20 Mind-Blowing Things You Didn't Know About Metal Gear Solid 2

And finally, if you're wondering what running around a gigantic bipedal nuclear launcher in the nude has to do with Pinocchio, read on.

Much though Kojima's games are heavily inspired by movies, the bulk of Raiden's character arc in this game was actually influenced by Pinocchio.

In a recent tweet, Kojima confirmed that Raiden's journey follows that of Pinocchio in its own metaphorical way, and really nobody can be put it better than the man himself:

"Raiden, swallowed by the huge white whale of the information society, is digested in his stomach and vomited out through the anus!... After that, his puppet of information control cuts the strings and starts walking on his own legs. That's MGS2."

I mean, Raiden does spend a large part of the game's final act in Arsenal Gear, where many areas are named after parts of the human gastrointestinal tract, namely the ascending colon, sigmoid colon, and rectum.

Never change, Hideo, you absolute madman.