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Hello, hello, hello again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and everyone in between.

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We have arrived at another episode of Middle Gear Monday's Revengeance.

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This week we are featuring Ryan Peyton once again who has so graciously come back to talk

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to me about all things portable ops.

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He has some behind the scenes scoops to give us and just in general a very nice conversation

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is in store for you.

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So we hope you enjoy it and without further ado, Ryan Peyton.

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So Ryan, how have you been since we last spoke?

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Well, I've been busy as always working on stuff that we do over at Camouflage.

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I had a good holiday settling into the new normal that we're all living through right

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now with the pandemic.

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Sure.

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Just really excited to be here, Tori, to be able to talk to you more about my history

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working on portable ops and all things Metal Gear.

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Excellent.

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Yeah, we've had a great fun time recording these episodes so far and it sounds like our

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listeners are really responding well to it.

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So that leads me to believe that this conversation we're about to have is going to be a pretty

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fun one.

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Not to mention all of the fun teasers you had from the last time you talked with us

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on the show.

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That's right.

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So I guess I'm just going to open it up to you about one of the things you mentioned

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last time and specifically regarding the story of portable ops, the name, if you want to

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start there.

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Yeah, that's right.

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So I don't know if I've ever talked about this publicly, so that's what's kind of fun

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about it is I think I last episode I talked about some of the internal thinking on the

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name and one thing that is funny about the way that Hideo works is you could tell with

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a lot of the different aspects of Metal Gear that there's different influences that are

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behind different naming and designs and all that and with MPO or Metal Gear portable

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ops, like that was no different.

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And we had some ideas and I also want to be respectful of him and not reveal everything.

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So I won't go into some of the creative inspirations behind the name, but I will say that there

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was actually something of an issue with naming the game portable ops because there were some

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complications behind naming a PSP or a PlayStation portable title with portable in the name.

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Now there are other examples of it like Monster Hunter portable, but it kind of results in

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like market confusion and there are different policies about it per territory.

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But that was one area where Hideo was able to use his muscle working with executives

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to push that thing through and I would love to get into more details, but I guess I'll

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stop at that.

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But that was something of a controversy is that we didn't really internal controversy.

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We didn't know what the name of the game was going to be for a while.

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And in fact, I was looking through my notes because I was asked to come up with alternative

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titles in the event that we weren't able to use the name portable ops.

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And I can't remember what the names were off the top of my head, but a lot of had to do

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with the origins of Foxhound and things like that.

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And but yeah, it was it was I remember that was being a that was a very stressful time

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because we didn't know what the name of the game was going to be.

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And we needed to announce the game at E3 and I think a 2000 what a put year that have

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been in 2005 or no 2006 E3 2006.

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So yeah, that was yeah, sorry, I didn't be able to go into too much more detail about

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it. But yeah, that was just like a very fun slash stressful memory from the from the games

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development. Sure.

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Yeah, I was going to ask what kind of what kind of pressure that must have been for the

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team to know that you're you're probably days, weeks away from from E3 and not completely

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sure what you're going to call this thing was that I mean, did that kind of roll over

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into any other aspects of producing the game or was it kind of just isolated to that one

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problem up in the air?

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I think that this was the was the biggest external threat to the titles development,

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if you will, that most of them, most of the other challenges we face were mainly production

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related, just lack of time, resources, those types of things.

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And so we as we talked about last episode, I'm still just absolutely floored that the team

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built this game in under a year.

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And what that means is that we just moved so fast.

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And any sort of problem at the time really felt achieved like that we could overcome almost

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any challenge that was thrown at us because we just had so little time to figure it out.

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Whereas in like, for example, the game that I'm working on right now, we've got a healthy

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timeline for it. And we're doing lots of tests, we're doing lots of discussions, make sure that

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the path forward is the right path.

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And yeah, it's really good as we're doing some very healthy pre production.

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But that's we had pre production on portable ops, but which literally lasted, I think, for

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about two or three months. And that was it.

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So yeah, we blew past a lot of a lot of things.

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And if for your listeners who are curious about game development, you can really see the

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benefits of having proper pre production and having a much larger team and having even

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like much more senior people on the team.

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What they would do with a Metal Gear game, which you can see obviously with with Peace

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Walker, same hardware, but drastically different quality of visual, you know, visual

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quality, not to say that portable ops doesn't look good, it actually compared to most titles

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that were released in 2006 on PSP.

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It's definitely one of the best better looking games.

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But it's incredible what the team achieved when they had proper pre production like you saw on

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Peace Walker.

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Right. Yeah. And that's you mentioned some some game mechanics, which I'd love to touch on

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later. So one last question about just a portable ops story in general and and fine

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again, if your answer is the same way I can, I can just move on.

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But how much did you know about the story of portable ops while you were working on it?

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Did you have specific details about any of these characters or their plot lines or was it more

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just kind of the technical end of things for you?

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Well, for better or for worse, I was intimately familiar with the story quite early on because

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I had a lot of work involved with the story, not that I was writing anything about it, although

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I would give feedback on various elements.

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But I was in charge of ensuring that we did all the voiceover recording for the game.

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And so I had to get access early access to the script and work with the actors, Chris

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and Raman Saltor, who directed the voiceovers and did a great job with that over at Salami

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Studio. It was my first experience doing that. So that was wonderful.

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And then also working with Ashley Wood, that was one of my jobs was to

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Oh, excellent.

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Yeah, help like to navigate and help lead the charge on a timeline that was extremely short.

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And he was such a champ.

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And one of the things about that's great about his art style is that it's very abstract and

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very stylistic, right?

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And so it actually fit perfectly into a game that had absurdly short development cycle.

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And so he had a lot of questions about the story and what the intent was and who the motivation

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between these characters.

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And so as much as I could, I was I was trying to help guide him in that process, which was

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really fun for me. I mean, for context, I wasn't even at Quidra Productions for a year by the

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time I was doing a lot of this work. So yeah, dream come true. That's for sure.

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Oh, I bet. Yeah. And you just kind of dove in headfirst, it seems like which

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in my mind, there's really no other way of doing things that are new.

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So it sounds like you you made the best of the situation you had.

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And I got to say, we're going to touch on this a little bit later, but I

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I ended up being quite impressed by the end of my play through of this game,

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knowing that it was about a year of a timeline to get this made.

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It just you could see the effort from the team to pull something

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like that together for a new system for the team, right?

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It just I I'm quite pleased to be here talking with you about it,

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because I personally had a really great experience with it.

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Well, it's great. And I think the and I appreciate that.

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And the poorlops is going through something of a small maybe small R,

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like lowercase R renaissance and the level of appreciation,

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because I think it's well deserved for the team and what they did.

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And yeah, like you said, given given the short amount of development time

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they had and the expectations and that I think they did

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an unbelievably good job with it.

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And in fact, I was in preparation for this episode.

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I was just scouring YouTube to watch some videos about the game

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to familiarize myself with it.

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And it was a couple of things I noticed.

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One is that, wow, it's amazing what 15 years will do to your memory.

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I forgot a lot of stuff.

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So that was that was somewhat concerning.

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But the second thing was I watched a video produced by a gentleman named

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Jay's review. And if you haven't seen that, if you're a listener,

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you haven't seen that video, it's it's really wonderful.

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I think he takes a very as much as he can, an objective view on on portable ops.

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And he posted a number of years back, but I just finally had a chance to watch it.

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It's about a 40 minute video.

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And he really goes in depth about some of the really great successes of portable

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ops and also some of its shortcomings. I thought it was very fair.

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But but also like very well researched and really, really enjoyed that.

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So again, it's like, I think if you just search YouTube for MGS,

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portable ops, critical defense, you could you could find it.

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Excellent. Well, that's the kind of content that at least the the crew of MGMR.

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And I think it's safe to say a handful of the audience is a fan of,

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you know, real objective and critical analysis.

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At least I hope to say that because otherwise what we're putting out

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is is not for some. Right.

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So that's that's great to know that other people are giving this game

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attention because I think all three of us between Warren, Chris and myself

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agreed that this game has been slept on a little bit.

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And it's nice to hear that there's a even if it is a lower case,

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our Renaissance coming forth for this game. That's really great.

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Yeah. And it's it's it's got its work cut out for it, right?

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Because I think as we as we all know, it's it has never been

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re-released unlike a lot of unlike the majority of the Metal Gear catalog.

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Right. And that doesn't help its legacy, right?

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If you can only play it on on the PlayStation portable,

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and sometimes you can play it on the Vita. That's about it.

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And so I hope one day that the game will be made more available

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out wider on other on other platforms. That would be that would be awesome.

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Oh, that'd be so great, especially if we could get a second joystick.

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That would be phenomenal.

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It would just change the whole dynamic of the game

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and the for all for the for the best, right? Right.

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Well, OK, if you're comfortable moving on, I think it seems like it's time

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to talk about the Canon question.

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Is Portable Ops Canon to or according to Canon,

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a viable contribution to the story?

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Well, I'm going to try I'll preface this by I'm going to try my best to

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explain my thinking on it and my opinion on it. OK.

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Even though it's it's I think it's understandably complex for most of your listeners.

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So I guess maybe for a little bit of for a little bit of context

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before I go into my opinion about it and tell me, Torey,

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if I'm if I'm misunderstanding this, because I actually didn't know

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this was a controversy until relatively recently. OK. That.

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I think we can all we all understand that early on when the game was marketed,

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it was marketed as a canonical entry into the Metal Gear solid solid saga.

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That sounds right. Yeah.

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And in fact, like I'm almost positive because that was a big part of the messaging

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and the work that I did. In fact, I as part of our show notes,

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I took a copy and paste at a photo I took out of my old notebook from 2006

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in which I was charged with trying to think about how we're going to message

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this out to the to the world through marketing and PR and other avenues.

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And my my four bullet points about the title was

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finally Metal Gear solid on PlayStation Portable.

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Not it's not acid. No offense to that awesome franchise, right?

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But it's Metal Gear solid on PSP.

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And then there's these bullet points.

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And then the second big thing about the game is to you can recruit comrades.

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And then another big point about the game is that it's online.

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You can play multiplayer, which was really cool.

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Oh, yeah. The fourth big point was that it was the missing link in the Metal Gear

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can it. So if this was not a canonical game, then why would we talk all at like

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at nauseam about how the game is actually a missing link in that Metal Gear saga story?

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Right. Sure.

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So that being said, though, from again, what from what I understand,

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because I when I left Konami and Kojima Productions back in 2008, I'd really

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I just moved forward.

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I tried not to look back too much.

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Sure. But I tried to, you know, I heard certain things and and I was obvious

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and I played piece walk. I really loved it.

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I played Metal Gear solid five and I really loved it.

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But one thing I I saw this kind of brewing controversy was about how

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some things were conflicting, some story from from other titles of the future

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titles were conflicting with some of the things that were depicted in Portable Ops.

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And then there was this interview that I was linked to where Hideo was interviewed

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and talked about who's asked specifically whether or not I think it was from Jeff

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Kealy, whether or not Portable Ops was actually a canonical entry in the franchise.

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And I think he gave an answer from what I understand in Japanese was

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it's it's canon in some regards.

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But it's when I get involved with a title

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and and I get involved in like a part of the canon.

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And I caught and by I mean he like Hideo Kojima, like if I if I start to.

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Change things around or suggest different things that happen.

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That's OK, because that's part of this process.

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And that's that that's me putting my Hideo Kojima directed by Kida Kojima,

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like brand on this.

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So and I think that from what I can tell, that's exactly what happened is that

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he was involved in the initial planning of Portable Ops.

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In fact, I think he even has a story credit on the game.

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And we sent him the scripts and he was aware of what was going on.

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And a lot of the ideas came from him.

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But he didn't direct the game.

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And so when he gets it and when he directs the game like he did with with with Peace Walker,

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I would be I would be doing the same thing that he did, which is

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when he's writing the story for Peace Walker, he's writing the story for

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Metal Gear Solid 5 and something comes up that contradicts Portable Ops.

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I think what I'm assuming this is where my I'm just assuming my assumptions are

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is that he's like, well, that's Portable Ops, but this is a Hideo Kojima game.

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And if I need to change things or if I need to contradict things,

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I will for the sake of the game that I want to direct.

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And so and so be it.

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So that's I think what he's trying to say is like there are aspects of Portable Ops

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that are canon and that there's aspects that contradict and and when it contradicts,

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look to the games that are directed by me to have my name on the front of the

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package. And I think that's more or less what he was trying to say when I

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when I when I read that interview and it makes sense to me.

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Yes, it's what a wonderfully Kojima answer to that question.

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It seems to fit.

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Right. I think it does.

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But it's I understand that this is a very controversial topic and

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and important for many.

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In fact, I'll tell you a funny story, Tori, is that many years ago, when this was

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like when this was more of a fresh topic,

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I was watching the Twitch stream of a really well known

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player and streamer of Metal Gear games.

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I believe his name is Outer Heaven and he was playing Portable Ops.

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And there's this question of canon.

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And he was I think he had said at one point he's like, well, it's not canon,

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I think I think he had that perspective.

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And I was like in the Twitch chat and I was like, well, actually, you know,

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somebody worked on it like it was canon or in some regards is canon,

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but it's such a nuanced thing.

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The thing I just described is very nuanced.

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And so I was like in the Twitch chat and he was like, who is this guy?

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And I'm like, I don't even want to get involved in his.

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It just it was so hard to to you to have like a discussion with me in the Twitch chat.

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And I'm thinking like, what am I even doing in here?

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Like, sure.

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And so it was it was kind of a sad moment when I don't think I did a very good job

[00:17:22]
of explaining, like again, like the nuance.

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So I'm I'm I'm I feel I feel happy that we have this opportunity to be able to

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speak about in the show and and and and and for the record, I understand where

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where where he was coming from too, because it's a very confusing and seemingly

[00:17:42]
like definitive answer in some regards from what he offered, right, about the canon.

[00:17:47]
And it's a fun it's a fun topic, but one that maybe best left at that.

[00:17:54]
Sure. Yeah.

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I it's one of those that I'm sure will continue to to go down.

[00:18:01]
In the middle ground, I'm sure you'll have just as many people pulling for.

[00:18:06]
Yes, it's canon as as there will people be people who are naysayers.

[00:18:10]
So such is the experience of Metal Gear fandom, I believe.

[00:18:19]
Well, yeah, it's sorry.

[00:18:20]
I know that we already probably belabored this this topic too much.

[00:18:24]
But I guess one thing I'd like to add or one thing that I think is really tricky

[00:18:29]
and I and my team will struggle from it from time to time is this this idea of

[00:18:33]
nuance, right, is somewhere where it lies in the middle.

[00:18:36]
And I'm always I'm often joking with my staff that I'm like the chief

[00:18:40]
nuance officer of the title of the company, because it's I think humans

[00:18:46]
in general really really strive to have a very clear answer to something.

[00:18:52]
But I think oftentimes where life falls somewhere in the middle.

[00:18:56]
And you'd like to think that something as simple as is this game

[00:18:59]
canon or not could be a very simple question.

[00:19:01]
Yes or no. But yeah, like you said, sometimes when you work with

[00:19:04]
the Hido Kojima product, it's not that simple.

[00:19:07]
All right. Yeah.

[00:19:08]
I think as a fan up to the point of Metal Gear Solid 2 even, you're like,

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OK, well, the rules aren't what I thought they were.

[00:19:16]
And I guess if I'm going to continue to be a fan of this, I'm going to have

[00:19:20]
to let go of my notion of what definitely is and what definitely isn't.

[00:19:26]
You reminded me of a fun exercise that I was able to participate in

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in my final year at Kojima Productions.

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And that was to work on the digital graphic novel of Metal Gear Solid 2.

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Oh, excellent.

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And that was based on the IDW or IDW published

[00:19:45]
Metal Gear Solid comic book series that was with with with art from

[00:19:49]
Ashley Wood and really, really fun, fun project.

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And that was a really tricky project for the for the writing team,

[00:19:58]
for Chris in particular, because he had to tell retell the story of Metal

[00:20:03]
Gear Solid 2, which is extremely convoluted over the course of how many

[00:20:06]
comics, right, maybe 12 comics or something.

[00:20:08]
And as we all know, as fans of that game, it is extremely convoluted

[00:20:13]
and can contradict itself and contradict things from the past.

[00:20:16]
So he did his best to interpret it in a way that made sense, right?

[00:20:20]
But that is not necessarily what like the art of the Metal Gear Solid 2 is all about.

[00:20:24]
In fact, like part of its its charm is that some of the elements just don't make sense.

[00:20:30]
So I think what Chris and Ashley ended up doing.

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And then we we we realized a full animated form via the digital graphic

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novel on PSP was is a an interpretation of it.

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If you like it all kind of quote unquote made sense, right, which was pretty fun to do.

[00:20:47]
Sure. Yeah. Well, that's really cool.

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I suppose you could probably with enough time and evidence, bring that question

[00:20:57]
to almost any of the games, except, you know, except for maybe Snake Eater,

[00:21:01]
which is kind of the launching off point.

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Yeah, maybe the most cohesive.

[00:21:07]
Yeah, absolutely the most cohesive, sure.

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In any case, I do think not that anybody is asking for my opinion,

[00:21:15]
but I would love to pause it that I would like for it to be canon.

[00:21:20]
I really can't have an opinion on this because I don't know how it aligns

[00:21:24]
or how it relates to Metal Gear Solid 5.

[00:21:28]
I can really only see the progression from portable ops to peace walker

[00:21:34]
because these are the two that I've played at this point.

[00:21:37]
Or at least played enough of I've just kind of dipped my toes into Metal Gear Solid 5.

[00:21:42]
So I don't, you know, I can't say at this point.

[00:21:46]
But I know that I'd like it to be canon because I enjoyed the story enough.

[00:21:51]
And I think it's a story that's ought to be experienced by more players.

[00:21:58]
Yeah, I agree.

[00:21:59]
But obviously, I'm like the most biased person that you've talked about the subject.

[00:22:02]
So, yeah, I think, you know, at the end of the day,

[00:22:06]
the truth of the matter is it's if you don't want it to be canon, that's totally cool.

[00:22:11]
You're not going to offend me.

[00:22:12]
And it's just it's just a it's a franchise that we all know and love

[00:22:18]
and we all have different opinions about.

[00:22:19]
And that's part of the fun of the fact that like there's a canon controversy

[00:22:22]
about a metal.

[00:22:25]
I agree.

[00:22:27]
It's very it's very indicative of the audience of the Metal Gear franchise.

[00:22:34]
Yeah, absolutely.

[00:22:35]
Which is fun.

[00:22:38]
So the next topic on my notes again, after listening to kind of what we hoped

[00:22:45]
to talk about from last time, Portable Ops Plus subsistence, if this got to be a thing.

[00:22:54]
I'd love to know what your thoughts are on this, Ryan.

[00:22:57]
Well, I wish it was a thing.

[00:23:00]
I wish there was a that's supposed to what we got, obviously, with with Metal Gear Solid

[00:23:07]
Portable Ops Plus, right?

[00:23:08]
If we had got a subsistence version, that would have been just so so fun to work on.

[00:23:13]
But that team, much of that team was absorbed into the Metal Gear Solid 4

[00:23:18]
production, which desperately needed it.

[00:23:20]
And if your listeners remember Metal Gear Solid 4, even though we got a jolt of production

[00:23:25]
help from that original Portable Ops team still missed its street date.

[00:23:30]
By about seven months.

[00:23:32]
So even though I think the intentions were good, is that instead of continue to build

[00:23:36]
more of these PSP titles, let's let's let's focus on Metal Gear Solid 4.

[00:23:41]
So anyway, but that puts answer question about what a subsistence would look like.

[00:23:45]
Again, I went back through my old notebook, which was pretty fun to see just, oh, wow,

[00:23:50]
all this different work I was doing.

[00:23:51]
And I took a picture of it and I included in the show notes.

[00:23:54]
And one of the things that I I saw that I was tasked with was what would we do for

[00:23:59]
a something of a subsistence version, but more specifically, some of your audience

[00:24:04]
members, I would remember this as that Portable Ops released later in Europe.

[00:24:08]
It released, I want to say three or four months late.

[00:24:11]
OK, so it gave us an opportunity to update the game, maybe not to the level of

[00:24:15]
like a subsistence or a substance director's cut type of version.

[00:24:18]
But we did do we made some enhancements to the game.

[00:24:21]
If I if I recall, I can't remember what specific enhancement there was.

[00:24:24]
But I do have my notes about some of those ideas.

[00:24:26]
And so stuff that you would just like any dumb dumb could come up with.

[00:24:29]
So none of this is none of this is brilliant, but additional and more

[00:24:34]
interesting codec messages, because I do remember the codec being somewhat lacking.

[00:24:38]
We just ran out of time and some of the codec was pretty dry.

[00:24:41]
Having more submissions, more multiplayer maps.

[00:24:44]
The thing I could tell that I was really passionate about just looking at my notes

[00:24:46]
was can we add a lot more classes to the game of the recruits?

[00:24:50]
For example, espionage class or the medic class.

[00:24:54]
Like if you have the medic in your squad, then your max HP would be increased

[00:24:58]
across the board, for example.

[00:25:00]
Or a trying to think of some of my other.

[00:25:03]
You have I have like some stupid idea about having like a librarian class

[00:25:07]
that gives you unlimited magazines that you can use to distract guards.

[00:25:11]
I like that.

[00:25:12]
You know, some silly stuff like that.

[00:25:15]
I also had a note that because one of the most common critique of the game,

[00:25:19]
which I know that you had as well as the is just how laborious it is to drag

[00:25:24]
these fallen soldiers to back to your truck or to call up the codec.

[00:25:29]
And so one of the ideas I had written down was, can we have a specific

[00:25:32]
type of stun grenade that would just summon the people to basically do kind

[00:25:37]
of a full type of system, which obviously never made into the game.

[00:25:42]
I had an idea for a jukebox and like you can go into like subsistence.

[00:25:45]
You can go into like the cinematics theater and then watch all the previous cinematics.

[00:25:50]
We didn't have that in the original game and I was suggesting that as well.

[00:25:53]
And then finally, we didn't have to the best of my memory,

[00:25:55]
we didn't have like a knock feature where you can like, you know,

[00:25:58]
like knock on the wall.

[00:25:59]
And so I had a note for like, why don't we add that?

[00:26:01]
So again, nothing super

[00:26:03]
relevant, Tory, but those are some of the ideas I had about if we did like

[00:26:07]
an upgraded version of the game.

[00:26:09]
I like those a lot.

[00:26:10]
And I think I don't know whether you when you talk about an upgraded version,

[00:26:15]
I'm not sure whether you mean for PSP release or not.

[00:26:18]
Or I guess would it be Vita at this point?

[00:26:21]
Well, no, it would have been it would have been PSP.

[00:26:24]
OK, because the PSP still had quite a life left in it before Vita came out.

[00:26:30]
In fact, you know, I had.

[00:26:32]
So just in terms of my own personal timeline, when I left in 2008

[00:26:35]
after MGS four, the team was just starting to dust off their PSP dev kits

[00:26:40]
to start working on Peace Walker.

[00:26:41]
So it'd be a number of years before before Vita, whatever, whatever release.

[00:26:45]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:26:47]
Yeah. So just for a bit of context.

[00:26:50]
Again, that nobody asked for, but.

[00:26:52]
No, go for it.

[00:26:53]
I I had played Peace Walker first and it wasn't until it was released

[00:26:59]
or I guess ported for the PlayStation three, if that's fair to say.

[00:27:04]
So so I was coming back to portable ops and and viewing it as OK.

[00:27:09]
So this was this is what got us to Peace Walker.

[00:27:12]
And a lot of these cool game mechanics are being introduced here.

[00:27:15]
And I understand they're not perfection.

[00:27:18]
You know, there's a shorter timeline.

[00:27:19]
It's the first it's the first game of its type in the series.

[00:27:25]
One thing I was curious about specifically,

[00:27:28]
if this was to transcend transcend the portable system.

[00:27:33]
And I don't know if this is even worth talking about at this point,

[00:27:36]
because who knows whether this could happen.

[00:27:37]
But would the Kodak calls be similarly?

[00:27:43]
Would their function be the same?

[00:27:46]
For example, would you be reading text or would you opt for voice acting?

[00:27:51]
Would you opt for being able to hear this message while you're sneaking?

[00:27:55]
Like you were able to in, I believe it's four.

[00:27:59]
Or is that five? That must be five.

[00:28:01]
I think in five, yeah, they finally they finally did that.

[00:28:04]
I mean, I if I if you're if you're asking Tori, like if we if I had the opportunity

[00:28:09]
to, I don't know, dust off portable ops and do like a proper remaster of it

[00:28:14]
with a bunch of additional content.

[00:28:16]
I mean, that would be one thing I would definitely want to do is to do real,

[00:28:19]
more fully fleshed out Kodak with these classic characters

[00:28:24]
with fully voiced that you can listen to while you're on the run

[00:28:27]
in doing different missions.

[00:28:29]
We'd also want to do like a full ton type of system.

[00:28:32]
That's a lot more user friendly than what we had in portable ops.

[00:28:35]
You know, I think that there's a lack of environment variety.

[00:28:39]
You know, we did the best we could.

[00:28:40]
And Peace Walker did a great job with it.

[00:28:42]
But, you know, adding more environments,

[00:28:45]
it would be just so much fun to work on that because you can see the

[00:28:48]
they did a great job of laying the groundwork, which I think Hideo took

[00:28:52]
in in his own direction with Peace Walker, which I really, really loved.

[00:28:56]
However, if in this theoretical world, I could I could go return to that franchise.

[00:29:02]
I'd probably go a little bit further back and kind of reach into like the snake

[00:29:07]
eater world and align the game more with that, is it making it feel

[00:29:12]
more like a proper sequel to snake eater, which was part of its myth, though.

[00:29:15]
It's part of its like creative DNA from the very beginning.

[00:29:18]
Yeah. But we obviously didn't fully execute on that, given the time constraints

[00:29:22]
and the PSP and all and the lack of resources and all the other things we've already covered.

[00:29:26]
Sure. But it was good to see that it was it was a goal.

[00:29:30]
And, you know, it's understandable that you can't for a PSP game,

[00:29:34]
you can't make it just like snake eater.

[00:29:36]
You know, a lot of that functionality will go away.

[00:29:39]
But it was great to see that the design was at least the visual aesthetics

[00:29:44]
were at least kind of modeled after snake eater.

[00:29:46]
So that was that was a pleasant surprise for me.

[00:29:49]
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:49]
The DNA is a snake eater is in that game, given that the engine was was based on subsistence.

[00:29:56]
Right. OK, Ryan.

[00:29:57]
So we do have one listener question to bring up for this interview or conversation.

[00:30:03]
And the question was, have you been in talks with either Kojima Productions

[00:30:09]
or Konami about any future work with the series?

[00:30:13]
Or if you haven't been in talks, would that be something you'd be interested in?

[00:30:19]
Well, without getting again, back into the spirit of like not getting too much in the details,

[00:30:24]
I I did receive a very cryptic phone call many years ago about whether or not

[00:30:30]
myself and the team at Camouflage be willing to work on a something related to to Metal Gear Solid.

[00:30:35]
And I expressed like some tentative interest in it, even though we were very busy on another project.

[00:30:40]
And I also left with this, which was and I still believe it to this day is that

[00:30:44]
when it comes to remasters and remakes of previous Metal Gear games,

[00:30:50]
I think those are are fairly viable products and like worth worthy endeavors for the most part

[00:30:56]
because you are kind of doing the criterion collection of something

[00:31:01]
that's like a piece of art that's already been created.

[00:31:03]
And those are a little safer.

[00:31:04]
And I think that the fans would respond to those more positively, as opposed to

[00:31:09]
being asked to create like a new entry in the Metal Gear franchise without Hideo's involvement,

[00:31:13]
which I believe is something of a fool's errand because more so than most franchises out there in the world,

[00:31:20]
especially the AAA ones, the Metal Gear Solid franchise to me is so interwoven

[00:31:24]
to who Hideo Kojima is and his passions and his interests and his disinterest

[00:31:28]
that in order to create a game that feels genuine to Metal Gear Solid,

[00:31:32]
you kind of have to fake being Hideo and thinking like him.

[00:31:36]
And I don't think that's what fans would necessarily want.

[00:31:38]
So sure, it's that's a roundabout way of like me saying like how I responded that question.

[00:31:44]
So never heard anything of it after that.

[00:31:46]
I thought it was interesting and I was I was flattered to be even be called up for it.

[00:31:50]
But the exact details of it, I guess, will have to be saved for maybe another decade

[00:31:54]
or two. I have to imagine that that would have been flattering on the one hand on the other.

[00:31:59]
It seems like it would have been a momentous task and the pressure would have been on.

[00:32:04]
So I totally understand where you're coming from with that.

[00:32:08]
And especially if you are a fan of the work you've done and the work that has come before it,

[00:32:14]
I suppose I would feel nervous about wrecking it going forward.

[00:32:18]
So yeah, I get that.

[00:32:21]
Yeah, and there's some products that I think like like a portable ops

[00:32:25]
that I think fans would really enjoy a remastering of that and an expansion of that,

[00:32:30]
especially given the fact that it wasn't directed by Hideo, right?

[00:32:34]
And another thing I think we talked about last last episode was

[00:32:37]
I mean, I just really would love somebody to, you know, to finish the work

[00:32:42]
on Metal Gear Solid 5 and have that proper ending and just look at and just do what,

[00:32:46]
you know, some some films have done where the director had passed away,

[00:32:50]
but they had to look at all the notes and they try to make it as authentic as possible like that.

[00:32:53]
Sure. I think could be a really great and worthwhile

[00:32:56]
endeavor, but outside of that, yeah, I think it's going to be really tough

[00:32:59]
to do something without his involvement.

[00:33:02]
Sure. Yeah. Well, we can keep our fingers crossed that

[00:33:06]
one of the future projects he's got in mind is something related to that.

[00:33:11]
It would be fun.

[00:33:12]
I mean, I know he has got other things on his horizon, which is very exciting.

[00:33:18]
But as I understand it, Metal Gear Solid 5 remains a very

[00:33:23]
contentious piece of the puzzle.

[00:33:26]
So I can't I can't really say too much more on it, given that I haven't finished the game.

[00:33:31]
But well, you're for a treat in a way.

[00:33:35]
It's a brilliant game.

[00:33:36]
But yeah, it's it's also very weird.

[00:33:38]
It is very dissatisfying, I guess, in a way, when you finish it.

[00:33:41]
And you know that it wasn't it wasn't given the amount of time

[00:33:44]
that was required to properly finish it.

[00:33:47]
Sure, that's always a disappointing realization.

[00:33:49]
Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:50]
Well, I suppose now would be the time to move into the last part

[00:33:55]
that I have slated here anyway, which is to return the favor to you

[00:34:02]
and give you some of the thoughts from at least from me since I am

[00:34:08]
the host with you here tonight.

[00:34:09]
I think I could somewhat in general speak on behalf of my cohorts.

[00:34:14]
But we've also gotten some, I guess, positive feedback from our listeners.

[00:34:20]
So was there anything you were curious about specifically regarding

[00:34:24]
how how the game was perceived or just in general?

[00:34:29]
Any and all opinions and feedback about the game is entirely welcome.

[00:34:33]
You know, for any kind of creative endeavor, at least in my opinion,

[00:34:36]
it's quite strange if you don't have like a vested interest in it.

[00:34:39]
It doesn't hurt a little bit when somebody gives critical feedback

[00:34:41]
on something you work so hard on, right?

[00:34:44]
But as a good friend likes to remind me from time to time that time heals all wounds.

[00:34:49]
And I think enough time has gone by that there's really nothing anybody

[00:34:53]
could say to me that would like hurt my feelings about the game.

[00:34:56]
And it's something I'm very proud of.

[00:34:58]
And I can look at it a lot more objectively than I could back in 2006.

[00:35:01]
So anything large or small that you and your audience, your cohorts

[00:35:05]
want to offer up, I would be very curious to hear.

[00:35:08]
And I'm sure your listeners would be curious to hear it as well.

[00:35:10]
Well, excellent.

[00:35:11]
Yeah, that's that's a great that's a great place to be regarding

[00:35:15]
something you've worked on creatively.

[00:35:17]
And boy, do I know that it's easier said than done.

[00:35:20]
So good work.

[00:35:22]
Good work on getting there.

[00:35:23]
No, thank you. It's OK.

[00:35:24]
It only took 15 years.

[00:35:25]
Right. 15 years. So good.

[00:35:27]
Well, I'll know just about how long to give the next creative endeavor that I work on.

[00:35:33]
So I guess I'll just, you know, I'll read them in order of how I've got them here.

[00:35:37]
I'll start with the progression of mechanics.

[00:35:42]
So going from a PlayStation two game to a PSP game

[00:35:50]
was something that I personally I didn't get that transition

[00:35:55]
when I had first played Snake Eater.

[00:35:57]
So I didn't really have opinions on it until playing this game for the show.

[00:36:04]
The way I read it kind of retroactively

[00:36:08]
was that I understood this was a leap to a new system

[00:36:13]
and that certain things were just not going to be the same.

[00:36:16]
So, you know, having that in mind before I played it did a lot to

[00:36:22]
I don't want to say lower my expectations because, you know, I didn't I didn't have any

[00:36:27]
really to start. I just I tried to go in as open minded as possible.

[00:36:32]
One of the things I enjoyed and was also perplexed by

[00:36:37]
was the the slight improvement of the Sonar monitor from Snake Eater.

[00:36:44]
And this one is it operates quite a bit differently.

[00:36:48]
Just a little bit of background.

[00:36:49]
I didn't use the Sonar and Snake Eater once, you know,

[00:36:52]
once you get to thermal goggles and night vision goggles,

[00:36:56]
there's almost no point in using that anymore.

[00:36:59]
So I got by just fine, which made me rely

[00:37:04]
on my tendency to ignore it in this game, which was a mistake.

[00:37:09]
The the Sonar radar, if that's what if that is what is indeed called

[00:37:16]
in portable ops, once I understood how to use it and and the function

[00:37:22]
that it was serving as I was navigating multiple planes of these maps

[00:37:28]
really became a reliable tool for me.

[00:37:31]
And I was very appreciative of it.

[00:37:34]
So I don't know.

[00:37:35]
I don't know if you remember very much how that worked, but.

[00:37:39]
Yeah, I remember. Yeah.

[00:37:41]
And it was a it was a mechanic of if memory serves me correctly,

[00:37:46]
is to help players get situational awareness and get a sense for where the enemies are,

[00:37:51]
given the fact that we're not handing them too many other tools

[00:37:55]
to be able to determine where the where the enemies are.

[00:37:57]
So, for example, in MGS five, you can ping the enemies through your

[00:38:01]
binoculars and then those pings kind of staying on top of the enemies

[00:38:04]
throughout the game.

[00:38:05]
And that's all very clever and more modern, right?

[00:38:08]
But and then with MGS four, in fact, we had I forgot the name of the mechanic now,

[00:38:12]
which is irritating, but we had this kind of sonar ring around

[00:38:19]
around Snake that had like this kind of it was a three dimensional ring

[00:38:23]
around Snake that gave the players that kind of such again,

[00:38:26]
that kind of positional feedback about where where different sounds were happening.

[00:38:29]
And it was quite clever.

[00:38:31]
And and so, yeah, we had that feature for portable ops and it's essential.

[00:38:34]
It's there's a reason why it stuck to the to the screen is because we really

[00:38:38]
are trying to provide a great tool for the for the player.

[00:38:41]
So they're not surprised and not frustrated too much,

[00:38:44]
but they're also not given exact feedback in terms of the positions of the different

[00:38:48]
enemies because we wanted to still be somewhat nuanced and somewhat suggestive.

[00:38:52]
So there is some still some challenge in the game.

[00:38:56]
Right. It was something I learned to appreciate.

[00:38:59]
Like I said, I wholly ignored it starting out and and very quickly realized

[00:39:05]
no, this is useful.

[00:39:07]
I am bad at sneaking without this.

[00:39:10]
Right.

[00:39:11]
I will say like one final note about that that feature, Tori,

[00:39:15]
is that it was a feature that was there early on in the game.

[00:39:19]
Visually, it didn't change at all.

[00:39:22]
I think until the up until ship.

[00:39:25]
And it was an area of the game that I if we had more time,

[00:39:27]
I would love to have look a little more visually interesting.

[00:39:31]
And I always looked at that as a placeholder thing that we just never got around to updating.

[00:39:35]
Sure. Well, you know, and I think even for what it was, it was

[00:39:42]
it was more what's the word I'm looking for?

[00:39:45]
It was more useful than I would have thought, given that it showed two different colors.

[00:39:50]
And with enough experience using it, you could you could parse out

[00:39:55]
what you were experiencing based off of which color was showing up

[00:39:58]
and the position of that.

[00:40:00]
And, you know, whether you were on a lower level and there was nobody there,

[00:40:03]
it must have been at a higher level or, you know, what have you?

[00:40:07]
It like the dragging of the soldiers to the truck.

[00:40:11]
I found that with time and experience, it made sense for this game.

[00:40:17]
Again, it seemed to me, it read to me, whether this was the intent or not,

[00:40:22]
that portable ops was in another way, very much the missing link.

[00:40:28]
It introduces the recruiting soldiers mechanic and perfect as it is.

[00:40:33]
It's an introduction of it and a chance for it to be improved upon in Peace Walker.

[00:40:38]
And I feel the same about that that's so in our radar.

[00:40:41]
Well, I agree.

[00:40:42]
And I think one additional element that you reminded me of is that

[00:40:46]
and I don't know if you notice this, because if you if you had a chance

[00:40:48]
to put the acid games that predate portable ops is that the acid games

[00:40:53]
have a much more of a poppy look to them, like more bold colors,

[00:40:58]
primary colors and things like that.

[00:41:00]
It's very flashy.

[00:41:01]
In fact, like a lot of the animations, I think we're done in flash.

[00:41:05]
Funny enough, Adobe flash.

[00:41:07]
But I bring this up because one of the things is like a distinguishing

[00:41:11]
element of the visual design of portable ops is that it does have these big,

[00:41:14]
bold, 2D, flat 2D designs.

[00:41:17]
And those came from two two designers, Saito-san and Hashiguchi-san,

[00:41:22]
that were both really, really talented guys who worked on who worked on who

[00:41:26]
worked on acid, who then transitioned to portable ops.

[00:41:29]
And I think they brought that kind of creative DNA to the game.

[00:41:31]
So if you if you remember, if you look up your inventory and have those four slots,

[00:41:34]
they're big, bold icons.

[00:41:36]
And and also the way that the the chameleon shows up on the on the game

[00:41:41]
in the main menu or sorry, in the main screen on the top left.

[00:41:44]
Those are just exactly what those guys like to do in the asset games.

[00:41:47]
And they brought it that kind of creative DNA into into Portable Ops,

[00:41:51]
which is one of the fun things about games is that it's a creative endeavor.

[00:41:55]
And each person brings their own taste to the game, no matter how hard

[00:41:59]
you try to unify it all.

[00:42:00]
And sure. And so yeah, you just reminded me of that with what you mentioned about the radar.

[00:42:05]
Right. Well, that's the fun thing about collaborating, isn't it?

[00:42:07]
You know, you get a much more dynamic thing than if it's just coming

[00:42:13]
from one or two people's brains. Totally. Totally.

[00:42:17]
So it's very funny that you mentioned how how nice and bold those

[00:42:24]
those slots are for your loadout, because I'm not going to lie to you, Ryan.

[00:42:28]
It took me probably three quarters of the game to figure out how to change my loadout.

[00:42:34]
Whether it was something I was just not interested in doing or or I just didn't try hard enough.

[00:42:39]
Yeah, that was in some of the final moments of the game where I went,

[00:42:43]
oh, I can and should change out my weapons here.

[00:42:47]
Well, you would have been you would have been good, a good playtester,

[00:42:51]
because with the development time timeline that short,

[00:42:56]
it gives you very little time to be able to identify key UX issues.

[00:43:03]
And I did my best. I did my best.

[00:43:06]
But it was a very scrappy endeavor.

[00:43:08]
In fact, true story, like all the UX work that I'm aware of that went into the game

[00:43:13]
was me calling friends living in Japan and asking the sign NDAs and having them

[00:43:19]
come into the Konami office and having them play the game over the course of a weekend.

[00:43:23]
Most of the guys didn't finish the game, but I was sitting there with like a notepad

[00:43:27]
writing down all the different things that people were saying about the game,

[00:43:30]
but they were confused by like asking me questions.

[00:43:33]
And then it's just in the very short amount of time we had trying to come up

[00:43:36]
with solutions, very simple UX solutions to those problems.

[00:43:40]
And I don't remember the inventory topic coming up.

[00:43:44]
I'm not surprised to hear it because again, we got very little coverage to do that.

[00:43:48]
And I think part of the reason why we even allow players to use their codec

[00:43:52]
to send recruits back to the base is because of the amount of complaints

[00:43:57]
that we received from those play tests.

[00:43:59]
And I was able to use that as data to back up a lot of my my asks to the team.

[00:44:04]
So, yeah, I definitely didn't do a good enough job because we probably should have

[00:44:08]
changed and made the loadout system a little bit more user friendly.

[00:44:12]
Well, hey, I mean, no judgments here.

[00:44:13]
That it was something that at the end of the day, I chalked up more to my oblivion,

[00:44:19]
not oblivion. What am I? What's the word?

[00:44:21]
Oblivious or?

[00:44:22]
Yeah, just I don't I don't always see details that that many others catch.

[00:44:28]
So, you know, that one was probably more on me than anything.

[00:44:32]
But yeah, that was just that was just my struggle with with coming from

[00:44:37]
snake eater, which was I mean, you could carry a thousand and one things almost.

[00:44:41]
Obviously, that's an exaggeration.

[00:44:43]
But going from I don't know what was it, but maybe about just under a dozen things

[00:44:49]
items, so items to like tools to use and weaponry down to just four things total.

[00:44:59]
That was a bit of a jump.

[00:45:00]
But again, I understand, you know, this is a portable game.

[00:45:03]
You you're very limited in in in the actual game play as well.

[00:45:08]
The the the missions that you can play one at a time really change the dynamic

[00:45:15]
of the game. And and at the end of the day, I thought it added a fun new challenge

[00:45:21]
for me to put together the correct puzzle pieces in order to complete the mission.

[00:45:28]
If that makes sense.

[00:45:29]
Yeah, no, it's in fact, I think it's one of the smarter design decisions that was

[00:45:32]
that was done on the game.

[00:45:34]
The UX issues aside about how you change your loadout, but limiting the each

[00:45:38]
character to have four inventory slots.

[00:45:41]
I was a big fan of that decision because those limitations result in interesting

[00:45:47]
gameplay choices. The classic example of that is if you go back to 2001, you if you

[00:45:52]
go back and watch video reviews from GameSpot for Halo or you read some of the

[00:45:57]
reviews, a lot of people are talking about how ingenious it was that Bungie

[00:46:02]
limited the the number of weapon slots for the for the player down to two.

[00:46:06]
Because most of the first person shooters up until that point, let you cycle

[00:46:10]
through eight, 10, 12 different weapons.

[00:46:13]
And so you weren't given a lot of interesting design challenges or questions

[00:46:18]
to answer, which like what should I use in the situation?

[00:46:21]
Should I pick up the shotgun and should I also have like a

[00:46:25]
rocket launcher in my back backpack or should I have the sniper rifle?

[00:46:28]
These are interesting challenges for the player to solve, but like lead up to

[00:46:32]
that point with Half-Life, Goldeneye, Doom, like the list goes on.

[00:46:38]
Originally, all those weapons were all tied to your, to all the numbers you

[00:46:42]
had on the keyboard.

[00:46:43]
And so that was a really ingenious thing that Bungie did.

[00:46:45]
And so I think we took some inspiration from that for portable ops to not

[00:46:49]
allow the player to be able to carry around everything because then you have

[00:46:52]
incentive to, to switch off and not be snake all the time.

[00:46:57]
Was a big challenge for me.

[00:46:59]
And I suppose this, this isn't too off topic.

[00:47:04]
One of the things I did leave a little subsection here for the story.

[00:47:08]
And I know it's, it's been a while.

[00:47:09]
So that's not going to be the clearest thing at the top of your brain.

[00:47:14]
But in terms of playing as, as people other than snake, as characters

[00:47:19]
other than snake, I don't know how much you remember about Jonathan, but

[00:47:23]
Ryan, Jonathan was my little treasure.

[00:47:26]
I, I adored Jonathan and everything he represented.

[00:47:30]
And if I wasn't playing as snake, I was, I was sure to be playing as him.

[00:47:34]
What about Jonathan really?

[00:47:36]
Like, why did you gravitate so much to Jonathan?

[00:47:39]
So Jonathan's story was that he had been stationed at the space and promised a

[00:47:47]
lot of things by Gene and by, I think the government in general, if I'm not mistaken,

[00:47:53]
some of those details are a little fuzzy for me, but he was so loyal and so

[00:47:59]
resolute about obtaining his, or achieving his mission that it really took

[00:48:07]
knowing that he was speaking to big boss and, and, oh my God, you are the legendary

[00:48:12]
soldier, you probably aren't lying to me about what Gene is up to.

[00:48:16]
And then just like that, his, all of his loyalty is with big boss.

[00:48:20]
And he, you know, not to, not to give any incredible spoilers here, but

[00:48:27]
he, he makes a very big sacrifice for big boss.

[00:48:30]
And I just, I don't know.

[00:48:33]
He just, I think he stuck with me more than, more than most of, I don't want to

[00:48:39]
call them sidekicks, but supporting characters in maybe the entire series.

[00:48:43]
I think, I just think his, his resolve and, and duty to the mission as the boss would say.

[00:48:52]
Sure.

[00:48:53]
Yeah, that's, that's cool.

[00:48:55]
It's interesting, like for a character like him that had, you know, a relatively small

[00:48:59]
presence in the story, really resonated with a lot of folks, including you, Tori.

[00:49:02]
So that's, and Robert Atkins Downs, I think he did a great job with Jonathan.

[00:49:09]
And, oh, yes.

[00:49:10]
I remember the staff talking about him quite a lot.

[00:49:12]
I heard a lot of like, Jonathan, Jonathan, which is like the name of Japanese and

[00:49:16]
to help him bring back some fun memories about, I think a lot of the, the staff had a,

[00:49:21]
definitely a, you know, a love for that character as well.

[00:49:26]
Oh, that's good to know.

[00:49:27]
I'm not the only one, you know, it comes across, it comes across in the story.

[00:49:32]
His is, is not one that I would have really thought of if it weren't for the whole

[00:49:40]
role of big boss, I guess, is, as being that leader who, whose main priority is the

[00:49:49]
mission and fighting for what he believes in versus somebody else's agenda.

[00:49:54]
And I just thought Jonathan's, Jonathan's position within that larger story was very

[00:50:02]
effective.

[00:50:03]
Yeah, I agree.

[00:50:05]
Well, I could mention a lot of this other stuff, but I'm not, I'm not sure, I'm not

[00:50:12]
sure whether it's worth mentioning if we're recovering it throughout the rest of the

[00:50:17]
show.

[00:50:17]
And certainly if, you know, if you get a chance to listen to our coverage before the

[00:50:23]
next time you come on and you want to bring up any of these story related things, I'd

[00:50:27]
love to chat with you about them.

[00:50:28]
But other than that, is there anything else that you'd like to address before we

[00:50:33]
start signing off?

[00:50:35]
Well, one thing that we talked a little bit, even offline with you and your, and

[00:50:40]
your co-hosts is that, you know, how fun it is to have people who worked on the game

[00:50:46]
join the show.

[00:50:47]
And so I, I thought, like, you know, I really want to bring to help, help, you

[00:50:53]
know, the show and, and be able to document some of these fun stories that, that

[00:50:57]
developers of the Meldinger franchise had.

[00:50:59]
And I talked to a friend of mine and also like a co-worker now is his name is

[00:51:04]
Kazuma Jinochi.

[00:51:06]
He was the composer for Portable Ops, Metal Gear Solid 4, for Metal Gear Rising,

[00:51:10]
I believe, and a handful of other things.

[00:51:13]
And who would go on to join me at Microsoft to work on Halo and is now working

[00:51:17]
with me at Camouflage in addition to other things that he does.

[00:51:21]
He's the main composer on Iron Man VR and is doing a lot of great, great work on

[00:51:25]
our new project.

[00:51:26]
So anyway, long story short, he and I chatted and I

[00:51:29]
asked him if he'd be willing to come on to your show to talk about his

[00:51:31]
experiences working on the Metal Gear franchise, including Portable Ops,

[00:51:34]
because we, we spent a lot of late nights together on that project.

[00:51:37]
And he said he would, he would be honored to do so.

[00:51:40]
So that sounds okay to you, Tori.

[00:51:41]
I'd love to be able to do one more, one more episode with you and then bring

[00:51:45]
my, my good friend Kazuma around.

[00:51:47]
And on top of that, I should mention that he's, he's quite fluent in English.

[00:51:50]
So that's going to make things a lot easier on me.

[00:51:53]
And I think on you all as well.

[00:51:54]
So I think that that could be a lot of fun if that sounds good to you.

[00:51:57]
Ryan, forgive my familiarity, but you beautiful bastard, you.

[00:52:03]
You have been so generous with your time and with your contributions to the show

[00:52:08]
already.

[00:52:08]
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for, for showing up so much for us.

[00:52:15]
And, and absolutely I would love, love, love, love to have that conversation.

[00:52:19]
So that will be something excellent to look forward to listeners.

[00:52:24]
You heard it here.

[00:52:26]
So yeah, you're going to get a, you're going to have a lot more fun.

[00:52:28]
And I'll, I'll do my best to, Kazuma's pretty quiet.

[00:52:31]
So I'm going to do, it's going to be good that I'm going on the show too, Tori,

[00:52:34]
so I can kind of poke and prod a little bit and we'll get some, hopefully some good stories out of

[00:52:38]
them.

[00:52:39]
Excellent.

[00:52:40]
That sounds amazing.

[00:52:41]
I am greatly looking forward to that.

[00:52:43]
Good, good deal.

[00:52:44]
Well, I'm looking forward to, to, to that as well.

[00:52:48]
And just wishing you the best and to your listeners taking care of during this crazy

[00:52:51]
time and appreciate your interest in this, in this game that we work so hard on and,

[00:52:56]
and also to your listeners for, for all that, no matter where you, where you fall on the,

[00:53:00]
on the canonical timeline debate.

[00:53:03]
You know, I, I love and appreciate all the passion that, that your, that your listeners

[00:53:09]
have for this franchise.

[00:53:10]
Excellent.

[00:53:10]
Well, we do too.

[00:53:11]
It's, it's been a surreal year or so since I joined the show and getting to speak with you

[00:53:19]
for the second and looking forward to speaking with you for a third time has really just been

[00:53:24]
the cherry on top of this whole thing.

[00:53:26]
So yes, once again, thank you so much for your time and we look forward to speaking with you

[00:53:30]
again, Ryan.

[00:53:31]
All right, look me too.

[00:53:32]
Talk soon.