People upset by the lack of Hayter: why? I realize that he has been Snake's voice, but with each game it has gotten considerably worse. Sutherland will be a good replacement.
Because to me, his voice has become synonymous with the character. Yeah, there was Richard Doyle in MGS4 (who at least sounded closer to Hayter than Keifer) but each game in which you've got to control Big Boss has featured Hayter doing the voice. He
is the character. No different than Nolan North
is Nathan Drake. Each actor brought something to the character that if you were to lose the actor, you kind of lose the character. The little inflections, pauses, subtleties, etc that Hayter would bring to the character are going to be lost and instead I will hear someone else trying to portray a character that has already been established a few times over. It will just create a major disconnect between me and the game and for a Metal Gear game, that is a big problem. Seeing a Big Boss that isn't much different visually from the previous versions of him but with an entirely new voice is almost laughable in a sense. I've never been a fan of changing a characters voice, especially if the actor has been the character and franchise for such a long time.
I've always felt however, that Kojima should have never used Hayter for Big Boss because it would end up causing issues. They should have gone with John Cygan, who did Solidus in MGS2 given he was the "perfect" clone of Big Boss. It would've made more sense, but they went with Hayter and he became Big Boss just as much as he became Solid Snake. Not to mention that not telling Hayter and basically keeping him out of the loop is a pretty pathetic and bullshit move too. Oh, and giving the fans a bizarre run around answer too.
But to each their own about his work. I found his work to be great throughout the series so I'll take Hayter over Sutherland any day. I don't have any qualms with Sutherland (in fact I really like him), but his voice is instantly recognizable as Jack Bauer or from a Ford commercial especially because if the gameplay footage we've seen is indicitive of his work throughout the game as Big Boss (assuming of course that is Sutherland and he is playing Big Boss) he isn't doing anything distinctly different from his natural voice.
Also, I've always loved his work in MGS4. Old Snake would have a fragile, shaky voice and Hayter did some good work with an older Snake voice. I'm sure I'll be attacked for it, but I like the work he did for it.
He will always be Jack Bauer to me, which will take me out of the experience.
Exactly. Just shouldn't happen.
