Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance original bosses, levels scrapped with Platinum acquisition

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was at a playable development stage when Platinum Games took over from Kojima Productions, but most of the original boss battles and levels were scrapped because they weren't a good fit in an action-oriented title, Kojima Productions producer Yuji Korekado said in a recent interview with Official PlayStation Magazine UK.

According to Korekado and Platinum Games director Keiji Saito, the game's script, boss fight concepts and level designs were complete when Platinum took over in 2011, although Kojima Productions couldn't find a core theme to coherently connect them. The bosses had been designed for traditional Metal Gear Solid battles, more stealth-based and less hack-and-slash.

"The boss battles and the bosses in general were completely different at the time," said Saito. "There were a lot of stealth concepts that were [being done] internally at Kojima Studios. Now that it's an action game we had to revamp that, and Platinum Games provided a lot of input and a lot of ideas."

Saito said the collaboration between Kojima and Platinum went smoothly, with Platinum referring to the game's original design in order to keep Revengeance grounded in the Metal Gear concepts.

"The bosses in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance are very unique characters, and are game design-driven," Korekado said. "As an action game, we believe that the bosses should resemble the dynamics of the design, and although they're very unique, we believe that these characters very much fit into the Metal Gear world."