16 Games That Changed Dramatically During Development

METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE

This is a bit of a running theme, isn’t it? A Metal Gear title begins development, faces some hurdles, and then ends up completely reinventing itself. Konami and Kojima Productions first introduced the game as Metal Gear Solid: Rising, promising a new breed of stealth action gameplay with a story that would fill out gaps in the series’ canon- but development troubles meant that both from a narrative and gameplay standpoint, the project never got to where the development team wanted to take it. Eventually, they turned to action masterminds PlatinumGames for help, and though they did, of course, end up delivering a stellar action title, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance differed from the game’s original vision in crucial, fundamental ways. Of course, given how good Rising was, no one can ever complain about how it turned out- but we can’t help but wonder often about what the game would have been like if Kojima Productions had been able to make the game they had initially wanted to make.