During a recent episode of the Game Informer podcast, voice actor David Hayter joined the show spoke about his experiences doing the voice of Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. Hayter started doing the voice back in 1998 for the original Metal Gear Solid game and did the voice of Snake up until 2010 with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
Hayter said spoke about the circumstances that led to him not reprising his role as Snake in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Hayter said he ran into the Producer of the game at a recording studio which led to them chatting over a drink. When the subject was brought up about working out a deal to do the voice over work again, the producer told him he wouldn’t be needed. Hayter stated..
“That was basically it, and then I talked to Kris Zimmerman (Metal Gear English casting and voice director). She said, ‘We’re going forward, but it looks like they are going to try and replace you.’ They tried to do that before, and it never worked. They tried to get voice matches, and it never happened.”
Hayter also went on to state that Hideo Kojima attempted to look for other voice actors for recent entries. Stating..
“I had to re-audition for Metal Gear 3 to play Naked Snake. They made me re-audition to play Old Snake, and the whole time, they were trying to find somebody else to do it. I heard that Kojima asked one of the producers on Metal Gear 3 to ask Kurt Russell if he would take over for that game. He didn’t want to do it.”
Hayter later admitted to it being hard of him, but was thankful for the once-in-a-lifetime experience by saying…
“It was annoying to me, because I thought that I had given a lot to the series and really helped promote it. At the same time, I genuinely feel that the run I had as Snake was remarkable. If you get that once in your career, that’s amazing. I don’t have any ill will toward Kiefer Sutherland or anything like that. The whole thing could have been handled better and a little more respectfully, but I’m not going to cry about it.”
Finally, Hayter ended the interview by saying..
“I was so annoyed by the Metal Gear V debacle, and people said, ‘Are you gonna play the game?’” he says. “Yeah. That’ll be 60 hours of humiliation that I can’t get to. I haven’t played the latest two iterations, because it’s just too painful.”
