When most people think of the Metal Gear Solid series the first thing that will probably come to mind is the story and characters. While some may say that the story telling is long-winded and argue they would rather play their games than watch, most gamers are drawn to the series because of the story.

The recent trailer of Metal Gear Solid: Rising shown at E3 this year got fans of the series excited to find out how Raiden transformed from the annoying whiner of MGS 2 into the acrobatic ninja robot of MGS 4. Even with very brief footage of MGS: Rising gameplay shown, people are excited about this game. This excitement is most likely coming from fan's love for the story and characters made famous by Hideo Kojima and his team. This makes the recent announcement that Rising will not feature many familiar characters from the series surprising. Shigenobu Matsuyama, the producer of MGS: Rising, told the UK based GamesTM magazine:

"To answer your question about returning characters, we're probably not going to show too many characters in Rising because, since it's a new part of a series, we don't really want to refer to and dwell upon the Metal Gear saga so much. We want newcomers to the game to come in and play freely without needing to know and understand the background of the whole Metal Gear Solid universe. We don't want to have it all tied up with the story from MGS2 or MGS4 and make it too complicated."

As a big fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, I am not sure what I think of Matsuyama's words. One part of me welcomes the change that arguably the series needs to stay fresh, the other part wonders how much interest the gaming community will have for a game without ties to the other titles in the MGS universe. With Solid Snake's story wrapped up in MGS 4, and the major change in gameplay style from "EspionageAction" to "Lightning Bolt Action", I can see why Kojima Productions wants to take a fresh start with the next Metal Gear Solid. My only question is: Will fans still be eager to purchase an MGS game that doesn't continue the story or feature the series' main protagonist Snake? If MGS fans are like Halo fans, maybe they will.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising, developed by Kojima Productions, is scheduled for release sometime next year. Ranters, what are your thoughts on this announcement? Does this increase your excitement for the game or disappoint?

Source: Connected Consoles