David Hayter, the original voice actor for Snake in the Metal Gear franchise, reprises his role in a tribute video to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the series.
Voice actor David Hayter is known for his work on iconic video-game characters Solid Snake and Naked Snake, in Konami’s Metal Gear Solid franchise. However, MGS 5: The Phantom Pain unfortunately chose not to go with Hayter as Snake, due to Konami wanting to “recreate” the series.
Now, though, in celebration of Metal Gear Solid’s 31st anniversary, Hayter reprised his role as Snake in a short video produced by filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who is also the director of the upcoming film adaptation of the video-game franchise. The video aimed to commemorate the long-standing history of the series, and pay a touching tribute to one of the most beloved titles in gaming.
The short video starts with Hayter throwing off a few famous lines that made his original voice work iconic and unforgettable, to die-hard fans of Metal Gear. He then proceeds to deliver a soliloquy about the current state of movies today, and even quotes Hideo Kojima. The video only lasts for a couple of minutes, but it was enough for Hayter to pay tribute to the game franchise that he will always be known for, despite Konami’s decision to part ways with him.
The 31st Anniversary video ends with Revolver Ocelot saying that he is well aware that fans are dying for news on the status of the upcoming film. He then continued by saying that he has no update as for now and that he is only the “messenger”, but promised a movie that “preserves everything you love about Metal Gear.”
This is not the first time that Hayter reprised his role as Snake, after being replaced by Kiefer Sutherland. A couple of months ago, Konami announced the addition of new playable characters to the 2017 Switch game, Super Bomberman R. Both Solid Snake and Naked Snake were added into the game, and both characters are once again voiced by Hayter.
Moreover, Nintendo announced Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch during E3 last June, and Konami revealed that Hayter is also set to provide the voice work for Snake in the upcoming game. No one knows what plans Konami has for Hayter on forthcoming Metal Gear games, but it seems that the studio is okay with him doing smaller Snake-related projects such as the ones mentioned above.
The Metal Gear Solid movie is currently in development.
