The creator of Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima, is a bit of an enigma. During his time at Konami, he had often hoped he could finish off his flagship series and move on to other projects. Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and 4 were all posited as the franchise’s canonical end until Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain became his last entry in the series.
Conversely, he and his development team have had so many scenes, features, and ideas intended for one Metal Gear game or another that they could fill a book in themselves. Here’s just a small selection of the strangest elements Kojima and co had to cut from the games from Solid 1 to Solid 5.
10 Three Ninjas
One of the most striking characters in Metal Gear Solid was the Cyborg Ninja, aka Gray Fox. The character is as swift as his namesake. Yet his weapons are odd. Throughout most of the game, Fox only has his sword and bare fists. Then he brings out a laser cannon right at the end of the game.
This is because there were originally going to be three cyborg ninjas. ‘Shinobi’ would use a katana to fight up close. ‘Honou’ was armed with a rifle for fighting at a distance. Then ‘Ikazuchi’ would be a mid-range fighter equipped with a ‘hand laser gun’. While one was Gray Fox, it's unknown who the other two would’ve been.
9 The Musicians
In a Game Center CX interview, Hideo Kojima revealed an idea he had for Metal Gear Solid 2. Snake would creep up to a door to moody violin music. It would get more intense as Snake twisted the wheel on the door. Then, right as it opened, he’d find…one of the soldiers playing the violin.
Kojima has an affinity for musical gags. One of his ideas for MGS1 was a Codec contact called Mariachi. The character would be really helpful, giving the player tips to get ahead. But they’d have to listen to him sing a full mariachi song en Español first.
8 Lady Liberty Becomes a US Citizen
After 9/11, MGS2 had to make some sudden changes for its November 2001 release. The development team had completed a cutscene of Arsenal Gear crashing into Manhattan and landing on top of Federal Hall. All that remains of this was an aerial view of the behemoth from The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2.
However, one scene did make it onto YouTube. It had newsreader Karen Hojo reporting that Arsenal Gear had knocked the Statue of Liberty right into Ellis Island. The irony is that this French immigrant had finally gone to get her permits from the island. Funny as it is now, it probably wouldn’t have got many chuckles back in 2001.
7 A Novel Concept
Originally, Raiden was going to have a full support team. His commanding officer was a Campbell-lookalike called Daniel Quinn. Saving the game would be delegated to Maxine Work, an Asian woman who’d quote Shakespeare. Then, even later in the game, Raiden would get info from ‘Doc’ William Wilson. Of course, except for Rose, they’d all turn out to be constructs via the Patriots’ AI.
The clues are in the names. They all come from Paul Auster’s 1985 novel City of Glass. It was about an author using an alias, Daniel Quinn, to write detective stories about Max Work as William Wilson, another pseudonym. Three different names, three different people, all turning out to be the same entity. The only remnant of this plan left in the final game is Peter Stillman, another name taken from the book.
6 The Girl with the Snake Tattoo
At the end of MGS3, the Boss shows Snake her rather large, snake-like scar. In context, she was illustrating her point about motherhood, and how she still managed to find someone to pass her teachings down onto. It was quite poignant, but it wasn’t originally a surgical scar. It was going to be a snake tattoo.
The idea was that, if the Boss caught Snake and attacked him with her submachine gun, it would make her breast jiggle. Which would then make the snake look like it was laughing at the player. Kojima and co couldn’t figure out why she’d show off a tattoo like that, so it got turned into a scar.
5 Death Sentence
At the end of MGS4, the credits play a cover of ‘Here’s to You, Nicola and Bart’, a song from a film about Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. They were two Italian anarchists executed for a crime they (likely, but not for sure) didn’t commit. On the face of it, it doesn’t have anything in common with MGS4’s ending.
That’s because Kojima’s idea was to give Snake and Otacon the same fate as Sacco and Vanzetti. They’d voluntarily hand themselves in and confess to the crimes the Patriots set them up for. Then they’d be executed as a result. The rest of the development team detested this idea and pressed Kojima to give Snake a happier ending.
4 Déjà Vu
One of the more action-packed moments in MGS4 was the sequence where Snake teams up with 'Big Mama' (EVA from MGS3) on her motorbike. Big Mama drives while Snake shoots from the sidecar. It goes well enough until Snake has to deal with Raging Raven, and then both end up meeting Ocelot. However, there are some deleted Codec calls where Otacon advises Snake on how to escort Big Mama around.
This suggests that there was going to be a callback to the end of MGS3, where Big Boss had to lead EVA out of the jungle towards the ending. It would've been placed between the Raging Raven boss fight and the two finding Ocelot. The level Snake and Big Mama walked through ended up used in MGS4's Online Mode.
3 Let’s Talk About Mechs, Baby
Metal Gear's portable treat Peace Walker had a ton of boss battles. The ones in the game carry a butterfly motif, with names like ‘Pupa’, ‘Chrysalis’, and ‘Cocoon’ before ending with ‘Peace Walker’ itself. If that wasn’t enough, there were going to be four more mechs named after fairy tale figures.
‘Belle’ was going to be a land-based Sphinx tank-like weapon. ‘Odette’ would’ve been an unseen submarine that would light up underwater. ‘Scarlet’ would’ve been a YB Flying Wing-B2 Bomber combination. Finally, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was going to be the ultimate AI based on the Boss. Except it would never go online. The Boss wanted to end the war, so as soon as it was complete, it would stay asleep forever.
2 E Pluribus Unum
MGS4 tried to tie up the series’ loose ends. Most of them with the same knot. Why does Vamp come back to life? Nanomachines. What made all the soldiers freak out? Nanomachines. What kills everyone in the end? Nanomachines. So, it was a no-duh moment when Raiden asked Senator Armstrong why he couldn’t be killed.
In fact, the original idea for Armstrong wasn’t to be a man pumped full of the little brutes. He WAS going to be the little brutes! A whole cluster of nanomachines would’ve come together to form a single mind and become the brains behind the game’s plot. Perhaps that’s why his theme is called ‘Collective Consciousness’.
1 Chapter 3: Peace
Within MGS5, there was a card with one title: ‘Chapter 3: Peace’. Fans have been wondering what it’s been referring to ever since. Maybe it was connected to ‘Kingdom of the Flies’, an unfinished second battle against Sahelanthropus piloted by Eli. Or it could’ve been a series of new extra ops like the ones leading to Peace Walker’s true ending. That, or it might’ve been connected to the Online mode.
Konami hinted that something special would happen if the nukes were all disarmed. There was even a glitch on the PS3 version that made the game think that happened, producing an extra cutscene. But that wasn’t it. Fans are still searching for it to no avail. The most logical guess is that it would’ve been like the title card at the end of Death Stranding; a fancy way to end the game, and thus Metal Gear as a whole.