How stealth came back into Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Something I found surprising in my time with the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was the greater emphasis on stealth. Sure, the game offers plenty of Platinum's unique brand of action, but it still retains a good deal of MGS-style sneaking around. After the game proved me wrong, I asked if the addition of stealth mechanics was the intention from the beginning or whether it was tossed in later to address fan concerns.

"In the beginning, we wrapped around the core concept of just having Raiden moving forward," Platinum's Atsushi Inaba answered, speaking through a translator. "It was based on sole action. But looking back, it would have been very dull and very centered around just cutting."

"We think that players would just give up on it," Inaba added, admitting that the cutting gimmick couldn't sustain an entire game. "So we needed to have more options and variety and that's when we decided to include a lot more stealth and different routes where players can really flex on their play style."

The idea of Raiden constantly moving forward also leads into Revengeance's parry system. When enemies move in, Raiden can parry their blows and go on the offensive. This acts as a replacement to a more traditional blocking scheme, leading me to ask what led to the omission of blocking.

"This connects to having Raiden moving forward," Inaba replied. "We never want him blocking or moving sideways in order to defend himself. We always want him on the offensive. So when he moves and parries something, it connects to his next combo. As a character and as the concept, we wanted to keep in line with that."