Solid Snake - Creation and Development

Creation and Development

Much as Metal Gear began as a pastiche of action movies of the time, Solid Snake began as a pastiche of contemporary action movie heroes. For example, on the cover artwork of the original Metal Gear, he resembles Michael Biehn in The Terminator, and the in-game portrait of Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake resembles Mel Gibson in the game's opening sequence. Solid Snake was even named after another fictional special forces operative: Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's character in Escape from New York. In Guns of the Patriots, Snake is modeled after Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in Escape from New York. His real name, David, is a tribute to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey that has a character with the same name. Kojima later described Snake's role in the original Metal Gear as the "player's presence", contrasting the defined personality Solid Snake acquired in Metal Gear Solid.

In addition to expanding Solid Snake's backstory, as the first Metal Gear game to feature voice acting Metal Gear Solid established his characteristic voice and appearance. Yoji Shinkawa's Solid Snake design, characterized by his navy blue bandanna and "sneaking suit", would serve as the template for all future incarnations of Snake in later Metal Gear games. According to Shinkawa, Snake's physique in Metal Gear Solid was based on that of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, while his facial appearance in the same game was inspired by actor Christopher Walken. Shinkawa described his rendition of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid as a "middle ground" between the younger Snake who graced the cover artwork of the first Metal Gear and the middle-aged Snake from the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2. For the initial events from the Big Shell chapter from Metal Gear Solid 2, Snake's visual appearance was sightly modified with his hair being more blonde. Solid Snake became one of the characters easiest to draw by Shinkawa as he notes that his appearance is consistence, suffering minor changes across the games.

Various scenes from the games relate Snake's ideals with Hideo Kojima's. During Metal Gear Solid 2 Snake encourages Raiden to trust himself in making his own choices with the former representing the veteran developer and the latter the younger staff who are to decide whether a sequel to the series would be made without Kojima. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Snake tries to protect the next generation by stopping Ocelot which was representing by Kojima working with the staff to avoid bugs from occurying within the game. Kojima introduced the cloning origins of Solid Snake to Metal Gear Solid in order to provide Solid Snake with an adversary who would be his equal, since the story, being a continuation to the original MSX2 games, established Snake as an experienced soldier. Kojima explained that his decision to introduce a new playable character in Solid Snake's place for Sons of Liberty was done in order to develop Snake from another character's perspective, but also to avoid treating Snake as a rookie by having a new character be instructed via Codec instead.

By the time of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots started development, Kojima told Shinkawa about his idea of making Snake look like an elder which surprised the designer. Once Shinkawa showed his artwork of Old Snake to the staff, they were all also surprised by the idea of playing as an old Solid Snake. However, as they were satisfied with end product as the staff started liking the character. In Guns of the Patriots one of Kojima's endings for the game would have had Snake and Otacon turn themselves in for breaking the law, and subsequently they would be convicted and executed. However, comments from Kojima's staff who were disappointed with his death resulted in the character's survival. According to Ryan Payton of Konami, Guns of the Patriots is the final canonical Metal Gear game to feature Solid Snake as the main character. Kojima himself stated that the series will continue but he does not want the character to be handled by anyone else.

In the games, Snake has been voiced by Akio Ōtsuka starting with Metal Gear Solid. Ōtsuka remembers being surprised during his debut as a result of the large amount dialogue Snake was given. In the English adaptations, Snake's role was made by David Hayter who found his work notable as he was originally a screenwriter and did not expect to become famous for dubbing a character. While Hayter comments having issues with some of Snake's lines in his first game, most notably a conversation regarding romance with Hal Emmerich, he stated he would talk about such things if he was asked again. By the time Metal Gear Solid 4 had its first trailers released, Hayter was frustrated by Snake's flinchs during his attempt of committing suicide based on the character's experience in the battlefield. For the crossover game Super Smash Bros, Hayter remembers having fun in voicing the character due to the comical lines Snake had to say.