Xbox Addict

No-Kill Completion Possible in MGS Rising

If there’s one thing everyone comes away with after watching the first gameplay trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Rising, it’s that the game is frickin’ bloodily violent as all hell. But that doesn’t mean it has to be, as producer Shigenobu Matsuyama has revealed Rising will continue the MGS series’ tradition of making it possible to complete the game without killing a single person.
"I believe that MGS has a key stealth element in not trying to kill anyone," Matsuyama said to Kotaku. "You could actually have a no-kill completion [in Rising]. There will be a lot of mechs and cyborgs, but if you slice them up, that will be considered as a no-kill as well. You’ll have the freedom of killing humans, of course, but you can proceed through the game without killing a human being, but slicing up mechs and cyborgs."

Past Metal Gear Solid games have included weapons like the tranquilizer gun and stun knife to make it easier to deal with enemies without killing them, and Matsuyama mentioned a couple of tactics that’ll be available in Rising, including cutting enemies’ weapons (but not flesh), or even scaring enemies away simply by being "intimidating."

"We have to think about the violence and the morals behind it. I would like to add the expression of the pain [enemies feel] as well... not just make a slice ’em up, dice ’em up," Matsuyama said. "I want to emphasize that I will never reward a player for killing human beings in the game. I won’t make it easier to clear the game [that way]. I will probably make it more difficult."

We’re not quite sure about the metaphysics of cyborg deaths not counting as "kills," though. Technically, a cyborg is part human, part machine, right? So isn’t that at least technically like killing half a human?