Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was released in 2013 and takes place in 2018. It is the final game, chronologically speaking, to be released, and gives us our last glimpse into the world of Metal Gear (for now at least). It was created by Platinum Games and is a Stylish Action fighter in the vein of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry; Raiden fights with a sword, and can engage a Bullet Time "Blade Mode" which allows the player to slice-and-dice foes to their hearts' desire.
Though the War Economy has collapsed, PMCs are still in big demand. Most have moved towards employing cyborgs as ground forces, since they have superior strength, speed, stamina, reflexes and durability. Raiden works for one of them, called Maverick. As the game opens, we find him and his cohort providing bodyguard detail for Prime Minister N'mani, who has brought peace to Africa. Raiden approves, as he follows the way of the samurai (despite being, technically, a cyborg ninja) and views his sword as "a tool for justice." Unfortunately, the peace train is derailed by other cyborg attackers: a fellow named Sundowner, who wields two machetes as scissors, and Jetstream Sam, who practices iaido
and fires his sword out of a sheath fashioned from an M-16 assault rifle. Sundowner murders N'mani and Sam makes short work of Raiden.
Three weeks later, Raiden is in a new cyborg body. Under orders from Maverick's leader, Boris, Raiden is sent to breakaway nation Abkhazia. Maverick's support team — tech expert Kevin, data analyst Courtney, and cyberneticist Doktor — have identified Jetstream Sam and Sundowner as members of Desperado, a PMC involved in terrorism, who are currently leading a coup in the nation. Desperado assign an AI in a canine-like body— IF Prototype LQ-84i, otherwise known as "Blade Wolf"— to defeat Raiden, but Raiden is able to overpower the machine. He then faces Mistral, a member (alongside Sundowner and Sam) of the Winds of Destruction, the Quirky Miniboss Squad that run Desperado. Raiden picks up the signature weapon of each miniboss he defeats, which is then available as an alternate weapon; in Mistral's case, this gives him a polearm made of the arms of Dwarf Gekko.
Raiden and Blade Wolf (the latter having been recovered and rebuilt by Maverick) are assigned to investigate a facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, where some sort of human trafficking is taking place. After meeting an escaped victim, a pre-adolescent named George, Raiden learns that the facility is pulling the brains out of kids and shipping them to America for training as future-cyborg Child Soldiers, either by Desperado or by World Marshal, a PMC associated with US Senator Steven Armstrong. Since child soldiers are Raiden's Berserk Button, he pledges to free the children. He is largely successful, though a doctor manages to take George captive, forcing Raiden to slice through the child (with George's consent) to get to the doctor.
With George safely upgraded to a cyborg, Raiden resigns from Maverick to wage a one-man war against World Marshal headquarters in Denver, Colorado and rescue the child-soldier-brains. Boris is obliged to officially condemn his actions, but Maverick continue to provide off-the-record support throughout, having decided where they want to come down when they have to choose To Be Lawful or Good. Raiden first battles the sai-wielding Monsoon, the final member of the Winds of Dstruction to be introduced; his body uses an electromagnetic variant of Detachment Combat to separate into tiny segments, making him practically intangible. At the top of the building he also faces Sundowner, whose body includes damage-proof shields on articulated arms in addition to his machete-scissors. During this assault, Raiden becomes increasingly distraught by his own actions and sinks back into his childhood persona, Jack the Ripper, before finally embracing it as his Limit Break. He is ultimately successful in his mission, allowing Doktor to escape with the brains. However, he learns from Sundowner that Armstrong brought World Marshal and Desperado together to affect an assassination on American President Hamilton, who is heading to Pakistan for peace talks. Even worse, the plan is set to go off in only a few hours, and Raiden is on the wrong side of the planet to stop it.
To get to Pakistan, Raiden gets in contact with a company called Solis, run by none other than the child prodigy Sunny Emmerich. She has developed a spaceplane which will get Raiden to Pakistan with several minutes to spare. However, the way is blocked by Jetstream Sam, who has a final showdown with Raiden. Blade Wolf, who served Sam prior to being turned by Raiden, is remorseful over the outcome, and takes Sam's HF blade to remember him by; Sam's is the only Miniboss weapon that Raiden doesn't get to wield as an alternate weapon.
Shabhazabad Air Base is quiet... too quiet. Raiden, infiltrating the base, finds Wolf's damaged body laid out for him, clearly as bait. Bait for what? Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a spider-tank piloted by none other than Senator Steven Armstrong. Armstrong reveals that Raiden has played directly into Armstrong's hands, since — even though Raiden does wreak enough havoc at the airbase to convince Air Force One to turn around — his actions will be misconstrued as the assassination attempt, and the American people are crying out for revengeance. Armstrong, with his connections to PMCs, will win any presidential election in a landslide. This would give him free rein to realize his vision of a society where only the strong survive, fighting and dying only for what they believe in — not for a company, nation, war economy, or anything else.
Though Raiden defeats EXCELSUS, he discovers that Armstrong is no pushover: he has augmented himself with "Nanomachines, son!" that make him Nigh-Invulnerable. Armstrong snaps Raiden's sword, but Bladewolf throws him Sam's, which kicks in a Heroic Second Wind. Raiden fully embraces his Jack The Ripper persona, declaring that he has changed his mind about his sword being a tool of justice. "Besides, this isn't my sword."
In the aftermath, Maverick receives government approval to begin outfitting the rescued brains with cyborg bodies, with the intent of establishing (for all intents and purposes) a cyborg temp agency. Bladewolf and George have gone to Solis to work with Sunny, with the latter two showing some romantic sparks. However, PMCs remain ubiquitous, especially with US-Pakistani tensions set ablaze by the incident at the airbase. And Raiden has been changed; as Armstrong himself accused him during their fight, they aren't so different, and Armstrong's memes of being The Unfettered will live on in Raiden whether Jack likes it or not. Consequently, Raiden resolves against returning to his wife and son in New Zealand, nor against rejoining Maverick: "I have my own war to fight."
