Metal Gear Solid Nearly Had Rat Buddies
Metal Gear Solid is remembered as a tense stealth action game that would lay the groundwork for many stealth games that would follow, but director Hideo Kojima had big plans for the game's smallest creatures: rats. Metal Gear Solid titles have always featured animals throughout their history, from the Wolfdogs of MGS to the seagulls that terrorize protagonist Raiden's balance on Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty's Big Shell. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater would go on to expand this particular facet of the games, with a myriad of wild animals that Snake could encounter (and consume) although players may struggle to get their hands on a copy, given that MGS2 & 3 were removed from digital stores.
The rats that appeared on Metal Gear Solid's Shadow Moses island ended up being a fairly unremarkable addition to the game, although there was a hidden codec call Snake would receive should he gun down too many of them. Director Hideo Kojima originally had other plans for the rodents though, none of which would go on to make it into the final version of the game. Said plans would've departed from MGS' stealth roots, while at the same time playing into the series' quirky sensibilities.
Related: You Can Skip Metal Gear Solid 3's Iconic Ladder (But You Shouldn't)
In an interview covered by YouTube channel DidYouKnowGaming?, Kojima stated "Another thing I wanted to do was assign names to individual rats, and these rats could then be raised as pets." before going on to say that he believes they are a "Very important element in the game." It isn't clear from this just how much of a role these pet rats would have played in the game, as it seems unlikely that they could do much to assist the player in combat, although perhaps they were
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