie, even though I know a lot of people are excited about it.

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Check out our hands-on preview of the game here.

Tags: E-For-All, Kojima-Productions, Konami, Metal-Gear-Solid-4, Ryan-Payton

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