Konami has hosted what it calls a “production hotline” event, featuring some of the key creatives behind the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection and the upcoming MGS3 remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Hey: call these things Hotline Konami. You can have that one for free.

The key figure here is producer Noriaki Okamura, who’s in charge of the company’s attempts to revitalise the series, and a true Konami veteran who also worked with the old Kojima Productions throughout its lifespan. Okamura has a seriously impressive history: among other things he was key to Policenauts and had senior roles on tons of Metal Gear games. He even got a “special thanks” from Kojima in Metal Gear Solid’s credits.

Okamura spoke about what Konami’s hoping to do with Delta, and the following is a machine translation of some of his remarks (should Konami release an official English transcript, I’ll update). The full event can be viewed (in Japanese) on Youtube.

“It is necessary to release a modern-style Metal Gear for today’s game users, rather than the Master Collection,” said Okamura of Metal Gear Delta: Snake Eater. “But MGS should remain MGS, so we will change the graphics and operability, but leave the other scenarios, sounds, and game design unchanged.”

There’s quite a sweet moment when a slide comes up about development progress on Delta, which says “we’re doing well,” before Okamura chips in: “We’re doing our best.”

The host asks how many of the original MGS3 team are working on Delta. “Not all of them, but many of them are still involved,” says Okamura. “Some people are walking a new path. The number of people who don’t know about MGS is increasing, so I want to do something about this situation, and I think it’s our mission for those of us who remain at Konami to preserve Metal Gear for future generations.”

Meanwhile, no less than David Hayter (the voice of Solid Snake and Big Boss in MGS1 through 4) has been bragging about playing the game itself. “Please don’t tell anyone… but I played the opening of MGS Delta up to the bridge scene the other day,” said Hayter on X. “It was spectacular.”

Obviously you wouldn’t expect Hayter to say anything else, especially as Konami has clearly fixed on him as the promotional face for the various Metal Gear projects. This is a very smart decision, not just because of the obvious fan nostalgia but because Hayter was arguably treated in a shoddy manner by Kojima (who eventually re-cast the Big Boss role with Kiefer Sutherland in MGSV: GZ and MGSV: TPP). So there’s both a little redemption arc in this new relationship, and an implicit reminder to series fans that maybe Kojima wasn’t perfect in all he did.

The event ends with our first look at Delta’s title screen, which has certainly rustled some folk’s jimmies (mine included). The original MGS3 title screen superimposed the title over zoomed-in and slow-motion animations of the game’s close-quarters combat system, filtering these in lurid colors and overlaying camo patterns: it’s not only amazing looking, but the player can manipulate elements of it. This, on the other hand, looks a little more generic.

But wait! This title screen is taking its cue not from the PlayStation 2 version of Metal Gear Solid 3, but the Nintendo 3DS remake. The latter was a Kojima Productions joint and an excellent version of the game that added certain features like crouch-walking (it also was one of the few 3DS titles to really make use of the 3D effect, gorgeous grass, but I digress).

Even more interestingly, this itself was based on an earlier version of the game, a pre-release demo called MGS3 Trial Edition (you can see the title screen here). Naturally one could put the tinfoil hat on and take this as a hint that Konami is planning to drop a Delta demo before the big launch, but I’ll leave the La Li Lu Le Lo speculation for my fellow Gearheads. Here’s a post putting all three title screens side-by-side:

One final note: the Metal Gear games have a habit of changing their title screens somehow after completion. In the 3DS version, the screen is replaced with one showing the site of the final battle. So it may well be that our lurid colors and CQC are still around somewhere.

There’s no news on a Delta release date, but Okamura did add that more information on the game will come in another “Hotline” event soon.