10 Ways Hideo Kojima Should Have Made Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain

7. Lose The Near-Mute Snake

So let's get onto one of the biggest creative changes that'll never sit right with fans; losing David Hayter as the voice of Snake. It's not that Kiefer Sutherland does a bad job (in fact if you scour the unused voice files, he actually had a ton more to say), but that Kojima wanted to 'tell a different kind of story' than what we're used to.

To that end, Hayter wasn't even considered for the role he'd had for almost two decades (which we later found out, has lead to some bad blood between him and Kojima, for good reason), as Venom's role in the story was essentially to play out as a soulless clone of Big Boss himself. It works better in retrospect once you know the full picture, but is still jarring when you're 1. Used to Big Boss being a world-weary soldier with plenty to say, and 2. Expecting basic communication between him and whoever's in the room.

The version of Venom is more just a cog in the story than a character (which is almost the point), but for every time there's a pronounced pause as characters continue to keep talking and Boss refrains from speaking up or even really emoting, it feels weird, to say the least.