Rumor 3: The ‘Raiden’ you see in the trailer is a different ‘Raiden’ - Some sharp-eyed MGS mega-fans have spotted that something is not quite right with the Raiden in all the promotional footage for MGS: Rising. More specifically, his one exposed eye is a yellowish-brown while the ‘Raiden’ appearing in MGS 2: Sons of Liberty and MGS 4 has bright blue eyes. From this, some are proposing that the main character for MGS: Rising will be another person that uses the call-sign ‘Raiden.’ Some say the character could actually be Gray Fox from MGS 1, even though he was undisputedly crushed by Metal Gear REX towards the end of the first game. Others think that this new Raiden could be Raiden’s adopted daughter, Sunny, as she has an androgynous appearance and similar looking eyes and hair to those of the Raiden presented in the promo shots of MGS: Rising. Personally, I believe that this game will star the Raiden we all know and love (or hate), but if this is, in fact, not the case, I would guess that ‘New Raiden’ is simply a clone of Raiden, just like Solid Snake is a clone of Big Boss with the differences between them being eye color. There is a sort of united imagery to tie this theory together by this depiction of new Raiden with one eye covered, as Big Boss only has one eye himself. So, even though the end of the teaser trailer asserts that “Raiden is back,” just remember that Raiden is a call-sign, the Raiden in the promo picture has a different eye color than older versions of him, and Kojima has already shown he is capable of creating intricate plots that explain why one character looks exactly like another.
Plausibility: 50%
Rumor 4: The game will jump between times in Raiden’s life, telling the tale of his ‘rise’ - Before Kojima’s infinitely annoying ‘countdown to another countdown’ teaser site revealed that the next Metal Gear Solid game will feature Raiden in some capacity, I encountered a theory that was formulated based on the picture of the stormy countdown clock and a little picture of Raiden that appeared in one of Hideo Kojima’s presentations prior to this year’s E3. Based on these two little things, qj.net user G.Spenny was reminded of a conversation between Snake and Raiden in MGS4. Raiden says to Snake “It was never going to work for me. It even rained on the day I was born,” to which Snake replies “You’ve got it all wrong. You were the lightning in that rain.” While Spenny was totally right about this game being about Raiden (before this detail was announced, mind you), whether or not it tells his origin story and his tour as a soldier in Liberia with Solidus Snake is yet to be seen. However, the ‘born in rain’ reference on the site may still carry some weight. Although it is little to go on, if you pair this informational nugget with the promotional shot of Raiden allegedly riding Crying Wolf, a member of the B&B Corps from MGS4, we may be looking at a game that spans Raiden’s lifetime. Plausibility: 35%
Although almost every theory out there has some inkling of weight to it regarding Raiden’s next adventure, Hideo Kojima’s propensity to keep players guessing makes it nearly impossible to predict exactly what Metal Gear Solid: Rising will be like. All we know is that it will occur in Kojima’s exquisitely deep Metal Gear universe and will be available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC at some point in the future. Until then, stay on the lookout for any new details that may clear up any or all of these rumors.
