Support NeoGAF

[Retro_]

Actually, I'd say it's the other way around. If it was real, he wouldn't be doing that because it's very unprofessional.

I don't see how answering questions on twitter is unprofessional

I believe Quinton Flynn did the exact same thing at one point which at the time reflected Rising's troubled development.

and they still contacted him to do the role afterwards.

As he's not employed by them he's not under any NDA for the game. So he can say whatever the hell he wants. Even if it reveals things about the game they aren't ready to announce.

 

[neptunes]

Why are people assuming that regular snake will make an appearance in this game? Even if he did, wouldn't the time period date him as a young child?

So why would Hayter return to voice anything?

 

[UrbanRats]

Well, to be quite honest the Hayter voice from 98 hasn't existed since 98. So I don't really view him as being irreplaceable. He's sounded like a guy doing an imitation of Snake's voice ever since the original. I don't view him as being as important to Snake as Nolan North to Nathan Drake. I absolutely can't imagine Drake being voiced by anyone else. But Snake? Well, he sounds different in every game because Hayter continues to chase that 98 Snake.

Oh well, when MGS first came out here, it was dubbed in Italian (with HILARIOUSLY bad results, which i'm grateful for) so my first exposure to him was in MGS2.
I still associate him with Snake though.

 

[mxgt]

Hayter = Solid Snake. People talking shit about Hayter in this thread weren't around in 98.

He was great then but awful in MGS4

 

[RustyNails]

Why are people assuming that regular snake will make an appearance in this game? Even if he did, wouldn't the time period date him as a young child?

So why would Hayter return to voice anything?

"regular snake"

Is this the bastard child of naked snake he kept hidden from the rest of the world who works in walmart and drives an Impala?

 

[Retro_]

Why are people assuming that regular snake will make an appearance in this game? Even if he did, wouldn't the time period date him as a young child?

So why would Hayter return to voice anything?

because they really want to believe Hayter is in this game in some form I guess.

I mean this is Metal Gear so I won't say it won't happen

but I mean with Akio Ohtsuka still playing the lead Big Boss in the Japanese version, that reason doesn't make alot of sense to me

 

[haikira]

He was great then but awful in MGS4

Could have been a problem with the voice direction, more than Hayter. Telling him to really scratch it up.

 

[Synth_floyd]

Because Akio Otsuka does a good job of Snake.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Why are people assuming that regular snake will make an appearance in this game? Even if he did, wouldn't the time period date him as a young child?

So why would Hayter return to voice anything?

I think something is amiss here.

Hayter Tweeted a while ago asking people how they would feel if he didn't play Snake in the next MGS game right.

But then yesterday he said he was not asked to do the voice, not approached for the job.

So...then how would he know, before the game is announced, that he was not going to play Snake if they never asked him?!!?!??

Hmmmm.

I think he is in the game. He kept quiet enough about MGS2, and the fact that he was a secondary character, with far fewer lines than in the previous or next entry. He is good for keeping secrets.

Your money or your life Kojima. The game is up.

 

[immortal-joe]

I think something is amiss here.

Hayter Tweeted a while ago asking people how they would feel if he didn't play Snake in the next MGS game right.

But then yesterday he said he was not asked to do the voice, not approached for the job.

So...then how would he know, before the game is announced, that he was not going to play Snake if they never asked him?!!?!??

Hmmmm.

I think he is in the game. He kept quiet enough about MGS2, and the fact that he was a secondary character, with far fewer lines than in the previous or next entry. He is good for keeping secrets.

Your money or your life Kojima. The game is up.

- agent told him
- he saw ground zeroes announced and asked them himself when/if they need him

Sorry dude - they simply aren't using him.

EDIT: to clarify, his tweets came well after ground zeroes was shown. PLENTY of time for him to hear about it and speak to konami

 

[dinosaur_hunter2]

I always loved Hayter's work. I seriously hope this is a ruse created by Kojima, he's a master troll. Snake or Big Boss aren't the same with another voice.

 

[blitzcloud]

everytime I hear the japanese Snake, it's like i'm hearing a samurai embodied into a US secret agent.

Except he's a Koala.

 

[Salaadin]

I think something is amiss here.

Hayter Tweeted a while ago asking people how they would feel if he didn't play Snake in the next MGS game right.

But then yesterday he said he was not asked to do the voice, not approached for the job.

So...then how would he know, before the game is announced, that he was not going to play Snake if they never asked him?!!?!??

Hmmmm.

I think he is in the game. He kept quiet enough about MGS2, and the fact that he was a secondary character, with far fewer lines than in the previous or next entry. He is good for keeping secrets.

Your money or your life Kojima. The game is up.

It could be anything. Other voices in MGS5 have worked on the series before and might keep regular contact with Hayter or just shot him a heads up when they found out. Robin Atkin Downes (Kaz), for instance, did PW with Hayter and now hes in MGS5.

Kris Zimmerman did the voice directing for every MGS title so theres also a chance that shes doing this one too and she found out and told Hayter.

Or its all a ruse. Who the hell knows. Im anxious for Keighleys interview. How Kojima answers the Hayter question could tell us what we want to know.

 

[Moral Panic]

After this many years, dumping Hayter like a used rag would be horrible.

 

[DMeisterJ]

I'll miss his voice. It won't feel like a MGS game without it.

 

[jonnyp]

Good news for us who think Hayter's perfromances leave a lot to desire.

 

[KojiKnight]

No hayter, no buy. Already said that before and I'm sticking to my guns. Sorry, at this point it would be like snubbing Charles Martinet for Mario.

 

[BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!]

Well, to be quite honest the Hayter voice from 98 hasn't existed since 98. So I don't really view him as being irreplaceable. He's sounded like a guy doing an imitation of Snake's voice ever since the original. I don't view him as being as important to Snake as Nolan North to Nathan Drake. I absolutely can't imagine Drake being voiced by anyone else. But Snake? Well, he sounds different in every game because Hayter continues to chase that 98 Snake.

The guy who has been doing the role for 12+ years in 6 different games is irreplaceable, while a guy who's been doing it only for 5 years isn't.

How about they're both irreplaceable smartass.

 

[zoukka]

This is a weird decision that will piss off millions of fans. I wonder what the rationale was behind this...

 

[Nags]

3 theories:

1) Kojima is fucking trolling us, and that's not Big Boss in the trailer.
2) Hayter isn't playing Big Boss because Snake is somehow in this game.
3) Hayter has literally been cast aside for one reason or another.

I'm totally fine if he isn't in the game at all, but I'm going with 2 here.

 

[SolidSnakex]

The guy who has been doing the role for 12+ years in 6 different games is irreplaceable, while a guy who's been doing it only for 5 years isn't.

How about they're both irreplaceable smartass.

The guy that's been doing it for 5 years is one of the best voice actors in the industry. The other isn't. As many have said, Hayter's voice acting has declined over each game. The fact that KojoPro didn't even approach Hayter for MGSV while Otsuka (his Japanese voice actor from the start) is back should tell you a lot.

 

[TGO]

From David Hayter's official Facebook page through his contact Amanda

Read the bolded part. Now what..

Yeah I noticed that, and Hayter asked how we'd feel if he didn't do it a month beforehand & now he is shocked
I'm calling BS, in fact everything about MGSV has been poorly deceiving so far
I wouldn't be surprised if Kojima comes out at E3 shows a Mind blowing trailer with EXCLUSIVELY ON SEGA SATURN at the end.
The reason for mind fucking us? Psycho Mantis

 

[Future PhaZe]

I don't understand why people think that Hayter couldn't pull off an MGS1 voice. It's just less pronounced with less grunting. Clearly he's been directed to add that stuff to his recent performances. I've been fine with him as a VA.

Again, we don't know what Kojimas future plans are. Do you guys want David Hayter screaming at himself if they do a Metal Gear Remake?

 

[blitzcloud]

The guy that's been doing it for 5 years is one of the best voice actors in the industry. The other isn't. As many have said, Hayter's voice acting has declined over each game. The fact that KojoPro didn't even approach Hayter for MGSV while Otsuka (his Japanese voice actor from the start) is back should tell you a lot.

"seiyuu" are sacred while we (anywhere but japan) recycle VAs for money?

 

[Shadow2222]

As much as I hate to admit it, the Japanese Snake seems to have grown closer to Kojima than Hayter.

Remember that MG Rising had exclusive DLC in Japan with a talking "Snake" sword voiced by Akio?

Maybe the reason the US didn't get it is because they already dropped Hayter?

 

[aktham]

I don't know how I'll feel about snake not voiced by David Hayter. I'm so used to it now.

 

[Sage00]

The reason the Japanese VA is still playing Big Boss is because it's extremely common for Japanese VAs to be cast in multiple roles.

 

[Nags]

It's not Metal Gear Solid 5, it's Metal Gear Solid V. There has to be a reason for the V after using numbers for the other 3.
The unveiling of this game is a rabbit hole and we're still falling.

"V has come to"
My guess is that this is a reference to Peacewalker. The voice is of Amanda from that title.
There is also a scene where they are cheering on Snake, calling him "Vic Boss". That probably isn't the whole explanation though.

 

[KojiKnight]

If Hayter somehow plays a young Solid Snake, I'd be all for that... but it just seems very unlikely. I fell in love with this series through Hayter's portrayal of Snake... ever since i first played the MGS demo from a PS1 pizza hut promotion...

At this point it'd be like enjoying one of those crappy disney sequels they released 40 years after the original and thus have none of the same voice talent... yeah it's the same stuff you watched as a kid, but it just all feels wrong.

 

[Don]

Even though a lot of people in this thread seem to not like Hayter's voice acting in the recent MGS games, I find it hard to believe that is the reason for him not being brought back. It always seemed like Hayter had a pretty good relationship with Kojima Productions, the MGS series and the fans so just dropping him completely at this stage in the franchise without even telling him sounds kind of strange to me.

If they are changing his voice because they wanted to differentiate Big Boss from Solid Snake, like they did during the MGS4 ending, then that doesn't explain why the Japanese version kept the same voice actor. It also doesn't make much sense when this title doesn't take place much later than Peace Walker were he was still voice by Hayter.

At first I was thinking that the Big Boss we see during the hospital escape/Phantom Pain sequences might actually be someone else and not really Big Boss. We haven't heard Big Boss's english voice during any of the Ground Zeroes section of the game yet, so we can't confirm what he sounds like during that chapter. This makes me wonder if maybe Hayter will voice Snake during that prologue chapter, then after the coma we will be playing as different character who only looks like Big Boss but is actually someone else. This might also tie into the whole "What about him?" line that Miller says referring to another character off screen during the start of the trailer as well as the "two phantoms" and "FOX vs XOF" taglines.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I'm liking the theory that the guy we're seeing in Phantom Pain isn't actually Big Boss, but a body double made to look like him through cosmetic surgery. I can't quite make the pieces line up based on what we've been shown, but it could explain a different voice and the talk of the Trojan and the fact that he was wheeled into the hospital wearing a FOX patch instead of a Militaires sans Frontieres one. Would also explain why a Patriot mole, Miller, would care whether he lived or died. So maybe Hayter still has a role after all? Seems unlikely, but who knows?

 

[Duane Cunningham]

I don't understand why people think that Hayter couldn't pull off an MGS1 voice. It's just less pronounced with less grunting. Clearly he's been directed to add that stuff to his recent performances. I've been fine with him as a VA.

Again, we don't know what Kojimas future plans are. Do you guys want David Hayter screaming at himself if they do a Metal Gear Remake?

This is what I think. Big Boss and his atrophied ass wakes up from the coma sounding like Richard Doyle, and that's how he sounds from now on. MGS5 turns out to be a great game and we all love it.

Several years from now: The Metal Gear finale. One game, using the Fox Engine or whatever the cutting edge software and hardware is at that point. Big Boss vs Solid Snake in his prime, the first half is Outer Heaven in South Africa in the year 1995, the second half is four years later in Zanzibar. Big Boss is voiced by Richard Doyle (or whoever it is now), Solid Snake by David Hayter.

 

[Chip N Chance]

I liked Boss's voice in 4, so i dont see what the big deal is. Hes old, and Hayter's "old" voice is really pushing it. I believe Richard Boyle (The voice of The Fury) did Boss in MGS4 and was fantastic.

 

[Salaadin]

I liked Boss's voice in 4, so i dont see what the big deal is. Hes old, and Hayter's "old" voice is really pushing it. I believe Richard Boyle (The voice of The Fury) did Boss in MGS4 and was fantastic.

Im not opposed to the idea of the voice being changed but I do hope this doesnt mean Hayter is gone for good. With what we know, either Hayter is gone from MGS5 or Hayter is playing Solid Snake so they needed a different Big Boss voice or that man in the trailer isnt Big Boss.

I know there are complaints about Hayters voice in the later games and I share some of those complaints but I just really like the guy and I feel bad for him if hes been "killed off" with no contact from KojiPro at all. Hes been a staple of the series for me and it would suck to see him gone.

 

[MeBecomingI]

I find that Sutherland (or whoever) doesn't really sound much older than the voice that Hayter did for Boss in Peace Walker. It wasn't the best quality for the gameplay footage, but it stands for now. I think the work Hayter did in Peace Walker was great and I'd like to hear that again. I'm not quite getting that sound of old Big Boss from Sutherland or whoever did the voice for the gameplay bit.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

 

[KojiKnight]

For those saying that because Snake's VA didn't change in Japan that it means the end entirely for Hayter...

Something to note about Japanese VAs though is that they often play multiple people even in similar roles. For example, the VA for Goku (Masako Nozawa) played him as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. He also played Goku's son Gohan as a child, teenager, and adult, Goten in the same stages, etc etc etc.

It's not beyond any stretch of the imagination that the same VA for Solid Snake/Big Boss would also play any BB clones/doppelgangers.


That said... at this point it's more hope than proof. I still plan on sticking to my guns, no Hayter no money.

 

[jsnepo]

I believe what makes his original Snake voice awesome is because of Jeremy Blaustein's translation.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

I believe what makes his original Snake voice awesome is because of Jeremy Blaustein's translation.

I wish he would have stuck around for the next games.

 

[Pyrrhus]

I wish he would have stuck around for the next games.

From what I've read, he would have loved to. But Scott Dolph apparently told Kojima that he was squirreling the script and got him canned. Just Blaustein's side of it, of course.

 

[rvy]

I believe what makes his original Snake voice awesome is because of Jeremy Blaustein's translation.

He also co-directed the recording sessions. Which is why you're right.

From what I've read, he would have loved to. But Scott Dolph apparently told Kojima that he was squirreling the script and got him canned. Just Blaustein's side of it, of course.

He was. Because Kojima is a shit writer and his shitty writing wouldn't have gotten over in the west had Jeremy kept the translation exactly the same.

"Can love bloomz on ze batorufirudo?"

Are you fucking kidding me?

 

[friskykillface]

If Kojima adds time travel in mgsV then I'll go gdvjydhurfhgff , that's probably why hayter isn't playing big boss

Do it Kojima, get young snake vs prime big boss

 

[lantus]

Sad to see him not reprising his role as Snake, but it honestly was bound to happen sooner or later I think. I will always remember him for his legendary MGS1 VO.

 

[AuthenticM]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if this was some smokescreen bullshit. Maybe Hayter is totally in the game but can't say lest it ruins the mindfuck Kojima is preparing

 

[Pyrrhus]

He was. Because Kojima is a shit writer and his shitty writing wouldn't have gotten over in the west had Jeremy kept the translation exactly the same.

"Can love bloomz on ze batorufirudo?"

Are you fucking kidding me?

"Can love bloom on a battlefield" made it into the game, though. The biggest actual change I know of was that he changed Mei Ling's quotations so that half of them were from Western sources like Shakespeare.

 

[rvy]

"Can love bloom on a battlefield" made it into the game, though. The biggest actual change I know of was that he changed Mei Ling's quotations so that half of them were from Western sources like Shakespeare.

I know it did, it's just an example of how bad the writing is. Jeremy could not remove it according to an interview of his. He even mocked the line.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

From what I've read, he would have loved to. But Scott Dolph apparently told Kojima that he was squirreling the script and got him canned. Just Blaustein's side of it, of course.

Yea, I remember an interview with him on an mgs site that said he was canned. The guy really understood MGS and the tendencies for stupid JP tropes and he did a good job of making them more tolerable. I recall him making fun of the "can love bloom on a battlefield?" line. Metal Gear needs guys like him.

 

[bernardobri]

"Can love bloom on a battlefield" made it into the game, though. The biggest actual change I know of was that he changed Mei Ling's quotations so that half of them were from Western sources like Shakespeare.

Yeah, it's because in the japanese version she read chinese proverbs in its native language, then translated it and told it's meaning. I guess Kojima and Blaustein agreed on this.

From the MGS Integral guide.

http://www.metalgearsolid.net/features/metal-gear-solid-integral-interview

Did you have trouble translating Mei Ling's proverbs?

K: Yeah, about them... Allow me to apologize (laughs). They're quite different in the overseas versions (laughs). In the Japanese version she gives you the proverb in Chinese, then proceeds to explain it in Japanese, but in English she'd be giving you the proverb in English, then when Snake asks her what it means, she'd be basically repeating the same thing in English. That wouldn't have worked so well, so we kept the ones we could keep, but changed the rest. Then the European versions are based on the English version, so they're changed as well. It was a little disappointing (laughs). Just one of those things (laughs).

Also, for reference... (MGS Integral is the "GOTY" version of the game, including with extras (such as the VR disc we got in the west) and all the spoken dialogue in english, rather than japanese voices. They did the same for MGS2 in Substance)

Could you first of all explain how Integral came into being?

Kojima: After we'd finished the Japanese version [of MGS], we then moved on to the American version. We had all the dialogue translated and re-recorded into English, then once the American version had been completed, we gave an internal presentation on it here at the company. Everyone really liked hearing Snake talking in English. I wrote the game in Japanese, of course, but seeing the game matched up with English dialogue sort of resonated within me, you know? That's partly an influence from all the foreign movies and TV shows I've watched over the years, but it was just really cool having a Metal Gear in English like that.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

With the news that Ground Zeroes and TPP are supposedly separate games I wonder if we'll get something like "Hayter isn't in TPP because we are changing the voice to show his age but we haven't ruled out using him in GZ."

 

[Imm0rt4l]

With the news that Ground Zeroes and TPP are supposedly separate games I wonder if we'll get something like "Hayter isn't in TPP because we are changing the voice to show his age but we haven't ruled out using him in GZ."

I don't think that would make sense honestly. I'm sure they're not using him, otherwise he'd know. Also I don't think going from a rugged gravely hayter voice to Keifer sutherland is a progressive transition, though anything's possible.