14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors from development sources have suggested that Metal Gear Solid: Rising, the new video game in the long running series of tactical combat titles, has been delayed into 2012 after initially being announced by Konami as being set to come out during next year.
Gaming blog Kotaku is quoting inside sources, presumably from the development team or from the publisher, saying that the game will miss 2011, probably in order to give the creators more time to polish the experience.
Hideo Kojima, the man who has created Metal Gear Solid as a series, is serving as executive producer on Rising while actively Tweeting about putting most of his creative energies into creating a new franchise.
Rising has been first unveiled in 2009 and will star Raiden, aiming to show how the character evolved and changed in the period between Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4.
The developers have said that they will explore Raiden's humanity and also show how they became the cyborg that players have encountered in the latest Snake powered adventure.
The development team is focusing on putting together a more straightforward game, with less narrative twists and with shorter cutscenes, focusing more on the actual gameplay.
It seems that Rising will be more focused on action than on stealth, an unusual approach for the Metal Gear Solid series, with the tagline changing from “Tactical Espionage Action” to “Lighting Bolt Action”.
More recent showing of Metal Gear Solid Rising have focused on the “zan-datsu” mechanics, which is translated as “cut and take”, showing Raiden cutting body parts from enemy cyborgs and then using them to augment his own combat capabilities.
Konami has not officially commented on the news that the new Metal Gear Solid is delayed to 2012.
Fans of the series are accustomed to long development cycles for Metal Gear video games, with 4 announced in 2005 and launched in 2008.