In a 1996 Gamest interview, some of the featured concept art shows designs for 2 characters named "Marisu" and "Teresu" who were not included in the final game. The game's character designer Mimori Fujinomiya commented:

"These were characters looked too much like ripoffs of the koropokkuru, so I abandoned them. Their personalities were too similar to Macky and Pentell, anyway. I do like their Robo-Dog though."

In a 1992 Famicom Tsuushin interview with the game's producer/designer Hiroyuki Takahashi, he stated that Jogurt/Yogurt was originally just a sketch character made by game's character designer Yoshihiro Tamaki. Tamaki thought the idea would be great to have a completely out-of-place character in the game's battles.

In a 1992 developer team interview featured in the Shining Force Encyclopedia, Tamaki admitted the character was created partially as a joke and before any of the official concept art had been completed. He also stated that Jogurt's face is based on the game's director Kenji Orimo.

English dub voice actor Karen Strassman, known for Kitana & Mileena from Mortal Kombat (2011) and Mortal Kombat X, did not return to voice her characters for Mortal Kombat 11, citing internal politics in the gaming industry that affected the game's casting.

In a 2019 "ESPN Esports" video/interview between ESPN commentator Arda Ocal & professional boxer Mike Tyson, Ocal asked him about Balrog (who made his first appearance in Street Fighter II under the name M. Bison, but had his name changed to Balrog in the English localization due to the close similarities to "M. Tyson") and if he knew about the game and his influence on Balrog's character design. Tyson responded that he knew nothing about either Street Fighter or Balrog, but that he was honored by Capcom's impersonation of him upon seeing it for the first time.

In a 1996 interview published in a Dungeons & Dragons mook (magazine & book portmanteau) covering Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystra and this game, the developers were asked why they choose Dungeons & Dragons as the setting. The game's designer Tomoshi Sadamoto responded:

"It was TSR, the copyright holder of D&D, who came to us first and talked about doing a game. However, an agreement could not be reached at that point and the project was on hold for awhile. Sometime later a compromise was reached, and we were able to start working on the first game, Tower of Doom."

He also admitted that from the beginning, the game was only intended for the arcade.

In a 1994 Hippon Super and Game-on magazines interview, the game's field graphics designer Tomoe Inazawa wanted the Serpent Trench's ocean floor less shallow-looking by making it darker and more impenetrable, realistic and alluring than how the ocean appeared in previous Final Fantasy games:

"Well, in reality, that’s how the ocean floor is: dark and impenetrable. What has been depicted in earlier games is really a shallower image of the ocean. So I was thinking about how to convey something more realistic, so I made it dark. Dark and alluring."

Bass and Tina's father-daughter relationship shares similarities to that of the one between former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and his daughter Brooke Hogan. Hulk Hogan was known to be very protective of his daughter in spite of her efforts to be more independent, which is often portrayed in their stage personas and public appearances. Also like Tina, Brooke has pursued careers outside of pro-wrestling; including modeling, acting, and music.

Bass Armstrong is heavily influenced by professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, both in his character design and moves.

Leifang's 14th costume from the Playstation version of the game is a reference to the Pixie from Monster Rancher.

Kasumi's 14th costume from the PlayStation version of the game is a reference to the Angel from Monster Rancher.

In a 1996 interview with the game's director Kouji Okada published in Dengeki PlayStation magazine, he stated that the demons are voiced by the staff from Atlus, including those enlisted from all over the company rather than just the game's developers, while also singling out that the female demons were voiced by female staff members.

Tina's default costume is based on an outfit worn by WWE professional wrestler Terri Runnels.

In Episode 172 of the webseries "The Angry Video Game Nerd" in which the Nerd reviewed Jurassic Park: Trespasser, James Rolfe conducted an interview with the game's executive producer Seamus Blackley about the game's development. He asked him why they used the Tribe C Alpha Velociraptor as the final boss when raptors were already the most frequently-encountered dinosaur in the game. He responded:

"We didn't have time to create, or budget to create a new boss dinosaur, and we were in a huge rush to finish, and we had a huge amount of pressure from DreamWorks Interactive. Of course all of these things are ludicrous now when you think about them, because as we say 'a late game is only late until it ships, but a bad game is bad forever'."

In the original Wii version, the river overpass in Santa Destroy has a wall underneath it with poor-enough
collision detection that if you walk into it in a certain way, Travis will clip through the wall and can walk infinitely directly underneath Santa Destroy, even out of the city. This glitch was fixed in all future re-releases of the game.

Ayane's 6th costume is based on Millennia, the protagonist from the Tecmo game Kagero: Deception II.

Helena's 3rd costume is a reference to Reina, the protagonist from the Tecmo game Deception III: Dark Delusion.

According to a 1993 Dengeki SFC magazine interview, the game's designer Norifumi Hara commented on the start of the game's development:

"We were tasked with creating a sequel to Tetris, and I love versus fighting games, so I wanted to make head-to-head competitive matches the main focus. Originally the title was "Batorisu" 1 [Note: This is a combination of the words "Batoru" (battle) and "Tetorisu" (Tetris) that does not quite translate well into English], and we were developing it for the Famicom, but of course the Super Famicom was a better choice, we realized."

In April 2012, to promote the game prior to its first playable appearance at E3, Konami created an alternate reality game (ARG) entitled "Make It Right" which primarily involved fans performing instructions revealed on the official Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Rising Facebook pages and websites weekly leading up to E3. The campaign started on April 25th, when Konami released a new teaser for the game hinting at news to be revealed five days later. In addition, Konami manufactured two replicas of Raiden's severed left arm and sent them to Game Informer and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Connected to each of the arms was a USB drive that contained several cryptic images related to the game's plot, as well as the first in a series of short, live-action trailers promoted as secret video files found in Raiden's arm which were released by Konami over the course of the ARG. These videos depicted flashbacks to Raiden (voiced by Quinton Flynn) undergoing surgical procedures initiated by Maverick Security Counseling, Inc. that ultimately turn him into a Cyborg Ninja, as well as flashbacks to his time training as a child soldier under Solidus Snake (voiced by John Cygan). The last flashback trailer depicting Solidus killing a hostage, released on May 17th, ended with a binary code message "01000101 00110011" which translates to "E3", and the final trailer released during the ARG was a short clip of the title screen to the game's E3 2012 demo. The events in the videos were meant to hint at what would be shown in the story to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but these events would end up only being mentioned in an optional codec call between Raiden and Doktor about left arm data.

Two other recognized actors featured in the videos include an interrogator played by Noah Nelson, the voice of Cunningham from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and a surgeon played by James Horan, who would later voice Skull Face in Metal Gear Solid V.

Jann Lee's 3rd costume is a reference to Bruce Lee as Hai Tien in his final, unfinished film The Game of Death.

According to a 1998 The Playstation magazine interview with the game's director Hideki Kamiya & writer Noboru Sugimura, they originally had no intention of bringing back the Tyrant, since the first game already had him as the final boss.

Kamiya thought of making him a "perfect, invincible Tyrant", but after the two talked it over, they realized it was a bad idea because he would be so strong that the G-virus would be rendered meaningless, so they came up with the idea of the Tyrant's mission to retrieve the G-virus instead.

Sugimura also commented on about the Scenario choice for the Tyrant:

"One of the consequences of having players go through the same scenario twice was that, by the second time, they’re used to things and it’s too easy. For that reason we decided to have the Tyrant appear in Scenario B, as a way to raise the difficulty."