The Metal Gear franchise , created by Hideo Kojima and with character and mecha designs by Yoji Shinkawa , features a large cast of characters, several of whom are several soldiers with supernatural powers provided by scientific advancements.
The series initially follows the mercenary Solid Snake. While the characters of the Metal Gear games had designs modeled after Hollywood actors, the Metal Gear Solid games established consistent designs based on Shinkawa's idea of what would appeal to gamers, with several characters that he designed following ideas from Kojima and staff.
Critical reception of the game's cast has been positive, with publications praising their personalities and roles within the series. Much as Metal Gear began as a pastiche of action movies of the time, characters were pastiches of contemporary action movie heroes. Due to hardware limitations, Shinkawa designed them to appeal to gamers.
With the improved technology of consoles like the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 , starting with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty the staff gave the characters a more realistic look, despite their initial doubts. When they debuted, player characters Solid Snake and Raiden were meant to represent the player, but in subsequent games they gained more defined personalities.
This also made it difficult for Shinkawa to conceptualize their visual appearance, as he had little to no background information. In Metal Gear , he goes missing during a mission to Outer Heaven , with his last transmission being a cryptic message that reads "Metal Gear". Gustava unsuccessfully attempted to seek asylum with him in the United States and was subsequently stripped of her competition rights.
