Character Name: Grey Fox
Character Origin: Metal Gear (MSX, 1987), based on his appearance in Metal Gear Solid (PSX, 1998)
Character Class: Damage
Given I think there's a possibility of the former's role being snapped up by Raiden purely on the basis of both using a sword, I think this would be a good opportunity to shill for the original Cyborg Ninja, and present a case for him being an interesting character to add to this game.
History & Logic
Grey Fox is a reoccuring character from the
Metal Gear series, and has the interesting distinction of being the most reoccuring boss character in the entire franchise - having been fought five times up until now (compared to Vamp, Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot, all of whom have been fought four times.) He originally appeared as an informant in the first two
Metal Gear games, but had his role significantly expanded to being a prominent antagonist in
Metal Gear Solid...
before dying at the hands of Liquid piloting the Metal Gear Rex. He also appeared in
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops as a semi-secret character under the name of "Null", though wielding a machete instead of a high-frequency blade. It's also worth noting that his role as the "Cyborg Ninja" would also go on to appear throughout the series - being used by "Mr. X" in
MGS2, and then by Raiden in
MGS4 and
Rising.
As for his iconic status, it's pretty undeniable. He's a character still getting merchandise to this day, not to mention references throughout the
Metal Gear series, and his frankly very cool design has drawn fans to him ever since - to the point that he was even selected in the role of an Assist Trophy to represent
Metal Gear Solid in
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, reprising that role in
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and therefore being signalboosted even more. Not to mention, he's just a genuinely really interesting character with some great design elements, all of which combines together to make him a great candidate for this game.
Playstyle
Ideally, Grey Fox would be a fast-paced character who'd excel at getting close to opponents and causing some chaos, but he'd somewhat lack the capacity to go up against a number of opponents - preferring to ambush them and pick them off one by one. Given his lack of any form of self-heal and his below-average pool of health, going right up against a tank isn't going to end well for him either - so you'll need to be smart and strategic while using him.
Loadout
Passive Ability #1: Armoured Exoskeleton
A passive, always-active ability of Grey Fox's is related to his Exoskeleton. Specifically, when taking damage, he gets a damage multiplier of 0.9x on
anything that hits him... for the first hit. Immediately after this, Grey Fox will momentarily discharge electricity - during which time he suffers a damage multiplier of 1.1x, then returns back to his 0.9x multiplier. The period of vulnerability lasts roughly 30 frames, and while he's still actionable during that time, it's important to avoid consecutive hits wherever possible - especially considering Grey Fox's health isn't too high to begin with. However, a curious little note is that if an enemy is
really close to him while he discharges this electricity, it'll deal chip damage to them and make them flinch.
Passive Ability #2: Exoskeleton Agility
Grey Fox's second passive ability is an additional movement tool he has access to by default - namely, two types of wall-run. When running directly at a vertical wall while grounded, he can run up the wall for a short time, and then even jump from it - giving him an additional degree of verticality that a lot of characters don't have access to. Additionally, when airborne, you can run along a wall for a short time to increase your horizontal movement, or even jump from that wall too. Obviously, when in wide-open spaces, this isn't particularly useful - but when in closed-off "corridors", it makes Grey Fox's movement and agility a terrifyingly potent one to go up against.
Passive Ability #3: Exoskeleton Evasion
A tertiary passive that Grey Fox has access to. Admittedly, this is mostly visual in nature - all it does is alters some of Grey Fox's animations when jumping to avoid enemy fire to be flips, more closely referencing his animations from
Metal Gear Solid. However, it does slightly increase Grey Fox's jump height, albeit not by all that much. It might be a much-needed boost to get you out of the way of enemies, though - and this boosted jump can still be paired with the secondary Exoskeleton Agility wall-run.
Passive Ability #4: Radar Scramble
A weirder and significantly more niche passive of Grey Fox's - specifically, if he's within a radius of around 15 metres of a character who has some form of "radar" tool allowing them to position nearby enemies (whether that be some kind of map, enemy outlines, or otherwise), Grey Fox isn't picked up by any of it...
unless he's in the possible line of sight of the character (in which case they don't have to be directly looking at him.) This, again, is a reference to a piece of kit within his exoskeleton as seen in
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, as well as promotional and supplementary material.
Primary Weapon: High-Frequency Blade (Melee)
While "only a fool trusts his life to a weapon", Grey Fox's iconic tool of choice would be an obvious pick for his primary weapon. High-Frequency Blade would be a surprisingly versatile tool that'd lend to Grey Fox's playstyle being a little more tempered than you might expect at first - though it'd still be a very effective base for his toolkit overall. It's of course based on the High-Frequency Blade he wields in
Metal Gear Solid, as well as other appearances of similar weapons throughout the series, such as in
Metal Gear Rising: Revengenance.
As a notable visual element, if the blade is used to actually kill an opponent, the resulting slice actually cuts them along where they were slashed. Otherwise, it just functions like any other melee weapon. It's also worth noting that it emits a constant, albeit very quiet hum when drawn. Additionally, I can't find any evidence of these attack names being official - I just came up with them due to their connection to "frequency".
- Input Left Click for Frequency Slash, a simple slash forward with the High-Frequency Blade that does a decent amount of damage and - more importantly - doesn't have too much lag to deal with, making it reasonably repeatable. Inputting three consecutive Frequency Slashes results in the fourth being a powerful downward slash with a little extra starting lag, but a guaranteed crit on hit.
- Hold Left Click for Resonant Slash, a charge-based attack that has Grey Fox flip and dive forward before slashing in the direction in which you're aiming. This attack's a lot more powerful in terms of damage than a simple Frequency Slash, but it's also a lot more committal due to it moving you forward and being quite telegraphed, so you'll need to be careful and not just throw this out all the time. After use, it goes on a cooldown of two seconds.
- Tap Right Click for Oscillating Deflection, a unique ability that allows Grey Fox to deflect incoming projectiles in the direction he's currently facing, while also providing a neat 1.05x multiplier to their damage. Additionally, this allows him to block (but not deflect) melee attacks that hit him - with him being actionable very quickly after deflecting a melee attack, allowing him to strike back. Oscillating Deflection is only active for around 20 frames, and has a cooldown of five seconds... as well as only being able to be activated when using High-Frequency Blade - so you'll need to be smart about how you use it.
Secondary Weapon: Arm-Mounted Cannon (Ranged)
While it doesn't maintain the same versatility as the High-Frequency Blade, Grey Fox's secondary weapon would help alleviate one of his weaknesses a little - specifically, his lack of ranged tools. Being another weapon we've seen Grey Fox wield, albeit much more sparingly than his other - specifically being the cannon he uses against the Metal Gear REX on Shadow Moses Island in
Metal Gear Solid - it's another iconic callback to his most iconic appearance.
- Input Left Click for Plasmatic Bolt, a low-powered but accurate projectile fired directly forward. While not particularly high in damage, it does a decent enough job at providing a little pressure due to its surprisingly high rate of fire. Grey Fox can carry up to four magazines, each of which contains eight individual shots, allowing for a total cap of 32 ammunition.
- Input Right Click for Rapid Plasmatic Bolt, a semi-automatic alternate version of Plasmatic Bolt that's characterised by its unusual functionality. Specifically, just tapping Right Click will have it fire off two Plasmatic Bolts in succession, but you can hold Right Click to charge up more - up to a total of eight, limited by the amount of ammo you have left in your magazine. Whilst these Plasmatic Bolts don't deal additional damage compared to their normal variant, their rapid rate of fire means they're likely to do more cumulative damage... but overuse of this eats through your quite small cap of 32 ammunition, so you'll want to use it sparingly.
Additional Ability #1: Stealth Camouflage
Another one of Grey Fox's most iconic elements is that his exoskeleton contains an in-built stealth camouflage device, allowing him to conceal himself from enemies even at close range. However, in his first boss fight in
Metal Gear Solid, this camouflage is found to have a weakness - chaff grenades, which interfere with the systems and automatically deactivate it. I'd play on that a little here.
- Input Hotkey #1 for Stealth Camouflage, which bends light around Grey Fox to make him (mostly) invisible (which I'll delve into the specifics of in a moment) for up to 7 seconds, before going on a 15 second cooldown. However, Stealth Camouflage - while being usable while Grey Fox is moving - is automatically deactivated whenever he performs an attack, takes damage, or uses any other offensive ability, resulting in the full 15 second cooldown regardless of how long it's been active.
The degree to which this effect functions depends on two things - your distance from an observer, and if you're being observed through a scope. I mention this because, for balancing reasons, Grey Fox's camouflage would never be perfect - there'd always be a very slight shimmer indicating where he is. However, this shimmer is more noticable either when Grey Fox is close up to an observer, or if an observer sees Grey Fox through a scope.
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