Solid Snake’s Japanese voice and motion capture actor is keen to return for a new game, though feels conflicted about any fresh entry without the involvement of creator Hideo Kojima.
In an interview with Bunshun (translated by IGN), Snake actor Akio Otsuka reminisced about his deep attachment to the Metal Gear series and keen desire for Konami to make another entry — which may come as a surprise for Japanese fans of the series. Famously, Otsuka previously said he wouldn’t make a new game sans Kojima — a quote that spread around the franchise’s Japanese fandom after the Konami/Kojima split.
Reflecting on that and his bond with the series’ creator, Otsuka said: “My job as a voice actor is to do what I’m told. But when it comes to the Metal Gear series, it was created by Kojima, and I take pride in having helped bring it to life.
“So I [previously] said, ‘I don’t want to do a Metal Gear that doesn’t involve Kojima.’ Now I’ve said that, I can’t take it back,” he said.
Given Konami and Hideo Kojima’s far from amicable split, it seems pretty unlikely that Kojima will ever helm a MGS game again. When asked whether Otsuka had told Kojima that he’d like the Death Stranding director to make a new Metal Gear game, Otsuka simply replied: “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
Looking back over his years of voicing Snake, Otsuka recalled that Solid Snake’s famous “Kept you waiting, huh?” (“mataseta na”) line was actually an adlib during the Japanese language recording. “It was subsequently used in ads too,” Otsuka added, with David Hayter’s English rendition of the line becoming equally iconic.
Otsuka also recalled how surreal it was to have his real-life father, voice actor Chikao Otsuka, voicing Big Boss in MGS4’s finale, while Otsuka himself provided the performance capture. “When I arrived on set, my father’s eyes widened at the sight of me in the motion capture suit, and he asked with surprise, ‘Am I actually going to be voicing you?’ It was rather amusing.”
Otsuka expressed much fondness and empathy for Kojima throughout the interview. “He went through so many difficulties after leaving Konami yet managed to finish making this major game,” Otsuka said, referring to the creator’s subsequent project, Death Stranding. “After all, if Death Stranding had failed he could have easily ended up with debts that he wouldn’t have been able to pay off even if he continued working for the rest of his life… So when the game was finished and they announced its release, I burst into tears.”
Otsuka has also previously expressed support for former members of Kojima’s team still working at Konami, who for various reasons did not jump ship to Kojima’s new company Kojima Productions. In an MGS cutscene-worthy bit on his Nameless Mouse podcast back in June 2023, Otsuka emphasized that, “I want the fans to understand this. I don’t want them [the remaining MGS staff at Konami] to be made out to be villains. The people who stayed at Konami were part of the crew on Kojima’s ship. These people, who inherited the director’s legacy, want to protect Metal Gear.”
Just as David Hayter is commonly held up by MGS fans as the definitive English voice of Snake (despite his controversial replacement by Kiefer Sutherland in MGS5), Otsuka’s performance holds similar significance for Japanese fans. “I certainly have a deep attachment to Snake,” Otsuka concluded. “After all, to the [Japanese] fans, Snake will always be Akio Otsuka, regardless of what happened between Kojima and Konami. When I think of the fans… well I’m really caught in the middle.”
While Kojima may be busy for the foreseeable future working on new projects O.D. and Physint, Konami clearly still has an interest in Metal Gear — something that may well lead to an all-new entry in future. Last year’s successful Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater reused Otsuka’s original performance from 2006’s MGS3. However, it seems that the actor might be open to working on a new Metal Gear Solid, should Konami choose to make more than just remasters and remakes of the groundbreaking stealth series.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
