Retro Gaming Australia

Hideo Kojima is known for being active on Twitter, and today he let loose some knowledge regarding his two cult classic titles, Snatcher and Policenauts.

Snatcher was originally known as Junker, after the protagonist’s organisation in the game, but Konami found that the name was too similar to a mahjong title, and changed it. Kojima had to think of a new name – he wanted to avoid using Snatcher after naming Metal Gear after the game’s enemy, and briefly considered the name New Order before settling for the game’s final title.

Policenauts was originally entitled Beyond, but Konami was unable to obtain a trademark for the name. Apparently the game was also intended to be for a “Cinematic Virtual Reality” genre (similar to Metal Gear Solid’s Stealth Espionage Action) – Konami found nothing trademarked along these lines when the project started in 1990, but the term had been trademarked by the time the game was to be released and the naming was dropped.

Source: Andriasang