Steel Instruments Solid’s Cyborg Ninja is considered one of the most iconic characters from the 1998 game, flipping through protagonist Snake with its sculpted exoskeleton and chilling, reflective musings about existence. However, this intelligent humanoid soldier might never have been able to thrust a katana at your face if director Hideo Kojima hadn’t been so dedicated to character designer Yoji Shinkawa’s artwork.
“From the very first [design] sketches I created, Shinkawa was there making alterations on his own,” Kojima shared with PlayStation in a recently surfaced interview from 1998. He described Cyborg Ninja as a result of his and Shinkawa’s “push-and-pull” creative process, noting that initially he had no intention of including a fully muscular android character.
Despite this, Shinkawa felt inspired to sketch one because, as he articulated to PlayStation, “it’s cool.”
“I imagined he would be just an ordinary soldier foe,” Shinkawa continued. “I had several different designs in mind, and I thought I’d attempt creating something cyborg-like, which resulted in this ninja-esque character. Once I equipped him with a katana, the character truly came alive for me.”
“Many elements were added this way,” Kojima remarked. “‘Absolutely, a ninja cyborg!'”
Ultimately, Steel Instruments Solid became filled with both Kojima’s and Shinkawa’s most imaginative ideas, similar to an overflowing wardrobe. A patch here, some masks there…
The psychic villain Psycho Mantis, for instance, would never have been adorned with his signature, intimidating gas mask if Shinkawa hadn’t spontaneously chosen to add it to his design.