As I've shared many times in the past, the request from the corporate top was to create a war game. However, the hardware at the time didn't have the capability to recreate the front lines of battle. Instead, playing off the hardware limitations, I devised a game based on avoiding conflict and sneaking past enemies, the original stealth game: Metal Gear.

This was a time in games when even titles like Super Mario Bros., with a simplified character representation, and only two actions, jump and run, met with immense success. In 1962's early video game Spacewar!, it wasn't possible to create a human figure, so instead, players controlled wedge and needle shaped spacecraft against a sparse background of outer space. In the 1970's Pong, Speed Race and Space Invaders appeared and brought video games to the masses. However, the core player actions remained constant. Therefore, competition was coupled with these simple controls to foster emotional investment from the player. Whether it be shooting, racing or tennis, defeating an opponent, CPU or real, competition was the common key component. Conflict is a means to victory. A detailed explanation isn't required. All Mario needs to do to rescue the princess is defeat his foes.

When working on game hardware with limited capabilities, providing a bit of motivation for the player is all that is required for them to have fun. This same basic concept continues to apply to even the latest 3D and VR games.

Dunkirk's success lies in its convincing portrayal of being inside a war zone, and trying to "escape," or in other words, "survive." This is certainly an extreme outlier in the war movie genre. In movies, the director has precise control over what the viewer sees, and this level of control has given birth to several masterpiece class "war movies without conflict." Recent examples that come to mind are Director Shinya Tsukamoto's film adaptation of Fires on the Plain, and László Names' Son of Saul.

So, is it possible to tell a similar story using the interactive medium of video games? My 30-year struggle to answer this question has been Metal Gear.

"Anti-war" and "Anti-nuclear weapons" were the consistent messages through the series. My parents' generation was born during WWII. My generation grew up listening to their firsthand accounts of war, and we also learned of the wretchedness and absurdity of war and nuclear weapons from the movies and books around us. Video games are a natural fit for "fighting" and "competition," but even so I felt that they should be able to promote an anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons message, and more so, that it was necessary. I also wanted to change the idea that games could only be about fighting.

Through my interaction with users following the releases of Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid and MGS2, I learned something interesting. Why is our world this way? If war and nuclear weapons are atrocities, why do they continue to exist? Younger generations didn't know the answer.

I decided to portray the era that was the cause of this dilemma in MGS3 (2004). The game is set in 1964 amidst the U.S. and Soviet Cold War. Some young people aren't even aware that a political state known as the Soviet Union once existed. I felt it was my duty to teach them about this past.

What caused the U.S. and the Soviet Union, allies in WWII, to become enemies and build nuclear arsenals against one another? Enemies formed from man-made ideologies. Good and evil. There is no such thing as absolute justice or corruption. I wanted to show and have players experience the fates and thoughts of characters who are controlled by the changing status of good and evil across eras. That is why I made Big Boss, the "evil" enemy of the "right and just" Solid Snake in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, the hero of the story.

I wanted players to experience what it is like to be called evil, just as Christopher Nolan did shortly after in Dark Knight (2008), in which Batman, the symbol of justice, takes upon the mantle of villain for the sake of Gotham City.

MGS: Peace Walker (2010) is set in Costa Rica 1974. Here I wanted players to think about what armed forces and nuclear armament mean in a country that has no military. If nuclear weapons have the power to destroy the world, then why is having them a deterrent? In the end of the story, the hero Snake, chooses to keep nuclear weapons at his Mother Base for this very reason.

In MGSV: Ground Zeroes (2014), the Mother Base built in Peace Walker is destroyed by an enemy force, imbuing the player with a sense of loss and a desire for revenge. A relentless enemy leaves the player with nowhere to run, and they are drawn into inescapable conflict.

The continuation, MGSV: The Phantom Pain, is the execution of that revenge. Players gather a fighting force and resources to build up an army and secure nuclear weapons as protection.

As the player progresses through the game they feel their desire for revenge, and their sense of "justice," that has been a common thread through the series, begin to waver. Additionally, the online game mode offers players the choice to disarm their nuclear arsenal, with the goal of completely ridding the game world of nuclear weapons. As far as I know, this goal hasn't been achieved yet, but if we can't disarm ourselves in the real world, at least the fictional game world offers mankind, the creators of nuclear weapons, the unparalleled "experience" of making the conscious choice to create a nuclear free world. Through this experience, players will come to understand what it really means to take a stand against war and nuclear weapons.

Players feel the need to acquire nuclear weapons, but then players across the globe choose to disarm themselves. This experience and its process is the chief aim of Metal Gear.