It features returning Metal Gear character Raiden as he confronts a private military company that intends to destabilize peaceful nations for profit.

The game underwent significant changes in gameplay mechanics and storyline with PlatinumGames' involvement, although Kojima Productions retained responsibility for the overall plot and Raiden's design.

[7] Throughout the story, the player obtains "Ripper Mode", a state which greatly enhances Raiden's power for a limited time as it quickly consumes energy.

[2] The player also has access to a "Ninja Run" mode, which drastically increases Raiden's speed and allows him to deflect bullets and climb certain areas for ambushes.

[15] The Patriots, a powerful deep state running the world's war economy, have been destroyed, and private military companies have splintered into numerous factions.

The player controls Raiden (Quinton Flynn), a former Liberian child soldier turned into a cyborg that now works for the PMC Maverick Security Consulting, Inc.[16][17] Raiden is supported by his Maverick colleagues, Russian pointman Boris Popov (JB Blanc),[11] military advisor Kevin Washington (Phil LaMarr), computer specialist Courtney Collins (Kari Wahlgren),[18] and cybernetics expert Wilhelm "Doktor" Voigt (Jim Ward).

[19] Returning from Metal Gear Solid 4 is Sunny Emmerich (Cristina Pucelli), a child prodigy and friend of Raiden working at Solis Space and Aeronautics.

[21] Sam works with an elite team of Desperado cyborg assassins named the "Winds of Destruction": Sundowner (Crispin Freeman), Desperado's de facto leader, who wields machetes that combine into a large pair of pincers, and who also has a set of reactive armour shields connected to his body;[22] Mistral (Salli Saffioti), the team's only female member, whose frame can support multiple additional arms, some of which combine into a staff that she can use as a whip;[23] and Monsoon (John Kassir), who wields dual sai and uses magnetism to manipulate large objects and separate his body into individual components, while retaining control over each part.

While providing security detail in an unnamed African country for its prime minister, N'Mani, Raiden and his team are attacked by rogue PMC Desperado.

World Marshal plans to condition the children to become killers through constant VR training, and place them inside cybernetic bodies to create new soldiers, similar to Raiden.

There, he discovers that Armstrong is using Desperado to distract Raiden while readying "Operation Tecumseh", a plan to assassinate the President of the United States during peace negotiations with Pakistan to ensure another war on terror.

Sunny helps Raiden travel to Shabhazabad Air Base in Pakistan, where he is attacked by Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a hexapedal mecha piloted by Armstrong who takes down Blade Wolf.

Armstrong, being a primary shareholder of the latter, would win the subsequent Presidential election in a landslide, giving him free rein to realize his vision of a social Darwinist society, where the strong will thrive and the weak will be purged.

[35] Doktor receives approval to create a new cyborg staffing firm, allowing them to shelter the orphans' brains and potentially give them a chance at a better life, while George and Blade Wolf go live at Solis with Sunny.

Afterwards, a member suggested turning it into a sidestory focused on Raiden since said character was featured in Guns of the Patriots and the staff agreed to develop Metal Gear Solid: Rising.

[36] The narrative was meant to chronicle the series of events that resulted in the transformation of Raiden into his cyborg ninja persona in Metal Gear Solid 4[5][9] albeit with a different and somewhat more crude appearance.

[43] During Microsoft's E3 press conference on June 14, Kojima introduced the game's original lead designer, Mineshi Kimura, who unveiled a new trailer which included cutscene and playing footage.

[45] Kimura noted that he wanted Raiden to be able to move like he did in the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailers, and to show "the stealth of the sword, and the strength of not even losing to the gun, and the fear and power you have with this blade.

[55] Shortly after starting development, PlatinumGames discarded the stealth element, with Kojima noting that the original staff did not find it to fit with high-speed action.

[62] As in the original scrapped version, Korekado stated that the staff's objective was to make Raiden's action scenes from Metal Gear Solid 4 playable.

[78] The game's score was composed by Jamie Christopherson,[79] with additional music by Graeme Cornies, Brian Pickett, James Chapple, and David Kelly, and directed by Naoto Tanaka.

[81] The soundtrack features vocals by artists including John Bush, Tyson Yen, Free Dominguez, Jason C. Miller, and Jimmy Gnecco, with contributions by Logan Mader, The Maniac Agenda, and Ferry Corsten.

[108] The downloadable content for Rising consists of five cyborg body types for Raiden, a set of "VR Missions", and two story-based campaigns starring a different character each.

All the downloadable content has since been made available for general users on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live and are included as standard features in the Windows version of the game.

[132] Inaba noted on his Twitter account that several Western gamers believed the game was too short based on a results screen that showed a clear time of five-and-a-half hours.

"[127]The campaign has also been criticized for a short running time, though Miguel Concepción from The Escapist cited the multiple challenging difficulties as a way to encourage the players to play through the game more than once.

[119][123] Despite being a spin-off and lacking the series' protagonist Solid Snake, Concepción found the setting post-Guns of the Patriots to contain several classic Metal Gear elements that old players would find familiar.

[122] PlatinumGames' president Tatsuya Minami stated that he expected good sales from the game due to strong marketing and being part of the Metal Gear series.

[135] Shortly after its release, Hideo Kojima mentioned having been pleased due to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance selling well around the world, but did not share numbers.

As the original project was a prequel to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Kojima would like the concept to be revisited, although he thought that PlatinumGames would have problems with it as a result of being an "interquel."