David Hayter, the long-time voice of Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series, is just like any other creative. He, like most of us who spend years improving our craft, looks back at older work and wishes he could iron out some of the wrinkles. Maybe you wish you’d sung a different note, chosen other words to express an idea, or posed the subject of a painting a little differently. In Hayter’s case, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater has him wishing the remake had allowed him to re-record his 20-year-old lines.
In an interview with Inverse, Hayter, alongside The Boss actor Lori Alan and the vocalist behind the game’s music, Cynthia Harrell, reflects on the experience of working on the original Snake Eater game that launched on the PlayStation 2 in 2004. Each of them was surprised to learn that a Snake Eater remake was in the works, but they were more surprised that they were asked to contribute to it. Alan told Inverse she would have expected to be recast, but that’s not the route Konami took. Instead, Delta primarily reuses the 20-year-old recordings from the original. However, Hayter and Alan did hop back in the booth to update some lines for the game’s tutorials. Hayter says that while he’s always down to play Snake again, he wishes Konami would let him re-record his whole performance after gaining 20 more years of acting experience.
“I do feel that I’m a little better of an actor now than I was then,” Hayter told Inverse. “It was fine back in the day, but I would have loved to bring some of the knowledge that I’ve picked up over the past 20 years to it. But you don’t want the [new tutorial] lines to be better acted all of a sudden, because that’ll take you out of the game.”
While Hayter’s involvement in the remake was small, he’s hopeful this means the series is making a comeback after it went on ice following director Hideo Kojima’s departure from Konami in 2015, the laughably misguided survival game Metal Gear Survive in 2018 notwithstanding.
“Anytime they ask me to be Snake, I’m in,” Hayter told Inverse. “It’s the definitive role in my life. It’s so complex and so profound, and there are so many different aspects to both him and Big Boss. So anytime it comes up, I’m down.”
For more on the Snake Eater remake, check out Kotaku’s review.
