Snatcher (video game)

• 1. Introduction

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  Snatcher opens fifty years after a biological weapon called Lucifer-Alpha wipes out much of the world's population. In its aftermath, Neo Kobe City rises on an artificial island in eastern Asia, and its government seals it off from the outside world. Humanoid robots called Snatchers have been discovered killing residents and taking their place, wrapped in artificial skin almost impossible to tell from the real thing. Konami developed and published Snatcher, a cyberpunk graphic adventure written and designed by Hideo Kojima. It was first released in 1988 for the PC-8801 and MSX2 computers in Japan.

  Players guide Gillian Seed, an amnesiac hunting the Snatchers, through a menu-driven world with no point-and-click interface at all. Kojima pushed hard for the game to feel cinematic. Critics later credited it as a foundation for the themes he explored in the Metal Gear series. Yet the story never reached the ending Kojima had planned, and despite a lasting cult following, the game has not returned to a modern platform. What forced Kojima to cut his own script short, and why has a game that critics still praise stayed locked out of official rerelease?

• 2. Hunting The Impostors

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  Gillian arrives at JUNKER headquarters and meets Mika Slayton and Chief Benson Cunningham. They assign him a robot navigator named Metal Gear Mk. II, built by engineer Harry Benson. A distress call sends him to find fellow agent Jean-Jack Gibson beheaded by a pair of Snatchers, and a factory explosion forces a hasty retreat. Searching Jean-Jack's house with his daughter Katrina and questioning an informant called Napoleon, Gillian narrows the killers to two suspects. A Snatcher bounty hunter named Random Hajile saves him from a near-fatal ambush during the hunt.

  Jamie, described in the game as Gillian's estranged wife, is the only fragment tying him to a past he cannot recall. Random joins Gillian at an abandoned hospital that Jean-Jack had flagged, where a hidden basement holds the skeletons of Snatcher victims, including Chief Cunningham himself. Back at headquarters, Harry Benson dies from wounds inflicted by the chief, and Gillian kills Cunningham after Mika is taken hostage. Jamie then calls to say she has regained her memories and is being held at a place called the Kremlin.

  At the Kremlin, a scientist named Elijah Modnar holds Jamie captive and explains the truth of Gillian's past. Decades earlier, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union ran a secret project to build Snatchers able to kill and replace world leaders. Gillian had been a CIA agent spying on the project. He had married Jamie, a decision that fueled Elijah's own jealousy, and the two had a son, Harry Benson. When Elijah released Lucifer-Alpha into the atmosphere, the army placed Gillian and Jamie in cryogenic sleep, and the long freeze erased their memories. Elijah reveals that Random Hajile is actually an anti-Snatcher his late father built using Elijah's own appearance and memories. Random turns on Elijah, buying time for Gillian and Jamie to flee. Metal Gear then fires an orbital weapon that destroys the base, killing both Elijah and Random. Gillian ends the story preparing to travel to a larger Snatcher factory in Moscow, hoping the mission will also mend his marriage.

• 3. A Cinematic Ambition

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  Kojima struggled to explain the word cyberpunk to Konami's trademark department over the phone when he pitched the game as a cyberpunk adventure. He wanted a style close to Blade Runner and other films he admired, alongside Akira, The Terminator, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The project's original title, Junker, sounded too close to an existing mahjong game, so the name was dropped. New Order was floated as an alternative before the team settled on Snatcher. Kojima never fully liked the final title, since his previous game, Metal Gear, released in 1987, had also been named after an in-game enemy.

  Character designer Tomiharu Kinoshita joined Kojima early on, and the pair approached the project more like a film or anime than a game. Their team grew to roughly half the size of a typical Famicom development crew, small enough to let them work closely and move fast. Kojima told Kinoshita to style the cast after Katsuhiro Otomo's manga Akira, and the game leans on science fiction references that skirt copyright law throughout. Dialogue occasionally breaks the fourth wall. Kojima once wanted to print a secret message and a heat-activated scent onto the game's floppy disks, an idea Konami declined to approve.

• 4. Built Under Constraints

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  Development on the original PC-8801 and MSX2 versions lasted around 18 months, two to three times longer than an average game of the era. Kojima had planned the story across five acts, but memory constraints forced him to trim it to two, leaving the game on a cliffhanger. A planned sequel meant to cover the missing three acts was scrapped once the first game's development ran long. Partway through, memory problems grew severe enough that the staff took a break. Kojima used the pause to start sketching ideas for what became Policenauts, released in 1994.

  Snatcher was originally planned as a PC-8801 exclusive before Konami asked for an MSX2 version as well. The PC-8801 release supported FM and stereo sound through the Sound Board II expansion card. The MSX2 version instead shipped with a special cartridge that added extra RAM and an expanded soundscape, along with different music arrangements. That cartridge pushed the MSX2 version's price above the PC-8801 release, a reversal of the platform's usual cheaper pricing. The amount of music and sound in the game demanded a larger sound team than most projects of the time. Because neither computer could accurately produce speech, sound effects stood in for character dialogue throughout. The PC-8801 version reached shelves on the 26th of November 1988, followed by the MSX2 version on the 13th of December that year.

• 5. From Floppy Disks To CD

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  Players began asking Konami for a home console version soon after the original release reached shelves. Because the game was large and spread across several floppy disks, only CD-ROM systems could realistically host it rather than cartridge-based consoles. The PC Engine's Super CD-ROM² System fit the bill, and the port was fully titled Snatcher CD-ROMantic, marking Konami's first project built on CD technology. The team added a third act, drawn from the extended story in the 1990 role-playing adaptation SD Snatcher. Some staff criticized the addition internally, feeling the game already ran long enough.

  Artist Satoshi Yoshioka created the port's graphics, reusing some of the science-fiction touchstones Kojima had cited. He added Alien, from 1979, to help recreate Hollywood-style special effects. Moving to CD also let the team add recorded speech and higher-quality background music for the first time. He built the character art with a custom Konami drawing application, including the facial expressions shown during conversations. Yoshioka found Gillian's expressions the hardest to animate, given the complexity of his characterization. A trial version called the Pilot Disk arrived on the 7th of August 1992. It covered the opening of the first act, character introductions, a preview trailer, and select music tracks. The full version followed on the 23rd of October 1992 and reportedly sold well for a PC Engine release.

• 6. Localized And Reworked

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  After releasing Lethal Enforcers in 1992, its first Sega CD game, Konami wanted a more interactive Western experience next. It considered a full-motion-video project similar to Night Trap, also from 1992, but judged the approach too difficult. Localizing and porting Snatcher instead gave the team a chance to improve on a PC Engine version they still felt was unfinished. The Sega CD could only display 64 colors at once, against the PC Engine's 256. The team used software tricks to push that up to 112 and adjusted the palettes.

  The deceased Snatcher Lisa Nielsen had her exposed breasts covered for the Sega CD release. A scene of Katrina Gibson standing naked in a shower was obscured, and her age was raised from 14 to 18. Some of Gillian's cruder options, like sniffing panties or staring at breasts, were removed or softened. Audio of a robot growing aroused while watching pornography was cut entirely. Violence mostly stayed intact, apart from one scene where a partly dead, twitching dog was made simply dead. Fearing US copyright trouble, the game swapped bar patrons modeled on Kamen Rider and the Alien for Konami's own characters. Konami also added extra forks and choices to the third act, feeling it played too much like a movie. It also introduced a score for how well players solved the game's mysteries. In-game dates were pushed five years later so the story would still read as near-future given the delayed Western release.

  Scott Hards translated the Sega CD script under supervision from Jeremy Blaustein and Konami of Japan, a process that took two to three months. Seven voice actors recorded roughly two and a half hours of dialogue across 26 characters. The sheer volume of text made translation the port's most expensive and difficult part, according to Konami. Kojima had no involvement in this version, and its content changes were made without his input. Two scenes appear only in this version. One is an extended prologue adapting the original manual comic, and the other shows Mika and Katrina arriving to see Gillian and Jamie off. Snatcher reached Europe in December 1994 and North America in January 1995. Blaustein has said it sold only a couple thousand copies in the United States. He attributed the commercial failure to its late arrival in the Sega CD's lifespan.

  Snatcher returned to Japan in 1996 for 32-bit consoles. A PlayStation version arrived on the 26th of January, followed by a Sega Saturn version on the 29th of March. Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo handled both without Kojima's involvement, redoing the music and visuals and replacing some tracks entirely. Because the Saturn version arrived slightly later, it carries some added graphical refinement over the PlayStation release. Both versions reuse the voice track from the PC Engine version with nothing newly recorded, so they lack the Sega CD's extra scenes. The manual-comic prologue instead appears as pre-rendered CGI, and Mika and Katrina still appear in the ending, though now completely silent.

• 7. Reviews And Reappraisal

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  Japanese reviewers responded warmly to the PC-8801 and MSX2 releases, and both built a cult following despite falling short commercially. The PC Engine port developed its own following in Japan, helped in part by its graphic violence. Famicom Tsushin reviewers praised its cinematic quality, and the game still appeared on the magazine's Reader's Best 20 list two years after release. Sega Saturn Magazine later judged the Saturn version a faithful port of the PC Engine release.

  When Snatcher reached the West on the Sega CD, critics praised its story, cinematic presentation, and mature themes. Mean Machines Sega called it one of the most involved storyboards and backgrounds of any video game. A GameFan reviewer described it as one of the longest and most involving games he had played in years. He praised Konami for keeping the game's MA-17 mature content intact. Games World's Dave Perry called the storyline gripping and engrossing. Computer and Video Games praised it as one of the most compelling role-playing games it had covered. The magazine compared it favorably to 1980s science fiction films and to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, from 1994.

  Mean Machines Sega credited the CD-ROM format itself for the game's digitized voices and high-quality graphics. Some critics enjoyed the English voice acting, though Next Generation felt Konami could have hired stronger actors. Dave Perry wrote that its Japanese animé graphics, paired with crisp game speech, brought the RPG adventure to life with an edge. Computer and Video Games called the graphics dated, and VideoGames called them generic. GamePro liked the anime style but criticized the music as old-fashioned for a cyberpunk adventure. Mean Machines Sega, by contrast, compared the score favorably to John Carpenter's incidental film themes.

  GamePro summed up the pacing as patience, persistence, and plodding, though it felt patient players were rewarded. VideoGames called the story nothing mind-blowing but interesting enough to hold attention, while Dave Perry felt the varied interaction avoided excessive linearity. Ultimate Future Games disagreed, arguing the game leaned too hard on an illusion of choice that only advanced through set tasks. Mean Machines Sega found the puzzles challenging and the game more substantial than 1990's Rise of the Dragon, another cyberpunk adventure. Computer and Video Games, meanwhile, called its gun-shooting sections weak and disappointing.

  In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked the Sega CD version 69th on its list of the best console video games of all time. The ranking rested solely on the strength of the game's story. Snatcher had already been called one of the best adventure games and best cyberpunk games ever made by that point. The magazine wrote that 'not many people have played it, but almost everyone knows of its grisly story line.' Waypoint later argued its narrative and visuals still hold up, unlike most other Sega CD and cyberpunk adventure games. Kotaku called it a science fiction cornucopia, praising how it explored human existence and the fear of machines replacing people. The outlet also noted the same science-fiction touchstones behind its story. Retro Gamer found it ironic that a game without full-motion video felt more cinematic than titles that used it. Destructoid enjoyed the plot but complained about the interface. AllGame warned that text-menu games can grow tedious, yet felt Snatcher's story and graphics made it worth the time.

• 8. A Legacy Still Locked Away

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  1UP.com wrote that Snatcher showed Kojima's love of film. It called Snatcher 'more of a cerebral affair than some of his other efforts,' crediting his ingenuity and attention to detail for making it noteworthy. Game Informer argued Snatcher foreshadowed how Kojima would use science fiction to explore philosophy, sex, and the human condition in Metal Gear Solid. The game remains one of Kojima's most respected works, even as it is often overshadowed by the Metal Gear Solid series itself.

  Snatcher has gone on to influence other science fiction works, including Project Itoh's novel Genocidal Organ and the 2015 adventure game 2064: Read Only Memories. Kojima has said he would welcome another director reviving the game, since he no longer has time to lead the project himself. He has called a revival financially unfeasible, and in 2011 said a sequel would need to sell over half a million copies to make sense. Kojima left Konami in 2015, and the company, which still owns the property, has shown no interest in a rerelease or sequel since.

  The game's absence from modern platforms has surprised industry analysts given its lasting reputation. Some believed it would suit a Nintendo DS or 3DS release, following graphic adventures like Hotel Dusk and Phoenix Wright onto those handhelds. The Sega CD version remains the only official Western release. Collector demand has driven up its secondary-market price, pushing many players toward emulation instead. Japanese copies sell for far less, though the text-heavy game is hard going for non-Japanese readers. The PC Engine version appears on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini from 2020, though only in its original Japanese. Fans have kept building their own ports. One made a Virtual Boy demo in 2015 with stereoscopic 3D effects and PCM music. Another attempted a Dreamcast port with a remixed soundtrack and retouched visuals.

  Snatcher was Jeremy Blaustein's first translation project, and he later translated Metal Gear Solid in 1998. In 2014, Blaustein launched a Kickstarter campaign for a steampunk adventure game called Blackmore, directed by him with former Snatcher staff. The campaign failed to reach its funding goal. Konami had already extended the story once before, remaking Snatcher as the role-playing game SD Snatcher for the MSX2 in 1990. A manga adaptation by Osamu Kobayashi ran for seven issues in ASCII Comics in 1993. It followed a different, unrelated JUNKER runner named Nirasawa, protecting an exotic dancer from a gang of bioroids in Neo Kobe City in 2042. In 2011, Kojima and designer Goichi Suda released an episodic radio drama prequel called Sdatcher. Suda wrote the script and Akira Yamaoka composed the score. It was distributed free at first, and later sold on CD. Suda has credited Snatcher, alongside the work of Yu Suzuki, with first igniting his interest in making games at all.