Kojima: 'Metal Gear Solid 4 Was For The Hardcore Fans'

Metal Gear Solid 4 was designed for long-term fans of the series, series creator Hideo Kojima has told NowGamer.

NowGamer's soon-to-be published Top 50 Gaming Moments ranks Solid Snake dreaming of Shadow Moses in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots at number 13.

Discussing the ideas behind the sequence, Kojima told NowGamer: "First and foremost, MGS4 is a game that I created for hardcore MGS fans who have known and loved the series since MGS1. Therefore, I wanted players to recall their memories of playing MGS1 and to look back on how they matured together with the series."

Although recreating the PlayStation One level with the PS3's up-to-date tech crossed Kojima's mind, he decided the scene was more nostalgic with last-last-gen visuals.

"For the experience I chose to have Snake revisit Shadow Moses, which was the setting for MGS1 and the origin of the MGS series," Kojima explained. "However, I didn't feel that it would be interesting enough to suddenly feature a high-end, PS3 version of the Shadow Moses base. I wanted to take advantage of the actual PS1 Shadow Moses base from 1998 and have players reflect upon how it felt to play the game on the hardware of that era.

"With that goal in mind, I set about implementing one of the early sequences from the PS1 MGS1 in the form of a nightmare. My hope was that while players played the PS1 version of MGS1, they would relive joyful moments and memories from that time, and share in the experience of recalling their former selves along with a young, low-polygon Snake."

There you have it - let's hope there are some similar nods to past games in Metal Gear Rising Revengance.

The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection reaches these shores in February next year.

Look out for more developer input in NowGamer's Top 50 Gaming Moments when it goes live shortly.