One of Kojima’s controversial moves for Metal Gear Solid 5 was the replacement of long time Snake’s voice actor David Hayter with Kiefer Sutherland. Its been almost two years and the backlash against this move continues. However in an interview KindaFunnyGames, Troy Baker, the voice of Ocelot in The Phantom Pain believes that people should first play the game first before passing judgments.
“I definitely think everything will…Reserve judgment until you actually play the game and then hate it if you want to which is totally fine. We live in a democracy, not a fascist state where you have to agree with what we say but there is so much that even being a Metal Gear fan coming into this game, ‘Wow! that’s what you are doing, it’s that broad, it’s that bold.”
He then talks about the complicated process of facial capture something that Kojima has been highlighting since 2011. “But again the process, watch the TV screen, you have multiple cameras on you and you could not move more than this or this [referring to his face] and you still got to make sure you are talking in person and not watching the TV screen without moving your face. Really really hard.”
He then talks about David Hayter and how he may have felt when he was replaced by Sutherland. “I really think it said a lot about the industry the fact that there was so much backlash. I know that David felt a lot of love from people. I think he felt more love than he did anger like other people’s love for him outweighed any anger that he felt but we really don’t have like Charles Martinet who’s been voice of Mario since day one but do we really have another actor that has been assigned more to a video game role more than David Hayter? I don’t think.”
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain releases this year across the PS3, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC.