David Hayter was the legendary, burnt-gravel voice of Metal Gear Solid‘s Solid Snake for years, and now we’ve found out that he’s no fan of series creator Hideo Kojima. Oddly enough, it seems like Hideo Kojima is no fan of David Hayter. According to the veteran voice actor’s statements on the Game Informer podcast, the auteur game designer tried to push him out well before he was finally booted for Kiefer Sutherland in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. According to Hayter, he was almost replaced by Kurt Russell for Metal Gear Solid 3, but it never materialized, and fans retained Hayter’s classic growl for a little while longer. Still, there’s no love lost between these two former workmates:
“I think he handled it pretty badly. I’ve got no particular love for Kojima. I respect him and I think he’s a brilliant game maker. I don’t know him as a person and as a businessman I was not impressed. So no, I don’t feel any need to go back and work for him again.”
Ironically, it seems like neither of them will ever work on a Metal Gear Solid game again, considering Konami’s wish to scale back their game costs to focus on mobile gaming (or until Konami sells the rights to the franchise). Konami and Kojima split ways just after the release of MGS V, now Metal Gear is in total limbo.
Fans, developers and fans that are developers have been trying to get HD remakes of Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid made for years, but they’ve been quickly snuffed out.
Still, Hayter holds out hope he’ll rejoin the series.
“I was kinda hoping that Konami would take me back now that he was gone.”
Sadly, Hayter, who used to play all of the Metal Gear games, hasn’t played Ground Zeroes or MGS V, so his connection to Snake is getting weaker with every moment passed.
At least he’ll always have himself, and his Solid Snake action figures.
(Via Polygon)