MG: Rising dev fears GTA-style reaction

The producer of Metal Gear: Rising fears people may overreact to the game in the same way some did when Grand Theft Auto first burst onto the scene.

The ability to cut virtual humans in any way gamers see fit, as showcased in the E3 2010 reveal trailer below, worries Kojima Productions' Shigenobu Matsuyama.

"What was shocking was a title like Grand Theft Auto," Matsuyama told Eurogamer in a new interview published today.

"I never realised the freedom of any other games. You could go anywhere. You could do anything.

"It was fun, but at the same time I felt a fear of what the people would do and how they would react. When I saw that title I thought, as a creator there was going to be a hell of a lot of risk involved.

"As I create Rising, and going back to the freedom to cut humans, I always have Grand Theft Auto and that shocking feeling in my mind."

Rising's debut trailer sees cyborg ninja Raiden slicing and dicing humans from all sorts of nasty angles. He also cuts fruit.

Matsuyama's designed the game to discourage players from deliberately carving at human opponents, and wants them to feel like they've made a big mistake if they do so accidentally.

"I'm not saying this will be a game for children," Matsuyama insisted. "It's a game for adults. Therefore I didn't want to lie. If you make a mistake something will happen in order to make it real and make you feel it's real as well.

"That kind of image from the trailer you saw I thought was needed. But again, that trailer is almost an exaggeration of what you could do. We're not going to persuade people to do that."

Rising's due out on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.