It's possible to beat MGS: Rising without killing anyone, says producer

When your goal is to be the second most invisible person in the fictional world (number one goes to the Invisible Woman for, well, obvious reasons), it's actually not all that difficult to avoid sullying your hands by snapping some necks.

But when you're a one-man army/watermelon-dicing machine, being discrete about who you do and don't slice to ribbons isn't quite as much of a priority. Rising, however, is still a Metal Gear game. And a no-kill playthrough, according to the game's producer, is still definitely an option.

"I believe that MGS has a key stealth element in not trying to kill anyone," producer Shigenobu Matsuyama told Kotaku. "You could actually have a no-kill completion [in Rising]."

"There will be a lot of mechs and cyborgs, but if you slice them up, that will be considered as a no-kill as well. You'll have the freedom of killing humans, of course, but you can proceed through the game without killing a human being, but slicing up mechs and cyborgs."

Precision cutting, meanwhile, will allow you to disable enemies' weapons without flicking the off-switch in their hearts as well.

At the end of the day, though, Rising's a game about how awesome cutting people is, right? Not quite, as it turns out.

"I will put the essence of the beauty of the no-kill," Matsuyama said. "I want to emphasize that I will never reward a player for killing human beings in the game. I won't make it easier to clear the game [that way]. I will probably make it more difficult."

So let's get this straight: guns don't kill people; people kill people. And Raiden doesn't kill people. But he does kill guns. With a sword.