13. Raiden's Post-MGS 2 Treatment
So what do you do when you've created one of the most hated characters in gaming history? Well, having him show up as the main character again for your next game is so tongue-in-cheek it'll leave an exit wound, but luckily Raiden's face only appeared under the mask at the beginning of Snake Eater if you picked a difficulty level that mentioned playing MGS 2. It was promptly revealed after a few seconds that the new Raiden face was just another mask with Snake's mug below, relieving an audience of thousands in the process. From then on in Raidenovitch (MGS 3's 1960's version of the character) appeared as Volgin's gay lover, not to mention a human punching bag in one of the levels, before in MGS 4 being completely reworked again into the newest iteration of the cyborg ninja. By the time Guns of the Patriots had finished, Raiden was so powerful he'd essentially become the physical embodiment of lightning, wielded blades in his teeth, fried guys with his mind and lost limbs in tanker-related incidents all to save the day. As you do.