Kojima Reveals How the Exclamation Mark Saved Metal Gear

Metal Gear has long been a landmark franchise that helped pioneer the stealth-action genre. However, the series might never have existed if not for a simple, yet crucial, exclamation mark. An old interview with Hideo Kojima from 1999 has resurfaced, in which the game designer shared how he persuaded Konami to release the first Metal Gear. Initially, the company was against the idea of a "game about escape" and did not believe in its potential. A young, then-unknown Kojima struggled to convince them. However, during one presentation, Kojima showed Konami a prototype of Metal Gear; the exclamation mark that appeared when the player was detected greatly impressed the company's management. "Of course, everyone still had doubts about the basic concept. Everyone was asking, 'Will a game about escape be interesting?'...But when we showed the working version and they saw the exclamation mark appear when the enemy detected the player, that convinced them of the concept…