Stabby spin-off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance could have starred a very different cyborg ninja, Hideo Kojima has said: series veteran Gray Fox. The Metal Gear creator has said he fancied seeing the former FOXHOUND member with those fabulous new shiny metal buttocks, but as he was going more hands-off with Revengeance he let the team go with their pick of Raiden.

"It was actually not my idea, it was my staff in Kojima Productions that insisted on Raiden, and I respected their idea," Kojima told IGN. No, he favoured Frank Jaegar or his later cyborg ninja identity.

"But if we had gone with that, I would have had to write the script and then be really committed to creating the game. I want to pass game development to the younger generation in my team, and have been trying to do so for quite some time. Before I never could give complete responsibilities for other games, but for Revengeance, they are fully in control. Besides, if I had created the game and directed it, it wouldn't have been this game."

Though, if you want to at least look like him, GameStop has a Gray Fox skin as a pre-order bonus.

Revengeance is in development at PlatinumGames while Kojima focuses his efforts elsewhere. He's directing development of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, though this Internet thing is all abuzz with speculation that the mysterious The Phantom Pain is related. Asked about similarities between the main character of Phantom Pain's trailer and sneaky Snakes, Kojima coyly brushed the look off as perhaps inspired by them.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance shall sneak onto Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on February 19. A demo is slated to hit both consoles tomorrow.