I’m not saying I feel sorry for David Hayter, former voice of Solid Snake. It’s hard to really feel sorry for a guy with a successful career as a voiceover artist and screenwriter — we’re talking about the guy who wrote my favourite comic book movie ever, X-Men 2, here. That being said, maybe we should stop asking him about Metal Gear Solid V for a while…
Guys, For the millionth — and last — time. I am not in Metal Gear V. In any way. At all. No joke. Just not. True story. Best, DH
— David Hayter (@DavidBHayter) June 23, 2014
Ever since Hideo Kojima announced that he had hired Kiefer Sutherland to voice Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid V, a certain subset of fans have assumed that Kojima is just up to his old tricks again. ‘Oh, Kojima you wily old troll.’ ‘It’s all just a big ruse.’
See, here’s the thing — a vast majority of fans love David Hayter’s performance of Snake/Big Boss. His performance holds a special place in their hearts. The fact that he’s being replaced by Kiefer Sutherland — someone who appears to have their own, ‘unique’ version of Snake — is a disaster for some. They want to believe. They want to believe that the old Snake is coming back, that Hayter has already done voiceover work and this is just another massive Koji-troll.
I think it might be time to let that one go to rest. Time to accept that Hayter will not be a part of Metal Gear Solid V.
Just justify it like me: Metal Gear Solid V stars Big Boss as the protagonist, not Solid Snake. Sure, Hayter voiced Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3, but Kojima had someone completely different voice Big Boss in his brief appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4. I see the Kiefer deviation as just that — a deviation for this specific game, for this specific character. If Kojima decides to do another game starring Solid Snake, maybe Kojima will bring Hayter back but, for now? It’s over guys. Leave David Hayter alone!
Comments
23 responses to “Leave David Hayter Alone Dammit!”
Hayters gonna hayte.
Well Solid has his own voice, so does Liquid and Solidus. Makes sense for Big Boss to have his own unique voice too.
yeah, I guess so. But Snake is all Jack Bauer now.
I’m not touching anything MGS5 till we get a full release so I’m still in the dark on how Snake sounds lol
well, I’ve shed some light on my particular opinion of how Snake sounds…
He sounds like Jack Bauer, or Keither Sutherland, he hasnt disgusied his voice or anything, its literally his voice
I don’t buy it.
I’ll stop bugging him when he stops trolling and admits he will be in MGSV
Problem is that David Hayter’s voice is so synonymous with MGS. It would be like Nolan North gets replaced as voice of Deadpool.
Or Nathan Drake, or any of the other gagillion characters he’s lent his voice to.
But they didn’t need just a voice this time around, they wanted an actor who could also convey the facial emotions as well as the voice.
I love Daves work as a voice actor but he isn’t exactly the best visual actor.
I wouldn’t have chosen Sutherland personally, but it’s not exactly looking terrible
Please play mgs1 again. His voice gave the visuals so much emotion.
Not sure if you’re joking lol. Sure his voice is great….I said that, but this time they needed both.
They used facial recognition tools to capture the expressions while doing the voice over so the two were purely matched.
Sad to see Hayter go and not really sold on Sutherland either but as I said, it’s not looking terrible.
It’s his own damn fault that he still gets bothered about it. He announced he didn’t get the part on April Fools Day and he continued to tweet references to the game for a long time. He deliberately gave hope to those people who were looking for it. He trolled his fans.
Even now we’ll get people saying this isn’t confirmation because he called it ‘Metal Gear V’ instead of MGSV or TPP.
I have yet to see BB speak in the trailers.
He spoke in Ground Zeroes a fair bit…
Especially the audio logs. So good!
Pardon my ignorance, but who is BB?
Big Boss
Of course -.-
He said Metal Gear 5… not Metal Gear SOLID 5.
I still don’t buy it, I would be fine if Sutherland voiced Big Boss in The Phantom Pain. But the fact that he didn’t voice him in Ground Zeroes which only took place less than a year after Peace Walker (which mind you, David Hayter voiced Big Boss in) literally doesn’t make any sense. Something makes me think it actually has to do with Big Boss’ mental psyche and that he thinks his voice sounds different now because he’s interpreted that he sounds different.
And because of that you need to ask… why? Why recast David Hayter? He’s one of the most beloved voice actors in the game industry and has had big involvement with the franchise for over 15 years and voiced Snake (including both, Snake and Big Boss when I say that) in over 9 games and God knows how many other games with the likes of Smash Bros to topple it. It’s also worth mentioning he actually voiced Solid Snake VERY recently in 2013 for a re-released set of Metal Gear Solid digital graphic novels, so he’s clearly still involved with the franchise.
(minor Ground Zeroes spoilers ahead) Plus, does anyone else not find it strange that Kiefer Sutherland is voicing 3 characters in MGSV? Big Boss, the medic at the end of Ground Zeroes and Ishmael? Something’s going on, the fact the game was announced as a non-Metal Gear game by a completely fake game studio also (Moby Dick) clearly shows that one of the main themes of MGSV will be that of complete deception.
It’s not that I’m trying to make an excuse or grab onto my last strings of hope that David could be coming back, I genuinely think something is going on with the game’s plot as to why he isn’t voicing him anymore, especially with how Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes have such a small time gap it doesn’t even make sense for his voice to change like that.
And on a final note, has anyone noticed that Big Boss barely talks? I know we’ve not seen much actual cutscenes yet. But I find him rather silent…
“Don’t care about something that’s harmless to care about”. You can’t rationalize preference. Let people complain, who cares? They’re stating a preference. We let every irrational idiot complain about Mass Effect and this thing is actually real.
Why do people care? Big Boss is a different guy to Solid Snake (even if they are clones, liquid was even more different).
IF they make another MGS with Solid Snake, I would like to see DH do the voice, but Big Boss can have a different voice actor.
Its for the simple fact they used Hayter’s voice for BB/NS in MGS3 and peace walker. The voice was as associated with Naked Snake as it was with Solid Snake. I understand the change but also understand why people are upset, after numerous replays of MGS3 and putting a lot of time into peace walker, when Keith Sutherland’s voice… it just doesn’t sound/feel right.