In love with: Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater

Half a year ago I was revisiting the Metal Gear series with the Master Collection Vol. 1 that is now finally in a good state, and was pleasantly surprised by my experience with MGS3. Up until that playthrough, I had more respect for the entry than love and have far preferred the first and the second games. But the replay has shown Snake Eater in a new light to me, which was one of the main reasons I’ve decided to grab Metal Gear Solid Δ (Delta): Snake Eater. At the end of that previous review I wondered if Delta will be the better way to experience the game. And now I can definitively say – yes.

As a quick reminder, MGS3 was the first truly revolutionary step in the Metal Gear franchise (well, apart from the very first game). It shed a lot of elements that stayed with the franchise since its 1980s inception in favor of becoming a “proper” stealth game – that is, embracing what the genre norms and expectations has formed by the year 2004. But it also did it while remaining its own thing, instead of just becoming a clone of, say Thief or Splinter Cell. It had a lot of silly arcade-like elements, but also motivated you to be smarter and blend in with the environments using the new camouflage system. It also removed a lot of cold certainty of the prior entries by removing the radar and clear enemy view cones. And most importantly – this was the first Metal Gear game that felt truly finished, thought out and balanced. No rushed second acts, no weird leaps in storytelling, no unfinished or obviously cut elements. It was a completed experience that felt, and still does, genuinely great.

All of this is fully preserved in Delta. If you wish to play the game the way it played back in 2004, you can… Well, if we start nitpicking it’s not exactly the same, because the controls are a bit different as DualShock 2 had pressure sensitive buttons and no modern controllers do, also visuals, while extremely faithful, are not the same and there are many many other minor elements that make this not actually one to one. But it is so close, I’m giving it a “NightDive remaster”-type pass, where it’s not exactly as it was, but as you remember it was.

Especially since this version of the game has a lot of the elements that were absent from prior re-releases, including the Master Collection. Snake vs. Monkey, a funny mode that crosses Metal Gear with Ape Escape, is back. At least on PC and Playstation, Microsoft console gets Bomberman instead, which also looks fun, but it’s a shame these platform exclusive restrictions exist at all. Platinum Games were contracted to completely redo the famous Guy Savage nightmare part of the game. Originally, it was a failed pitch for a new game at Konami that was put into MGS3 as an easter egg (as a separate game that launches separately and everything). It was absent in most prior re-releases, but now it’s completely rebuilt. Though, bizarrely, still as a separate game that launches its own executable on PC (which isn’t very convenient and can lead to future problems), instead of just being built as part of the same project. All of the Subsistence bonuses are included too, even the funny Secret Theater, which now has additional videos, though you have to unlock them this time around. Only Metal Gear Online is missing, though Konami have teased a future multiplayer update for the game.

But then on top of just getting the original game in its best form since the Subsistence release the players are also getting a completely new way to play the game that brings the experience a bit closer to how it felt in MGS V. Some of the enemy and weapon behaviour is adjusted to better fit this new playstyle and personally, I absolutely loved playing this way. This version also includes the crouch walking, which was previously added in the 3DS port of the game. And it’s not the only good idea that became standard for the franchise after MGS3 and was added back into it in the 3DS version. Another cool thing is that all progress, including the titles you get for finishing the game, are just permanent collectables for your “profile” in the game, instead of being tied to one save file. Now everything collectible works like this, removing some of the potential grind the original game could require to unlock all of the fun stuff. With one element that I personally love most being that New Game plus mode can launch into any difficulty in both the old cinematic camera and new playstyles, so you don’t need to re-unlock things for other difficulties every time you finish the game and keep separate cleared game saves.

Basically, everything about this release is just plain better and makes this for the definitive way of playing Metal Gear Solid 3. But some things need to be taken into consideration. For one – even though the visuals are so faithful they sometimes replicate the PS2-era “motion blur” and other effects that no one has used for 20 years, they are not truly the same and it could’ve been great to have an option to just play with the original visuals as well. Another issue is that while I seem to be a rare human specimen who rarely ever experiences any issues with Unreal Engine 5, both the used version of the engine and the way it was implemented could be improved further. I had zero issues while playing… except when the game crashed once, unexpectedly, during one of the final cutscenes. But there’s room for improvement here. And finally, I don’t get what’s with modern audio mixing in games, but you can hear vast difference in perceived loudness when the in-game cutscene is playing (which is annoying quiet) and when it switches to the pre-rendered ones, which are mixed like games used to mix audio.

Otherwise though? If you’re getting it on PC, make sure you can run it. If you’re getting it on consoles, just get it. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater has finally converted me from someone who liked and admired MGS3, but never loved it, into a fan. And I can easily see myself going back into the game later to unlock more things and see more cool details this game hides. I do wish, though, MGS2 and MGS1 could get a similar treatment, but those would require quite a lot more reworking, as much as I would not like to admit it.