10 Video Games Changed After Real-World Events

Though it's nothing more than a coincidence that both the 9/11 attacks and the terrorist plot of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of the Patriots occur in New York City, the uncomfortably close timing of the game's release made many uneasy to play a game featuring content and themes so raw in their minds.

Many pieces of key art and promotional materials would have the World Trade Centre removed so as to avoid offence, and a pivotal end scene featuring Metal Gear Arsenal attacking Manhattan was removed entirely.

The ultimate irony, of course, is that Metal Gear Solid 2's original setting for its terrorist attack was intended to be the Middle East, which the writers believed would have been "too close for comfort", due to the turbulent situation there at that time. It was later altered to New York... a poor setting for avoiding controversy, given what would occur.

However, the sub-themes of surveillance and data collection would later lightning-strike into relevance later, as the post-9/11 race to increase security (in order to subvert any follow-up attacks) ended up seemingly giving the US government carte blanche to invade the most intimate of its people's privacies, with some news networks reporting human rights violations in the name of "national security" - an idea that Guns of The Patriots repeatedly dabbles with throughout.

BONUS FACT: They also had to change the katakana of "Raiden", the maligned protagonist of MGS2, to kanji, as the katakana can also be read as "Laden". Cripes.