Against all odds, cult classic Metal Wolf Chaos is getting a remaster and, for the first time, available in English worldwide. Now that “all this noise about Metal Wolf” has lead to a remaster, developers From Software has now shared some thoughts on how the game was conceived, and why it never got a Western (or an English) release.
Speaking to Destructoid, producer Masanori Takeuchi revealed that FromSoft decided not to release after 9/11 happened. “First of all, just genuinely happy that people have really picked up on [Metal Wolf Chaos] and are looking forward to it despite it not being released overseas,” he said.
“But also we feel like we kind of let them down because we initially did aim to release it worldwide, and we couldn’t – at the time, things were difficult [after 9/11] – so we feel bad about letting them down back in the day.”
Metal Wolf Chaos was released in Japan in December 2004. So the lingering fear from the tragedy was still heartfelt.
The interview also goes to explain why the portrayal of Americans in the game is way over the top. For the uninitiated, the game has you play as Micheal Wilson, President Of The United States Of America, as he fends of a coup d’etat initiated by his own Vice President Richard Hawk. By using a mech, the titular Metal Wolf.
“Originally we had this dynamic between President Michael Wilson and Vice President Richard Hawk, and we wanted it to be this comic book hero dynamic of good versus evil.
In terms of our initial image for Richard Hawk, we looked at WWF – the heroes and the antagonists there. The bad guys even have their own sense of justice and personality and they think they’re right and they’re very bombastic, and we wanted to base the character on that sort of idea.”
That explains a lot of the dynamic between Micheal and Richard. Which involves them scream each others’ name out loud.
Takeuchi also added that Metal Wolf Chaos is essentially America as viewed from a Japanese lens. “It is America as perceived by the Japanese. It’s completely fictional, but at the time, it was our idea of this ideology of American culture and comic book heroes, and we pieced that together and it became the president piloting the mech.
“We think that when Japanese look at it that way, from the American point of view, it’s almost like how they imagine a Japanese ninja,” he said.
The interview by Destructoid also covers how the game, an original Xbox exclusive, came to be, and is worth reading.
Metal Wolf Chaos XD, the remaster, will be coming out sometime this year on PS4, PC (Steam) and Xbox One. Publisher Devolver Digital teases that a release date may come as soon as this week. 4th Of July, maybe?
Source: Destructoid