Psycho Mantis

Psycho Mantis
Metal Gear character
Official artwork of Psycho Mantis as he appears in Metal Gear Solid.
First appearance	Metal Gear Solid (1998)
Created by	Hideo Kojima[1]
Designed by	Yoji Shinkawa[2]
Voiced by	EN: Doug Stone[3] JA: Kazuyuki Sogabe[3]
In-universe information
Gender	Male

Psycho Mantis (Japanese: サイコ・マンティス) is a fictional boss in Konami's Metal Gear video game series. Psycho Mantis first appears in Metal Gear Solid, where he is one of the many antagonists who helps main antagonist Liquid Snake in his attempt to capture Shadow Moses Island. Psycho Mantis is a psychic, and has numerous psychic powers he uses throughout the game. Psycho Mantis attempts to stop protagonist Solid Snake, though he is killed in the process. Psycho Mantis goes on to reappear in several later games in the series. In English, he is voiced by Doug Stone, while in Japanese he is voiced by Kazuyuki Sogabe.

Despite his small first appearance, the scene where Psycho Mantis reveals himself to Solid Snake has been praised by critics. The fourth wall breaking narratives have been the subject of significant analysis in regards to the scene's immersive qualities, as well as how it demonstrates the relationship between Snake and the player. Psycho Mantis's fourth-wall breaking scene has been considered one of the most iconic moments in video gaming history.

Psycho Mantis is a psychic and an antagonist in the game Metal Gear Solid. He appears halfway through the game in a dialog and battle sequence. Psycho Mantis uses his psychic powers to mind control protagonist Solid Snake's ally Meryl Silverburgh, having her offer confessions of love to Snake to lower his guard. Snake is unfazed, and after knocking Meryl out, Psycho Mantis reveals himself. Psycho Mantis then seeks to prove his psychic powers to Snake, and in doing so initiates a series of fourth wall breaking demonstrations. He first reads Metal Gear Solid's metadata about the player's actions in order to make a judge of their personality, before then reading the system's memory card to read what other games the player is a fan of.^[4] If the player has a DualShock vibrating controller, Mantis will instruct the player to place it on the ground, at which point he will activate the controller's rumble effect. He then causes the console to appear to disconnect before transitioning into battle, in which he can seemingly read all of the player's movements. Following advice from in-game hints, players can shift their controller from the first controller port to the second controller port, which will render Mantis unable to read their movements.^[4] Mantis is killed by Snake during the battle.^[5][6]

In-game dialogue reveals that, when Mantis was a child, his mother had died in childbirth while giving birth to him. His father hated him as a result. Mantis discovers this while reading his father's mind, causing Mantis to burn his village to the ground out of fear.^[7] Mantis joined the KGB later in his life, and afterward joined the CIA, using his psychic powers to delve into the minds of suspected criminals. After delving too deep into the mind of a serial killer, Mantis went insane.^[8] According to Mantis, he joined with Liquid Snake, the game's main antagonist in order to "kill as many people as he could" as he had grown disgusted with the human race.^[7]

Mantis briefly re-appears in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, where his ghost appears to control the deceased body of the boss enemy Screaming Mantis. Mantis attempts to perform a similar fourth-wall breaking display as he did in Metal Gear Solid. Due to a lack of a memory card in the PlayStation 3 console the game is played on, Mantis is unable to demonstrate his psychic powers. If the player is using a DualShock vibrating controller, he will become excited by the fact he is still able to manipulate the controller.^[8][9] Psycho Mantis later appears as a cameo in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.^[10]

A younger version of Psycho Mantis appears in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, where he is a child under the name Tretij Rebenok. He is manipulated by the game's main antagonist, Skull Face, who uses Rebenok to control a Metal Gear robot with the goal of killing all English-speaking people in the world. Rebenok is later influenced by the rage of protagonist Venom Snake's ally, Eli, who earns Rebenok's allegiance. This allows Eli to gain control over the robot.^[11]

Metal Gear series designer Hideo Kojima was inspired to create Psycho Mantis after watching the 1978 film The Fury, leading the team use the film's depiction of psychic power as a reference. Kojima stated that when developing Mantis, he wished to harness the concept of masters telling their students to clear their minds. The only method he could think of to reflect this was to switch the controller ports, though some younger members of the staff disagreed with Kojima's decision.^[1] Mantis was designed by character artist Yoji Shinkawa.^[2] Psycho Mantis has been portrayed in voice by Doug Stone in English and by Kazuyuki Sogabe in Japanese.^[3]

Later adaptations of the game had to re-imagine interactions with Psycho Mantis that were designed for the Playstation hardware. In PC ports of the game, the player must use the keyboard to trick Mantis, while later PlayStation console ports require players to go to the settings and switch their controller connection to Player 2.^[12] The novel adaptation of the game additionally changed the scene from the usual boss fight to a deep dive into Snake's character, with hallucinations being used against Snake to provide insights into his character.^[13] The comic adaptation of the game had Mantis appear on a cliffhanger, threatening to use his powers to make Meryl shoot herself, before seemingly being defeated by Snake's ally Master Miller. Miller is revealed to be an illusion of Mantis's, and Snake proceeds to defeat Mantis in battle.^[13] Additionally, in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1, which contains a remake of Metal Gear Solid, an option exists to allow players to curate their save data, allowing them to select what games Mantis will reference during his boss battle.^[14]

Despite Psycho Mantis's brief appearance in Metal Gear Solid, his role in the game has been consistently received as one of the most iconic and celebrated scenes in video games.^[4][13] Nicholas David Bowman, as part of the book 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, described how Psycho Mantis's fourth wall breaking abilities deeply impacted the players in terms of not only Psycho Mantis's battle, but also in his interactions with the player, stating that "Rarely has a game character violated so many assumptions about the rules of engagement—stretching the conflict from the television screen to the player’s own mind."^[4] In IGN's ranking of gaming's greatest villains, the publication stated that Mantis "attacked players on all fronts," with his manipulation of Meryl preying on the feelings players developed for her at that point in the game.^[15] The number of fourth wall breaks, alongside their quality, was described by the book A Brief History Of Video Games: From Atari to Virtual Reality as making the battle "a bravura performance rather than a mere novelty" that emphasized its uniqueness in comparison to other games that existed.^[5] Hideo Kojima later stated that Psycho Mantis was his favorite character in the series.^[16] Filmmaker and director Guillermo del Toro additionally praised the Psycho Mantis scene for being able to transcend the video game medium.^[17] A commercial advertising the Ford Focus aired in 2016, which parodied the scene where Mantis reads Snake's mind. Doug Stone reprised his role as Mantis for the commercial.^[16][18][19] A statuette of Psycho Mantis was also released in 2018.^[20]

Andy Kelly of TheGamer praised the battle with Mantis for its inventiveness and ingenuity, highlighting it as one of the scenes that helped make the original Metal Gear Solid an iconic game due to how it was able to effectively utilize its medium as a video game in a way few other pieces of media could.^[7] Manon Hume of Game Informer also praised its inventiveness and how it effectively was able to make the player question their control over the game and its world.^[21] Brendan Main of The Escapist posited that Mantis's ability to unnerve the player with their save data was an experience that was not replicable outside of Metal Gear Solid itself. This caused an uncertainty in the minds of players about their ability to properly control the game, and further emphasized how decisions in the game were made by the will of the player, and not that of protagonist Solid Snake.^[6] Mantis's ability to influence the framework of the game was described by the book Once Upon a Pixel: Storytelling and Worldbuilding in Video Games as amplifying the tension of the encounter.^[22] The book Metagames: Games About Games additionally expressed how the breaking of the fourth wall emphasized the power of Psycho Mantis as a character, describing how the battle requiring the player's own input to complete was used to show the player's own weakness in comparison to Psycho Mantis.^[23] Chad Concelmo of Destructoid stated that Psycho Mantis's manipulation of the fourth wall was revolutionary for the time and was able to maintain its weight even long after the game's release, even despite the battle's own lack of emotional weight in comparison to other scenes in the game.^[24] His dissonance from other bosses in the game was highlighted by the book 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends, as unlike prior bosses, players had to think outside of the box in order to defeat Psycho Mantis.^[9]

The book The Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games analyzed how Psycho Mantis's boss fight and ability to dodge controller inputs came at a point where the player was familiar with how Metal Gear Solid worked, describing how it "defamiliarizes players" from the game's controls and mechanics.^[25] Mantis's ability to make it appear as if the game had disconnected was described by the book Hideo Kojima: Progressive Game Design from Metal Gear to Death Stranding as showing how the developers of the game had control not only just over the game, but also the medium the game was being played in.^[26] His self-awareness was additionally described by the book the book Framing Uncertainty: Computer Game Epistemologies as allowing Mantis to cross a "border" between the game's world and the real world, causing a deep level of uncertainty in players,^[27] with the book Once Upon a Pixel: Storytelling and Worldbuilding in Video Games additionally stating that this ability made Mantis more terrifying as an opponent.^[22] The International Journal of Transmedia Literacy analyzed Psycho Mantis's rhetoric, finding that the shift from Psycho Mantis referring to Snake in his dialogue to referring to the player helped emphasize the player's importance in the narrative of the game, requiring the player to take action in the real world in order to save the game's protagonist.^[13]

Once Upon a Pixel: Storytelling and Worldbuilding in Video Games described how the sequence was able to remind players of the fact that the world of Metal Gear Solid was in a video game, and that while they controlled Snake, they themselves would never amount to actually being Snake. This was described as causing both identification and alienation in players simultaneously, with Mantis's actions being analyzed as part of a "circle" or "feedback loop" due to Mantis being able to "thrust" the player out of the loop they experienced while playing the game in Snake's shoes.^[22] The book Performativity in Art, Literature, and Videogames also described a "feedback loop" caused by the player's involvement with Psycho Mantis's fourth-wall breaking, stating that the battle caused confusion between "human physiological processes and computational processes".^[28] Others academics additionally analyzed that the interactivity with the video game console required to defeat Mantis helped serve a metanarrative role in the game, making the game more immersive for players overall due to their interaction with the game itself.^[29][30]