When the first Metal Gear Solid hit the PlayStation in 1998, it was lauded for its cinematic approach. Its cinematography and writing was unlike anything seen on consoles at the time and, while it was surpassed in scale by later games even within the same franchise, stands as one of the most important titles in video game storytelling.
Something that went a long way towards that reception was its voice acting, which stood head and shoulders above the majority of its contemporaries. Across both the Japanese and English dubs of the various Metal Gear games, there have been a variety of rumors, oddities and in-jokes pertaining to the actors who have worked on the series.
6 Olga Sounded Awfully Familiar
On the tanker at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake has a run-in with Olga Gurlukovich, who reminds both him and player of an outwardly similar character from the previous game. Her tank-top, short hair and general tomboyish demeanor call to mind Meryl Silverburgh, Snake's companion back on Shadow Moses.
In the Japanese version of MGS2, the resemblance goes even deeper: Olga is voiced by Kyoko Terase, who had previously played Meryl. Unfortunately, this little casting in-joke was not carried over for the English release.
5 Liquid Ocelot's Change of Voice
Whenever Revolver Ocelot is seemingly possessed by the late Liquid Snake, his voice changes along with his persona. This is true in both the Japanese and English versions of Metal Gear Solid 2, with Patric Zimmerman/Kōji Totani's Ocelot being replaced by Cam Clarke/Banjō Ginga's Liquid. However, when Liquid's persona entirely took over Ocelot's body in Metal Gear Solid 4, things were different.
Zimmerman continued to play Ocelot in the English version of MGS4, but Liquid's Japanese actor Banjō Ginga took on the role completely in Japan. This odd inconsistency between the two dubs had an unfortunate reason behind it: Kōji Totani had died in 2006, before recording any of Ocelot's dialogue for MGS4. Both Ocelot actors were intended to retain their roles, but Totani's passing meant plans had to change.
4 Christopher Randolph Auditioned For Snake
When Christopher Randolph first auditioned for Metal Gear Solid, Hal "Otacon" Emmerich wasn't his first choice. He auditioned for several different characters, with Solid Snake himself being one of the first he tried out for. It's hard to imagine Randolph's voice coming out of Snake's mouth, and apparently the producers at the time thought the same thing.
Randolph was then asked to audition for Otacon instead, the role which he would reprise in every future Metal Gear Solid game. According to Randolph, one of the reasons he was considered for the role was his physical appearance; the producers thought Randolph looked like a spitting image of Otacon.
3 The Reason The Twin Snakes Re-recorded The Dialogue
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the remake of the first MGS for the Nintendo GameCube, featured entirely re-recorded audio from the majority of the original cast. Some characters were recast, and the dialogue was edited to be closer to the Japanese script. These changes drew criticism from some fans, who wondered why they didn't simply use the audio from the original release instead.
According to some of the actors, it was actually a necessity: both David Hayter and Christopher Randolph mentioned in interviews that the rooms they originally recorded in were not properly sound-proofed. While the audio compression on PlayStation masked this, Hayter claimed that traffic outside the room could be heard in the background of the original audio, so simply re-using the master copies was out of the question.
2 Hideo Kojima = God?
As the credits rolled near the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, fans may have noticed a rather unusual one nestled in among the rest of the voice cast: Hideo Kojima as "Voice of God". It would be easy to write this off as another of Kojima's odd little gags, but his voice is indeed present in the final product in a rather unusual way.
After defeating Screaming Mantis, an apparition of Psycho Mantis will appear and attempt to manipulate the player's memory card and controller, as he did in the original Metal Gear Solid. He is confounded by the PlayStation 3's updated hardware and eventually dissipates; as he does, a voice can be heard screaming "Kutaragi-san" and an image of Kojima appears if the player taps the X button. This is Kojima's voice paying tribute to Ken Kutaragi, the man considered the "Father of the PlayStation" for designing the original PlayStation with Sony Computer Entertainment.
1 Big Boss Was Played By Snake's Real Father
In Japan, Snake's voice actor has always been Akio Otsuka, who anime fans may also recognize as Blackbeard from One Piece and All For One from My Hero Academia. Naturally, he played Naked Snake/Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 as well, but when they both finally reunited at the conclusion of Metal Gear Solid 4, Big Boss was recast.
In these final scenes where Big Boss finally shows some fatherly love to Snake, he was being voiced by Akio Otsuka's real-life father. Like his son, Chikao Ohtsuka was a veteran voice actor in anime and video games, taking on roles of iconic villains like Sonic's Doctor Eggman and Kingdom Heart's Xehanort. Chikao Ohtsuka passed away seven years later in 2015 at the age of 85.