Popverse's top stories

• Made in '87: Rewinding to the movies, comics, games, and TV shows that define pop culture to this day
• Watch now: Watch the Bob's Burgers team - H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman, Dan Mintz, Larry Murphy and creator Loren Bouchard - grill up memories at NYCC 2025
• Marvel Comics killed the X-Men in 1987 to reset the franchise - but it didn’t stick

All week long: Revisit the highlights and lowlights of 1987 with Popverse's Made in 87 week.

Voicing a video game can be a tough ask – not only are you trying to give life to sometimes outrageous characters, but usually the game isn’t even done yet when you do. That was something that longtime Metal Gear Solid voice actor David Hayter found was holding his performances back, so he made them change it the next time he voiced Solid Snake in the series.

During the New York Comic Con 2025 Metal Gear Solid cast panel, David Hayter explained why there is sometimes a disconnect between how he delivers his line as Solid Snake and what the character is actually doing. “I’m replaying [Metal Gear Solid] Delta right now,” he said. “So, some scenes, I’m like, ‘Oh my god. What am I doing? It’s just so terrible.’ And then some scenes, like the really dramatic scenes with The Boss and all that stuff, seem to work really well for me. And I always think, ‘Why is that?’ and I realized it’s because when we were doing… Metal Gear Solid, we could see the game. We could see what the person, what the character was doing, how they moved, what the situation was, how far away they were from each other. When we did Metal Gear 2 and 3, we couldn’t see anything, and we had, like, time codes that we needed to match to.”

That change has a big impact on the performances. “So I can’t see what Snake’s doing. I can’t see what his face looks like. I can’t see, you know, his expression. The movement. Anything. And that’s what was really bothering me about it, so it’s really… some of the conversation scenes, I am like, ‘God, I wish I had been able to see what he was doing!’”

David Hayter used his status as the star of the game to pull some strings with Konami for Metal Gear Solid 4, though. “So I said, on Metal Gear 4, I was like, ‘I need to see what the actor is doing, so send us the finished game!’ as if I have any control over that. But I had a little control over it, so what they did was, they were like, ‘Well, the game’s not finished,’ so they sent us videos of the actors in the ping-pong ball suits. And it was the Japanese actors. But, when Snake climbs up into a helicopter, I can go…” He grunted with effort at this point. “You know, I can, like, move with the body and match the voice to the movements, at least. And it makes it so much better. So yeah, there’s a lot of things in two and three where I’m like, ‘Gah, I wish I had just been able to see what was happening, I’d have been more satisfied with the result.”

You can find the full Metal Gear Solid panel from NYCC 2025 here on the Popverse website on December 3, 2025, but only if you're a paid Popverse Member.

Here's how to watch all the big panels from New York Comic Con 2025.