Released on February 19, 2013, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (which I will from now on be referring to as simply Revengeance) is a character-action game developed by Platinum Games and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. A spin-off of the critically acclaimed action-stealth series Metal Gear, Revengeance takes place in a fictional depiction of 2018. In its world, military technology has advanced to the point that nearly every soldier is outfitted with cybernetic enhancements. The protagonist, Raiden (real name Jack), is one such cyborg. A formal child-soldier, Raiden was trained from birth to be a killer. Growing up, he received VR training based on the exploits of the legendary soldier Solid Snake. Raiden has earned his fair share of nicknames over the years, but the most infamous one is Jack the Ripper. He earned this due to his reputation as a successful soldier who kills when ordered to and enjoys it. As much as he tries to hide it, Raiden can only really feel alive on the battlefield, face-to-face with death.
Now, the Metal Gear franchise is famous for its political commentary and anti-nuclear messages. This has always been largely due to the fact the series creator and former director Hideo Kojima believes that nuclear missiles are a major obstacle to achieving world peace. However, Revengeance was made with little to no creative input from Kojima. Nonetheless, it still carries on his ideas about the military-industrial complex.
The actual plot of Revengeance begins with Raiden working for a PMC (private military company) called Maverick, who is contracted to protect an African prime minister. However, their convoy comes under attack from a rogue PMC called Desperado. Despite cutting his way through many enemy soldiers and giant robots, Raiden is unable to save the prime minister from dying. Desperado says that their goal is to keep nations at war and prevent peace because the war economy is very profitable and will lead to further technological advancements.
One way that Desperado plans to achieve its goal is by harvesting the brains of orphaned children in third-world countries and putting them through VR training to turn them into perfect killing machines. You see after the brain goes through its training, it will be placed in a cyborg body so it can carry out the order of whatever military purchases them. When Raiden learns of this and that the process is technically legal, he leaves Maverick and sets out to dispense his own justice. Raiden knows what it's like to not have a childhood and spend his whole life killing people and does not want that fate for anyone else.
One of the game's major themes is that of free will. This comes up several times. One of the first is with the character Blade Wolf, a robot that resembles a dog who, through his conversations with Raiden and other cyborgs, breaks free of his programming and learns to act on his own. This can be seen when Wolf kills his fellow Desperado soldier Khamsin in the Blade Wolf DLC. By analyzing both of these characters' theme songs, we learn a lot about each respective character. This goes for every character who has their own song in the game. In Khamsin’s theme, we learn that he sees himself as “a wind of destruction” and that “freedom is calling to all men who bend their will.” Khamsin serves as a stand-in for the average soldier, and his song illustrates that soldiers are seen as nothing more than tools, “invisible warriors,” if you will and that they are fed contradictory information so that they will fight for a cause that is not theirs. Blade Wolf’s song, on the other hand, is about breaking free of those chains. He wants to stop “being led by the blind” and become his “own master.” This leads to Wolf joining Raiden in his battle against Desparado despite the fact he is still fond of one of their members, Samuel Rodrigues. He even promises Sam that he will not interfere in his duel with Raiden and will give Sam’s sword to Raiden if Sam dies.
Throughout the course of the game, Raiden, and by extension the player, kills countless enemy soldiers, and the combat is designed in such a fluid and responsive way that it is supposed to feel good when you cut a man into a hundred tiny pieces. Cutting a foe down the middle and ripping out their spine fully recovers your health and energy. The more efficient the player is at disposing of enemies without taking damage, the higher their mission rating. They also get more currency that can be used to upgrade Raiden. Everything about the combat is very cathartic. Up until about halfway through the game, Raiden justifies his actions by telling himself that those soldiers made up their minds when they chose their side. However, during an encounter with the cyborg Monsoon, Raiden has the thoughts of his enemies transmitted into his head and learns that many of them were lied to by their employers and would rather go back to their families than keep fighting. This temporarily causes Raiden to lose the will to fight since it makes him feel as if his actions are no better than those of Desperado. During this encounter, Raiden is taunted by Monsoon and is repeatedly called Jack the Ripper. Monsoon tells Raiden that the Ripper is Raiden’s true nature and that he enjoys killing people. With his spirit broken, Raiden actually agrees with Monsoon’s assessment of him and, despite being stabbed several times, turns off his pain inhibitors so that he can fully embrace his Ripper persona. Raiden resolves that the most important thing is that no other Jack the Rippers are created. Raiden says that he chose this way of life and that the child cyborgs deserve to make their own choices instead of being made into killing machines against their will.
Revengeance represents a near dystopian future that the world could easily become. And nowhere are these anti-military messages expressed than in the game’s climax. It turns out that Desperado was funded by one Colorado Senator, Steven Armstrong. Armstrong is the favorite among the American population to win the 2020 presidential election, and if he is, he will be able to achieve his goal of building a society where the weak are purged and replaced by cyborgs. Armstrong plans to assassinate the current US president in Pakistan in order to further fan the flames in the middle-east. By pinning the assassination on Desperado, the American people would be inclined to vote for Armstrong due to his connections to PMCs. He attempts to win Raiden over to his side by promoting his ideal society as one where people will only fight for what they believe in and for no one else. Raiden thinks this survival of the fittest world is insane and that nothing can justify the deaths of billions of people. Armstrong tells Raiden that with his strength, this is a world he would thrive in. One where at the top of the mountain of bodies, there will be a world with no conflict. Regardless, despite a brief consideration, Raiden still refuses to let Armstrong’s world become a reality. However, even after the final blow is dealt and Raiden emerges victorious, Armstrong tells Raiden that as long his dream will still live on inside Raiden and that this momentary victory will not stop the cycle of violence from leading the world towards its ultimate destiny.
Being made by a Japanese developer, the Metal Gear has always benefitted from an unbiased depiction of the American government. Despite the fact that the United States is positioned as the “good guy” in most cases, the franchise does not shy away from ideas of political corruption and public manipulation through lies and propaganda. Revengeance, in particular, has seen a massive rise in popularity over the years despite its lukewarm reception when it came out. Its ideas about the danger of over-militarization and making decisions for yourself rather than just taking what people or governments tell you at face value become more and more relevant as time goes on, and more and more people resonate with its messages. While the presentation is over the top and near comical at times, it still manages to represent a very real possible future in its own way. Among my peers, I have noticed a trend of declining trust in the federal government. Now, this is only conjecture on my part, but I believe this age of information and misinformation has led to an increasing number of people being unable to trust each other or their government. Everything you read must be taken with a grain of salt because you don’t know who is lying to fulfill their own agenda. I think that the younger generations become increasingly aware of this fact as time goes on. For better or worse, children who grow up with the internet are exposed to so much information at an early age, and when 99% of that information is untrustworthy, it becomes hard to determine what is true. According to Steam Spy, in 2018, an estimated 722,000 people owned a copy of Revengeance on Steam. Today, that number is estimated to be anywhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 owners. Assuming the correct number is somewhere in the middle, that is a dramatic increase for a game released almost ten years ago. User-created content is also at an all-time high, with over 1,000,000 views on Revengeance-related Youtube videos and over 50 new videos being uploaded on 5/12/22 alone. Gameplay-wise it's an above-average hack-and-slash game, but it’s no Devil May Cry. Revengeance is defined and carried by its narrative, and I am inclined to believe that this popularity is directly related to how its ideas which may have seemed crazy ten years ago, are becoming more and more relevant with each passing year.
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