Raiden (Japanese: 雷電), real name Jack (ジャック, Jakku), is a character and one of the protagonists of Konami's Metal Gear series of action-adventure stealth video games.

Created by Hideo Kojima and designed by Yoji Shinkawa, Raiden was introduced in the series as the main player character of the 2001 game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

He is also the main character of the 2013 game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, in which he is dealing with his past and his present life as a combatant who faces enemies from private military companies.

Raiden, who was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories and a fan's letter wanting a younger character to be featured in the series, originated from Kojima's desire to see Snake from a different point of view.

[4] The romantic relationship between Raiden and Rosemary was inspired by Kojima's experiences; their names, Jack and Rose, are a reference to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet's lead characters in the film Titanic.

[10] The design of Raiden's underwater rebreather mask was inspired by ancient mystical ninjutsu, where the ninja bites a scroll in the mouth during magic transformations.

However, this concept was also scrapped to simply Raiden slicing Solidus' vertebral column with the boss falling from the area to give the idea he could not accept his defeat.

[5] The surprise to fans that Raiden was not Snake was admitted by Kojima to have been inspired by the plot twist of Terminator 2: Judgment Day where the titular character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a villain in that movie.

[20] Raiden's fights in Guns of the Patriots were made to assist the weaker Solid Snake and appealed to previous fans of the series who disliked the character.

[28] While Steven Armstrong was the game's final antagonist, the character of Jetstream Sam was developed to be Raiden's rival, something Shinkawa and fellow designer Kenichirou Yoshimura worked together to make both of them contrast each other through their visual appearances.

Although proficient at all types of weaponry, Raiden specializes in wielding swords that resonate at high frequencies for the last fights in Sons of Liberty,[39] and during Guns of the Patriots and Revengeance.

Hideo Kojima compared Raiden and Snake with movie monsters King Kong and Godzilla, respectively; the former was taken from his home and his nature changes upon meeting Rosemary, whereas the latter will continue fighting against mankind's menaces.

[45] In the Japanese versions of the games, Raiden has been voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi,[46] who first saw him as an attractive young man whose actions in Son of Liberty were challenging for his identity.

Kojima liked Horiuchi's work, believing Raiden became popular in Japan in part because of his performance, something which he felt the character lacked in Western regions.

[52] Addressing Guns of the Patriots's Raiden as more aggressive than the original one, Flynn stated his favorite take on the character was Revengeance's as it there he acted as a "blend" between the two incarnations.

[57][58] As the story progresses, Jack is revealed to be a former child soldier who fought for the Sons of Liberty leader Solidus Snake during the First Liberian Civil War.

They are attacked by a group of terrorists called Desperado Enforcement LLC that kill his protectee, N'mani, and leave Raiden near to death with mercenary Jetstream Sam taking a liking to his fighting style.

[75] Raiden then resigns from Maverick to pursue and retrieve the children's brain cases from World Marshal in Colorado, embracing his sadistic persona "Jack the Ripper" due to his constant struggles with Sam and Desperado's cyborg Monsoon.

[80] Raiden appears in a series of comical scenes in an early promotional trailer for Guns of the Patriots, in which he fights for control of the franchise with Solid Snake.

[87] The game's novelization by Raymond Benson makes minor modifications to Raiden's history, except for the moment he receives Olga's sword, resulting in a change to his battle psyche.

When Raiden kills Solidus he cuts the rope on Federal Hall National Memorial's flagpole, causing an American flag to cover his enemy's body.

[99][100] Snake's voice actor, David Hayter, was also surprised by the inclusion of Raiden in Sons of Liberty, believing his character was meant to be the returning protagonist.

Newman considered trailers for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in which Raiden is mocked to be Konami's comic response to fans' disapproval.

As the game progresses it is stated that Raiden "has become Snake", having developed skills similar to those he gained from taking part in the Big Shell's fights that resemble Metal Gear Solid's Shadow Moses Island.

[117][118] GameSpot staff stated that Raiden "is definitely the inheritor of the quasi-unkillable Cyborg Ninja inheritance" when he made his first appearance in a Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer.

[134][135] In the book Rules of Nature, Heather Alexandria, a former writer for Kotaku and Polygon, praised Raiden's dark persona as it causes an existential crisis in the protagonist's ideals of hero to his psychopath roots.

Despite his anti-heroic tendencies, Raiden's humanity deeply affects BladeWolf, who stands out as a result of he being an artificial intelligence but manages to make his own rules after interacting with him several times.

However, despite being able to apprehend each other's viewpoints and knowing violence would only make things worse, Armstrong's ideals are so extreme that the only resolution is violent conflict, and the resulting destruction will bring change.

[138] Raiden finding conviction with his inner past persona during Revengeance was noted to go with the ideas of enjoying the hack and slash mechanics, leading to the handling of violence in video games.

This contrasts other violent video game protagonists Kratos from God of War or Nathan Drake from Uncharted whose actions are never questioned in their stories while Raiden instead accepts the sins he has committed.