Thanks to the mimes: How was "Metal Gear Rising" resurrected?

Namely, there has been a huge increase in people playing the game at the same time on all platforms. According to the data they published steamplayercount i Playtracker, the number of active players has increased by as much as 1000%, to 6.053 active players recorded on June 16 of this year. The number of players higher than this, according to statisticians, the game only had when it first came out.

Why? "Revengeance" is nine years old. How could a game that came out so long ago suddenly become popular again? The answer is "mimes, the DNA of the soul."

The avalanche apparently started by posting a GIF meme of 'Jetstream Sam', one of the game's main villains. A meme posted by Reddit user u/LeoWeebK27 quickly became one of the most popular meme templates of the month. The more absurd the thing that Sam thinks about with a smile on his face, the better.

Of course, when they exhausted every joke they could, when Samuel Rodriguez stopped thinking about sabotaging nuclear reactors, people asked for more. It wasn't hard to find new templates. From Senator Armstrong mouthing the words “Make America great again” to Blade Wolf's “I understand your attempts to be funny. I just don't think it's funny". The more people played the game, the easier it was to find new mimes. Short clips and images of scenes from the game quickly began to be used as cute replies to other people's messages. Why would anyone simply say that they like something when Sam is there with his "Why, that's very good! Yes, I like that!” to make the whole thing more fun?

Over time, even the songs from the game became a mime. Mimes that have nothing to do with the game as such, accompanied by music from its levels, are incomparably more interesting than 'dry' pictures or videos.

The part of the story that refers to the very word "mime" is also interesting. Today it refers to humorous, fun things that can be found all over the Internet, but there is also an older meaning - ideas and ways of behaving that people can share with each other. It was used in this sense not only in Rising, but also in earlier Metal Gear games. Because of this, Monsoon's talk about mimes today makes for great discussion material on the latest templates, and “It's a nice mime. Excellent!” is considered the highest compliment in the mime industry.

In addition to mimes, the game is kept alive by the gameplay, which provides hours and hours of fun. Although it differs significantly from other Metal Gear games in that sneaking isn't a requirement, but the most boring of the many options, it's exactly one of the things that makes Rising perfect. Most games confront you with your biggest enemy at the very end. "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance" in the first 10 minutes of the story, you face a huge robot that tries to kill you with every possible arsenal - from rockets to a heated jet of water that is basically a laser. As you throw that same robot in the air with your bare hands and slice it in half to rock music, it's impossible not to feel like you were born to save the world.

For those who have just discovered MGR:R in this new wave, a brief description:

• Who are you? Raiden, a cyborg from 2018.
• What is your mission? To stop a group of criminals who want to create a chaotic world where they can forever earn income from the war economy.
• How do you achieve this? Cutting with a saber. If it is in line of sight, it can be cut.
• How does health return? By killing the enemy.
• What are the songs like? Bombastic, and they adapt to what you do. The guitar and drums 'hit' when you do too, and the choruses of the songs play right when the fight culminates.

Is all this worth about thirty euros? Absolutely.