There’s a point several hours into Metal Gear Solid Delta (out Aug. 28) where, depending on your level of familiarity and reverence for the franchise, you might ask, “What’s the point of this?”
Konami’s remake of Hideo Kojima’s PS2 classic, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004), is certainly much prettier, with a graphical sheen bringing the game up to modern standards; and there’s some system-wide improvements that make it easier to play. But overall, it’s literally the same game from two decades ago, warts and all. And yes, despite most people’s pedestal-level love for the game, it most definitely has some warts.
At a time when video game remakes are woven into the release calendar at dizzying speeds, was the nearly 1:1 revival of Metal Gear Solid 3 really something we needed? Yes and no. For Konami, a company that’s been mostly MIA since the franchise’s perceived swan song in 2015, it’s a chance to reintroduce the brand after the 10-year gap post-Metal Gear Solid V — there’s now an entire generation of players who don’t even know what this series is. But unlike last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake (also from Konami), Delta doesn’t fundamentally change the game or make it feel new. In fact, it feels especially old in ways both good and bad.
Whether Metal Gear Solid Delta has value is dependent on how much you already love the original (as many do) or if there’s a special kind of delight in stepping into a bizarre time capsule of 2000s gaming.
Basically, it’s a full remake of the 2004 game made by series creator Kojima, prior to his departure from Konami to launch his own IP, Death Stranding. True to the original’s vision, Delta is a stealth-focused action game that sees players controlling FOX operative Snake in a cinematic, sneaking mission that’s equal parts action movie pastiche, soap opera, and philosophical TED Talk.
Set in 1964, the story is chronologically the first in the series, following Snake’s ascension to legendary solder/spy status before taking a more villainous turn in the original Metal Gear (1987). In that older game, he goes under the name Big Boss (which he acquires here), going against the OG protagonist Solid Snake (who’s revealed in a later entry to be Boss’ clone; it’s a whole thing).
Delta stars Naked Snake, A.K.A. Big Boss from later Metal Gear games.
Konami
Taking place at the very beginning of the series before the lore gets more convoluted, Delta serves as a good entry point for newcomers, even when its supporting cast and major reveals have more impact on those who know their importance down the line. Think of it like the Star Wars prequels: sure, you could (somehow) grow attached to Anakin Skywalker without knowing he becomes Darth Vader, but the story really works better if you do.
When it first arrived, Metal Gear Solid 3 was itself a return to the foundation of the franchise, centered on a jungle-bound infiltration and survival mission akin to 1987 game that draws inspiration from numerous pop culture touchstones like First Blood. While Metal Gear Solid (1998) and Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) were more about urban espionage and sci-fi tropes inspired by midnight movies like Escape from New York, MGS3 leaned into its Cold War-era setting with an intentionally cheesy tone riffing on James Bond films, complete with an opening musical number.
The game is a gonzo Kojima production through and through, tonally whipping between self-serious conversations about the nature of war and patriotism, and villains who can shoot lighting from their hands or morph into a swarm of bees. That saccharine silliness juxtaposed with the heady themes of the plot are part of the DNA of the franchise throughout all entries and would follow Kojima to his current work on Death Stranding.
The tone swings wildly between self-serious and ludicrous, which is often fun, but sometimes erratic.
Konami
But in both MGS3 and Delta, the erratic mix of inspiration can be jarring. A mostly rizz-less Snake tries to make nice with a scantily clad female double agent one minute, then wades through an ethereal river of souls next. It’s really a love it or hate it deal, but for many the gameplay and specific tone of the game make it potentially the best of the series.
Delta is designed to adhere to everything that made the source material what it was, with all the original dialogue and sequences intact. If anything, it feels more like a reskin than a soup-to-nuts remake.
What does Delta do that’s new?
Not much! Although that’s not entirely true — outside of the modern graphical updates that bring the visuals into the hi-def era, there are numerous touches that streamline the controls and make the experience less cumbersome than before. The biggest change comes in the form of a new camera system that allows players to look around the environments in real time and maneuver Snake much more fluidly from an over-the-shoulder perspective rather than the more rigidly fixed standpoints from before.
There’re also subtle details like a compass to orient the player to avoid getting lost in the dense jungle zones, which are broken into bite-sized areas but interconnect via different paths and exits. There are also graciously provided shortcuts to doing tasks that previously required tons of sifting through menus, like swapping out camouflage palettes, healing wounds, and eating rations.
New shortcuts streamline specific actions like healing and camo swapping for the better.
Konami
The big selling point on MGS3’s survival schtick was that everything a person would need to do to outlast the jungle’s hazards needed to be done in-game. That meant hunting for food (that can hunt you back!), eating it for stamina, and systemically performing medical aid on Snake — even using the right combination of tools to extract bullets, clean and suture wounds, and apply bandages. All of that is here but it’s a little quicker to do, which is good given how frequently stamina drops and minor injuries will impede the action.
While these details are new, it’s easy for all but the most dedicated players who have revisited MGS3 time and again to forget that the original title didn’t accommodate. Stepping into Delta, at first, feels like the exact same game, or at least how you might remember it. It’s only when the player toggles into legacy mode, which plays identically to the old game, that the advancements truly become apparent. But for newcomers, the enhanced mechanics, minor or otherwise, will be lost — especially with how frustratingly archaic most of the other controls can be.
For all its modern flourishes, Delta is hindered by slavishly adhering to the core gameplay of its 2004 progenitor. Now, that might be controversial; earlier this month at a Konami preview event filled with journalists and content creators who all worship the OG MGS3, the hype around playing the exact same game with minor tweaks was palpable. In a few short hours, some attendees had flexed their muscle memory to speed run through two-thirds of the game. But for others, it was more frustrating.
The sheer volume of cut scenes and Codec conversations still impedes the game’s momentum.
Konami
Like everyone else, I loved Metal Gear Solid 3 when it came out, and many of the returning sequences and little details like sound effects tickle the brain of my younger self. But by the end of the (multiple) opening cinematic cut scenes and extended Codec radio exposition dumps, it’s hard not to hover over the skip button. Despite how people decry contemporary games as being playable movies, you’d be hard-pressed to find recent releases that stop down as frequently and for as long as this one in between moments of actual gameplay.
If you don’t know the plot of the game, or just genuinely want to revisit hours of passive movie time, the video scenes and endless dialogue on two-way comms can be engrossing. It’s all a gratuitous, cartoonish soap opera that shoo-in some navel gazing (that doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny) — and it can be really entertaining for a go around. But eventually you just want to play the game, but Delta is never content with that notion.
From the get-go, the zones are gorgeous to look at but rarely feel deeply interconnected. Due to the technical limitations of the time, MGS3 and its predecessors built sprawling worlds that can often be retraced but are broken up at every turn. Scoping out an area for gear, secrets, or just a good hiding spot from enemies can easily lead to stepping out of bounds and leaving the space entirely to an adjacent one.
Rather than a truly connected world, Delta sticks to the segmented, contained environments of the 2004 game.
Konami
After years of open world games that render continent-sized expanses to roam, Delta’s strict guardrails around what makes an explorable space feel downright claustrophobic. Some areas are literally single hallways wedged between important rooms with nothing to find, while others are multi-segmented wings of a forest that could easily weave together organically if there wasn’t a mandate to play like a PS2 game.
Combat, too, feels limiting. The Metal Gear games have never exactly exceled at either gunplay or fistfights, but the restrictions around fluid action can be frustrating, especially when minute details like first- and third-person shooting have actually been improved. Sneaking up and snuffing an enemy requires engaging in CQC (close quarters combat), which lets players grab a bad guy to choke, interrogate, or outright body slam.
But as before, it’s cumbersome and rarely intuitive. After alerting a group of enemies, bullets or simple blows fully knock Snake down into a prone position which often results in a tug-of-war trying to stand on two foot while being repeatedly knocked down. Once you’re caught, it’s easier to quit and reload than it is to duke it out or try to find cover.
Although shooting and moving has been improved, CQC remains cumbersome.
Konami
Boss fights, which are heralded as one of the best aspects of the Metal Gear Solid games, also run afoul of issues. The series has always been clever in how players can outsmart and game the system. In 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, one foe requires plugging the controller into the second player’s port to avoid the villain’s mindreading capabilities. Here, as in MGS3, there’s some of that.
One boss is a beyond geriatric sniper who can be killed well before the main encounter during various instances or left to die of natural causes by changing the in-game clock a few weeks ahead. They’re fun, creative concepts that are generally undermined by the fact that these encounters can easily be resolved bluntly with a couple of assault rifle clips.
The creativity behind many of these battles is, and has always been, admirable. But the high-concept premise of each usually leads to the death of momentum. The sniper fight should be an exhilarating exercise in survival, but it’s mostly a game of hide-and-seek spread across multiple zones (again, broken up by entry and exit). One instance sees a ghastly spectral soldier filling a stream with all the lost souls of the enemies the player has killed so far, but the battle itself is just a slow walk to the end that’s exhausting to trudge through.
Swapping to legacy mode shows how much has changed, but it still doesn’t feel like a full reinvention.
Konami
Stepping back, one could say it’s subversive. But subversion at the expense of any agency or enjoyment makes for the wrong kind of friction in an experience like this. And while seasoned pros know all the right ways to meta-game their way through and bend Delta’s systems to their will, others may just say this isn’t worth their time.
And that’s really the line in the sand. For a good portion of the audience, Metal Gear Solid Delta will hit all the right notes by being a nice jaunt down memory lane to a time when these ideas and systems were innovative rather than annoying. Newbies might love seeing a playable snow globe of what gaming once was, or it might just make them appreciate how far the medium has come. For everyone else, Delta begs the question of what a genuinely new Metal Gear game could look like. For now, we’re left to dine on reheated leftovers.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater releases on Aug. 28 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
