Payton: MGS4 pre-launch was "a blur"

Speaking to 1UP, MGS4 associate producer Ryan Payton has admitted that running up to the game's launch was more than a little taxing.

"It's all kind of a blur," he said. "I tell people who visited us at the Nasu Boot Camp event back in March that I don't really remember much about it because I was so tired. There were so many things going on in my head. I had a huge 100-item list that I knew I had to take care of before the game launched. Things I had to check and things I had to fix. I was in a hazy state."

Payton added that an intense launch period is par for the course, and gave a nice insight into what happens at Kojima Productions when the s**t hits the fan.

"A day in the life... when you're in crunch time, at least in Japan, you sleep when you can. I'm lucky enough that I live close to the studio where I can sleep for a few hours, get a shower, and come back and feel semienergized, whereas a lot of the other guys don't have that luxury. Really, it's about squeezing every minute you can to keep checking the game.

"One tradition we have is that we all run to the convenience store for lunch. No more of these one-hour breaks. During crunch time we're going downstairs to 7-Eleven, and all you see is the Kojima Productions staff doing the same thing - grabbing onigiri, maybe a sandwich, and taking it upstairs. The same thing goes for dinner. That's what crunch time is like -- you put every single minute you have into the game."

Worth a read.