Iconic Roles: Quinton Flynn and Raiden's Evolution

Quinton Flynn voiced Raiden in the Metal Gear series and although the character was met with controversy at first, Flynn delivered an iconic performance

Welcome to “Iconic Roles,” a deep dive into iconic video game roles, in this installment, I dig deep into Quinton Flynn’s role as Raiden in the Metal Gear Solid series.

Metal Gear Solid launched onto the sixth generation of game consoles in 2001 with the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Fans stepped back into the boots of Solid Snake for the first act of the game before unexpectedly being placed into the boots of rookie operative Raiden. The character had a controversial debut, but through a heavy evolution in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, the character had a much more positive reception in later releases. Let’s dive into what made Flynn’s performance iconic.

Stepping into Skull Suit: Quinton Flynn as Raiden

The Actor

Outside of his work in the Metal Gear series, Flynn voiced Axel in the Kingdom Hearts series. His other roles in the gaming world include Isaaru in Final Fantasy X and X-2, Silver the Hedgehog in the Sonic the Hedgehog Series, and more. On the anime side of things, he voiced Reno in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Iruka Umino in Naruto, and Kon in Bleach.

The Series

The Metal Gear Solid series is heavily based on stealth action gameplay. Regardless of what protagonist gamers are in control of, they are encouraged to only use a weapon as a last resort.

The series also tends to focus on complex storylines that may take more than one playthrough to completely digest. The Raiden character ends up being in the mix of one of the most complex storylines in Metal Gear Solid 2, which leads to themes of artificial intelligence, memory manipulation, social engineering, and more. These themes are prevalent throughout the entire Metal Gear series as part of the advanced storylines that play out throughout the series.

The gameplay changes in Rising Revengance when stealth is still a mechanic of gameplay, but gamers can also hack and slash their way through the story alongside over-the-top boss fights that push gamers’ swordsmanship to the limit.

The Character

We first meet Raiden in the second part of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Raiden is sent into the Big Shell, an offshore oil cleanup facility built after a tanker carrying a Metal Gear unit is taken down off the shore of New York City. Solid Snake is aboard the tanker in the first act of the game and is believed to have died in the tanker sinking.

The Big Shell is seized by a group of terrorists during a visit from high-ranking government officials, including the President of the United States. Raiden, who has experience in the US Army and extensive VR training, is sent in alone to extract the President. Although he has some combat experience, he is depicted as a young rookie with no solo field experience. As the story progresses, we learn that Raiden was a child soldier in a civil war that left him emotionally broken, feeling as if he is only useful when on a battlefield. This is played out via codec conversations with mission analyst Rose, who is also Raiden’s partner. As the game progresses, we learn more about how his past made him afraid to love and the struggles he and Rose are going through as a couple.

His character underwent a heavy physical redesign for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Rising Revengance. Raiden debuts a new look that has him in a heavily modified tech-infused body, making him appear more machine than man. The look is kept for Rising Revengance with gamers given the ability to upgrade Raiden’s body as the game progresses.

What Made The Role Iconic?

Extreme Evolution

When gamers are first introduced to Raiden, they meet a naive and young operative who was dropped into a hostile situation. He constantly called his Colonel and Mission Analyst (Campbell and Rose, although Campbell ends up not actually being Campbell…) early in his campaign. As he meets up with Snake and Otacon, he begins to rely on and communicate with them more. He admits to all of these characters at different points that he feels overwhelmed by the pressure of the situation he is put in.

At the conclusion of Sons of Liberty, we find a different version of Raiden that is now battle-tested and ready to join Snake on his campaign to rid the world of Metal Gear units and take down the machine that the Patriots created.

This bleeds into Metal Gear Solid 4 and Rising Revengance when Raiden is portrayed as a cyborg warrior that is hardened by battle and ruthless on the battlefield. Gone is the bright-eyed and overwhelmed rookie that we met off the shores of New York in Sons of Liberty. As Raiden says himself in Guns of the Patriots, “Jack is dead Snake, I am at your side”. That is the first line we hear from Flynn in Gear Solid 4, and it sums up the radical change perfectly.

Flynn is able to give Raiden different levels of maturity that make gamers better understand the different points in life that Raiden is at as they play through his journey. It immerses gamers further into the story and makes them feel like they are deeper into Raiden’s boots.

Navigating Emotional Complexities

Raiden has arguably the most emotional story arcs in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. He is manipulated heavily in Metal Gear Solid 2 by the Patriots during the Big Shell incident. He sent in under the guise of rescuing the President of the United States and disarming a terrorist group that had taken over an offshore oil cleanup facility. In realty, he was being tested to see if he could take over as the next super soilder in the way Solid Snake. The manipulation was taken down to the point that his commanding officer is actually an artificial intelligence commander, and his girlfriend, Rose, being the data analyst on the mission, only for her to confess that she was tasked with becoming his lover by the Patriots to keep an eye on him and that her looks were manufactured to meet his taste to ensure he fell for her.

His character in Metal Gear Solid 4 sees a drastic physical and emotional transformation. The emotionally vulnerable and nervous rookie that we see in parts of Metal Gear Solid 2 is replaced with a cold and ruthless soldier who knows only one thing: battle. He has completely separated from Rosemary after the pregnancy that was uncovered at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 ended in miscarriage. He has completely shed his real name of Jack and become just Raiden.

Flynn changes his delivery in the early part of Raiden’s campaign to the end after the psychological manipulation has taken its toll on the character. His delivery when talking to Rose, as their relationship is fleshed out to gamers, changes from when he is addressing Snake or the Colonel. When he returns to the series in Metal Gear Solid 4, his delivery is much colder and more blunt. He understood the deep emotional complexities of the character and delivered the role accordingly.

Not Re-Creating Solid Snake

Although the entire Big Shell incident was designed by the Patriots to test Raiden and see if he could become the next Solid Snake, Flynn did not recreate Solid Snake with his delivery of Raiden. He made his own distinctive character that stood side by side with Solid Snake. The characters stood side by side multiple times in the series in battle, but Flynn’s delivery and portrayal of the character is completely different from that of Hayter’s delivery of Snake.

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