Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima reveals origins of Snatcher and Policenauts

Today Hideo Kojima shared background info about Snatcher and Policenauts, two games he worked on prior to Metal Gear Solid.

According to Kojima, Snatcher was originally called "Junker." The name didn't stick, however, because he thought it sounded too similar to an existing mahjong game. He even considered "New Order," worried that "Snatcher" would remind gamers of one of the enemies in Metal Gear.

At the time, Kojima had trouble successfully explaining the meaning of "cyberpunk" (regarding the game's "cyberpunk adventure" genre) to Konami.

Kojima also said that although Policenauts was first named Beyond, which was more reflective of the game's narrative, Konami wasn't able to trademark the name.

Early on, Policenauts was described as part of the "cinematic virtual reality" genre, and a search Konami conducted on the trademark came up empty. However, by 1994 "virtual reality" was a coined term, so the company dropped the description from the genre label.

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[Andriasang]