During a recent Konami press event, Ryan Payton of Kojima Productions was on hand to present Lunar Knights and Portable Ops. Though he has only been at Konami since last year, Payton has quickly become one of its most publicly recognized members. Among his other roles, he is the host of the The Kojima Productions Report, the studio's weekly audio broadcast. I had the chance to chat with Payton about Portable Ops, Hideo Kojima, and why it's nice to be able to develop Kojima games.

Shack: Could you give an overview of the game in terms of its story and concept?

Ryan Payton: MPO is a direct sequel to MGS3: Snake Eater. It's a legitimate Metal Gear Solid game on PlayStation Portable, and it's not a port, it's not a game we're going to move to console. It's really set in the Metal Gear Solid universe. Basically, the setup is that Snake wakes up in this prison in South America, and he's wondering what the hell is going on. He knows that the FOX unit, that he just retired from, has launched a revolt in South America. They've stolen a nuclear weapon, and now they're threatening to launch a nuclear missile into Russia, which would ignite World War III basically. We were in the middle of the Cold War at that time. So, Snake understands the severity of the situation. Next door to him in the prison cell is Roy Campbell. He's a very familiar character for a lot of Metal Gear fans, but for Snake at this point, and for Big Boss, this is a new face. This is a young hippie Roy Campbell that [Snake] comes across. They start talking, and they realize that in order to stop this revolt, to stop this crazed leader from launching this nuclear weapon into Russia, that Snake and Campbell are going to have to recruit people from his former unit to join his own revolution to stop World War III.

Shack: How does that recruitment aspect come into play within the game itself?

Ryan Payton: That's kind of the setup of the story, this comrade system, and we integrate it really intricately into the gameplay. For example, what Snake has to do is recruit enemy soldiers in a variety of ways, but the most basic way is to sneak up behind a soldier, grab him, and drag him into Roy's truck. In there, you can interrogate the soldier, get new intel, and try to convince him to join your side. Once you do that, you're going to have a new comrade in your brigade--up to 100 you can have in your brigade. Every soldier is going to have a unique ability. They might be a medic, or an engineer, or a spy. Somebody's really good at sniping, somebody's really good at hand to hand combat. They have all these different attributes. Then, you can take up to three of these NPCs with you onto the battlefield in single-player and multiplayer. If the player has a pool of 30 or 40 soldiers to pick from, they can choose. They can have a very well rounded team, with a medic and a sniper, or they can go all medic--it can really open up to the player. The comrade system is very deep.

Shack: What effect do those comrades have in actual gameplay?

Ryan Payton: The way it works in the single-player mode is that the map is very integral this time. The game isn't as linear as Snake Eater was, where you just go from one point to the next, then you go from that point to the next point all in kind of a straight line. This time, the stage is a lot more open ended and a lot more wide. So when you start a mission, you'll have your different comrades stationed at different points throughout the map. By hitting the Select button on the PSP, you can instantly swap and play that medic who's over in the northwest corner, then you could swap it and play as that sniper who's over in the southwest corner. It really opens up the gameplay. You have mission objectives, but you can use the comrades to help complete these objectives. When you're not using them, they'll be hidden from enemies in a way we'll announce at Tokyo Game Show, but it should make sense to Metal Gear Solid fans.

Shack: When you say players can get information from interrogations, how does the player actually make use of that?

Ryan Payton: It's actually driven by the story, by the scenario. Depending on where you are in the story, for example, Roy might get on the radio and say, "Hey, you've got to capture an enemy soldier in this area, because they were just debriefed on the location of the missile silos. Get one of those guys and bring him in." So you bring him in, and you go off and do your mission, then Roy might radio you and say, "We finally got the information we want; the missile silo is over here." It's very much integrated into the story. Sometimes you might recruit an enemy and they have nothing to say. [laughs]

Shack: But now they're your buddy.

Ryan Payton: Right.

Shack: So Roy is the one doing the interrogation?

Ryan Payton: Yeah, Roy's doing it. Then, depending on who's in your party, they can help. So there's a politician class, and if you have a politician helping, the interrogation goes a lot faster. So the politician has that smooth talking.

Shack: Any interesting weapons or other equipment we may not have been expecting?

Ryan Payton: Not that I can talk about. Maybe at TGS, if you don't mind.

Shack: In terms of scope, this is a full scare Metal Gear Solid game, but it's on a portable platform. What lead Kojima Productions to take that route?

Ryan Payton: The thinking behind the game is that we have this theme around development. We have it posted all over the studio: "Give the fans what they want." That's not to say our previous PSP title Metal Gear Ac!d 2 was a bad game, in fact I think it's a really good game suited for portable. However, no matter what kind of approach we have, any new approach to Metal Gear, fans are going to demand a genuine Metal Gear Solid game--an action game--on PlayStation Portable. We decided, hey, why not instead of dancing around that topic or ignoring it, we're going to approach it full on, and give them exactly what they want--more voiceovers, more cinematics, a genuine story that affects what's going to happen in future Metal Gear Solid games such as Metal Gear Solid 4. We'll bring back favorite characters, introduce new characters into the universe, have all these gameplay elements that made Metal Gear Solid an international hit rather than doing another Ac!d game or something. We're giving the fans what they've asked for.

Shack: Is that slogan, "Give the fans what they want," a Kojima Productions directive or is that specific to this game? Is it always in mind?

Ryan Payton: That's a good question. At least for this game in particular, it's "Give the fans what they want." But I think Mr. Kojima is always thinking about that. For MGS4, at E3 he'll always hear the reactions from fans and the press about certain characters, and he might change them around, to keep the fans happy. On the other hand, I could totally see him going the other way and saying, "Hey, it's not what the fans are asking for, but I think they're going to love it." I could see it going both ways. But with MPO at least, I think it was a game that's very much built around this idea. Actually, this goes into the background of the game title. We wanted the acronym to be MPO because it sounds so much like NPO, non-profit organization. We're not thinking about money, we're just throwing so much into a portable title that will probably sell for less money at retail, but we don't care.

Shack: Yeah, the reason I ask is because Kojima takes such a directorial role to his games, in a film sense. My first instinct about Kojima's methods would be "Give the fans what they don't expect," so it does seem like here he's instead sort of saying, "Hey, here you go guys, it's your Metal Gear Solid portable!"

Ryan Payton: Yeah, yeah. We are throwing some curveballs into the game, of course. It wouldn't be a Kojima game without it.

Turn the page for more on the game's PSP-specific features, as well as Payton's role at Kojima Productions and some observations on designer Hideo Kojima.

Shack: What kind of conceits have you made in order to make the game more appropriate for PSP?

Ryan Payton: The PSP has a few things that are new for us, and actually give us more things to toy with and have fun with, such as the wi-fi capabilities. On the other hand, it does have some limitations, such as the control for example. Limitations such as the lack of the right analog stick are things we've had to deal with, and that's the reason we're using the L button give players the ability to lock on to enemy characters. That gives the player the ability to strafe and move around enemies, to help players still have an idea of what their surroundings are without having that second analog stick for the camera. Then there's this idea of integrating single-player and multiplayer that's been really fundamental for us, in that you can recruit characters in single-player and take them to multiplayer environments, and then go back and forth. You can use the same unit online and offline. Sure, you can do that with console, but we really want people to go outside to play, and to go out and find hotspots. That's another feature we're pretty excited about.

Shack: What exactly is that feature?

Ryan Payton: It's the ability to go outside and then scan for hotspots for your internet connection. Every time you connect, you can download a character from a hotspot--actually, you don't have to log in, you just have to detect it--that's enough information for the game to generate a character based on that serial number. So, literally, there are hundreds of thousands of hotspots around the United States I imagine, so you'll be able to download hundreds of thousands of different characters that are generated based on those unique numbers. Those numbers will determine their attributes such as their speed, their strength, their accuracy, whether they'll be a medic or spy or engineer, things like that. Players are really encouraged to go outside, take their PSP, and scan for hotspots. Some of the hotspots are going to have specific characters. For example, maybe Ocelot is only available at this spot in downtown San Francisco, and you have to go to that spot. We'll of course publicize that [information]. That's one of the ideas we're moving forward with.

Shack: So we're going to see fans making pilgrimages to these hallowed hotspots?

Ryan Payton: What I wanted to do is have certain characters that are available only--maybe one character per state. Then we'd have a contest to see who could get all fifty characters. That would probably cost a lot of money. [laughs] Maybe we could give them free travel for a year with an airline. [laughs] That's just a crazy idea, but it's something that's technically possible.

Shack: Talk about giving the fans what they want. [laughs] What kind of online gameplay features will we see?

Ryan Payton: We'll have standard deathmatch and team deathmatch, and Capture the Frog as we call it. There are a lot of different maps. It's pretty much full scale [Metal Gear Online] that was in [Metal Gear Solid 3:] Subsistence, we're just taking the next step and putting it on PSP. We've got player rankings too. One idea that wasn't in MGO but is in MPO is the ability to wave a white flag. If your unit dies, if one of your comrades dies online after bringing him online from single-player mode, he dies. You have to find another guy to put in your unit. So you can actually wave a white flag and surrender before you die if you see that things are going really bad. You'll lose the match, but you won't lose your units. That's a cool feature that I don't think anybody's ever done before.

Shack: How many players can play online in a single game?

Ryan Payton: We haven't completely worked that out yet.

Shack: With two full Metal Gear Solid games in production right now, how are the teams divided up between MGS4 and Portable Ops?

Ryan Payton: That's a good question. To use me as an example, I'm working on both. Well, I'm working on all of our titles, so maybe that's not the best example. But really, there are two teams. Thre's a team who's cut their teeth on the PSP and are really familiar with it, and they're working on MPO. Then we have a huge team for MGS4. Then Mr. Murata, who is the director on MGS4, he does look at our scenarios and our plot and our characters [in MPO] and gives advice. So at some level, the teams interact. As far as borrowing programmers or art, we're not doing that.

Shack: In terms of Kojima, he doesn't have an actual director role on the current games, correct? He's more of a producer and overseer?

Ryan Payton: I would say for some titles we work on, yeah he's in more of a producer's role. But with MPO, he's much closer to a director, he gives direction and we follow it with the script, the plot, and he'll say, "Well, we've got to change this thing." He's very involved in the development, it's just not just PR or anything. It's one of his babies.

Shack: What is your role at Kojima Productions?

Ryan Payton: My role has actually changed recently. I was more involved in PR and marketing coming from the Japan point of view and coordinating that with US and European branches, but lately I've been moving on more into productions. Working on a script, directing voice acting, coming up with ideas for trailers--just more creative roles. I've really embraced this opportunity, because that's what I'm really interested in. The prodsucer of MGS4, he asked that I come in and work on a more creative role on the team rather than just working on the PR. Recently, I've just been hopping around different teams. Every day, I work on all the projects. So in the afternoon, I might be working on MPO, and at night I'm working on Lunar Knights. Whatever needs to be done that day, basically. It's a fun role, because I'm sure programmers get tired of programming on just MGS4 for however many months, but I have something new every day. I think I'm really lucky.

Shack: Did you live in Japan prior to working for this company?

Ryan Payton: I was writing, actually. I was a freelance writer in Osaka before I got this gig. I met Mr. Kojima and we just started talking. He picked up my Osaka accent, and he said, "Why do you have an Osaka accent?" and we started talking, and that led into this job opportunity. It was just by chance, really. But at that point, I think all the stars aligned. I was a little late to get on the [Metal Gear Solid 3:] Snake Eater bandwagon, I waited about four or five months. When I played it, I was really blown away, and it was just around that time when I met him. So I said, "You know, Snake Eater was surprisingly good, Mr. Kojima!" and I think it was kind of meant to be.

Shack: Speaking of Kojima, I was wondering if you'd mind commenting on some slightly more abstract subjects?

Ryan Payton: Sure, it's more fun that way.

Shack: I actually didn't play Metal Gear Solid 2 until fairly recently. I understand some of the common criticisms about the game, but one of the things that really intrigued me was that it seemed to be sort of a comment on video games. It explored themes like the nature of the relationship between player and character, and things like narrative structure in games, and it toyed around with various boundaries of games. Yet Kojima has frequently mentioned how interested he is in film, and that he first wanted to be a film director. I guess my question is, can you speak at all in terms of how conscious those explorations in his games are? For someone who takes so much influence from film, many of those subjects that he tries to tackle are so specific to video games, and I found that very interesting.

Ryan Payton: Yeah, definitely. Mr. Kojima is always very interested in high quality movies and things like that--but he knows that his realm is the video game medium, and this is his opportunity to make this mark and to say and do things that are really groundbreaking. MGS2 is almost a postmodern look at video games in many ways. That's just how he thinks. He's always got a message. In MGS4, he's got a message in terms of where he thinks the real world is going right now, with Private Military Companies, and it goes a lot deeper than that.

Shack: A lot of those environments in MGS4 also look very inspired by certain conflicts going on right now.

Ryan Payton: Definitely. These are all things he's always throwing in there. It's a challenge, just to ride on his coattails. Sometimes he has some really abstract ideas, but that's the fun part. It's a lot more fun to be working on these kinds of titles than to be doing--I don't know, I have to be careful here, but for example a player roster update for the next version of a game, or something like that. [laughs]

Shack: No names named.

Ryan Payton: It's a very liberating environment to work in.

Shack: Does Kojima feel that the games industry is receptive to this sort of thing? I sort of get something of a melancholy air from his interviews and statements sometimes.

Ryan Payton: Yeah, I pick that up too. I know that he knows some people didn't like how he approached certain things, but that's not going to stop him. MGS2, like you mentioned, there were some criticisms, but it's one of the best selling PS2 games of all time. People can definitely see its merits. Especially when I play it now, I was really impressed because the things that bothered me before didn't really bother me. Maybe I'm just more mellow this time, more accepting. [laughs]

Shack: Thanks very much for speaking with us.

Konami has not announced an official release date for Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, in development for PSP.