There were a good few years in there where it was looking dead certain that Metal Gear was gone forever. The series’ creator and the director of all of its mainline entries had left the company that owned it under acrimonious circumstances, while the company itself, Konami, had decided that it no longer wanted to make traditional console games going forward, instead deciding to focus the bulk of its business around pachinko machines, among other things not related to video games. For many, there was absolutely no hope that the legendary stealth franchise would ever come back- and to make matters worse, Metal Gear Survive would always be its final release.
Blessedly, however, Konami is ready to return to the world of AAA gaming. Silent Hill is, of course, finally waking up from its long slumber, and is set to be followed by a return to the limelight for Metal Gear, with Metal Gear Solid 3 coming back in the form of a remake titled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. For more than a few reasons, that’s an exciting thing. Fans of Metal Gear and fans of stealth games in general have been starved for far too long, and this marks a long overdue reprieve on that front. On top of that, Metal Gear Solid 3 is, to say the very least, one of the greatest games ever made, so there’s every reason to be excited about the chance to dive into a remake.
And while we are, of course, seeing Metal Gear Solid Delta generate plenty of buzz among long-suffering fans of the franchise, it’s undeniable that most (if not all) conversations related to the game are tinged with pretty strong hints of skepticism- or, at the very least, caution. It’s easy to understand why. After all, Konami hasn’t developed a AAA game in a long, long time, so it’s only natural to wonder whether the company is going to be able to get back into the swing of things without any growing pains for its internal development pipelines. It’s also undeniable that the prospect of the first Metal Gear game without Hideo Kojima at Konami was always going to find some pushback from fans of the series.
But that’s not all, because for many, the bigger problem is that Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is looking fundamentally uninteresting. From what Konami has shown and said of the game so far, it’s clear that beyond a complete (and impressive) visual and technical overhaul, Delta is going to be an incredibly faithful recreation of the original MGS3, with Konami not only deciding to keep all of the design and content intact, but also reusing the original game’s script, VO, and cutscenes. Every inch of the game is being remade, but if you’ve played the original, it’s all going to be familiar- which is something that many have expressed their disappointment about.
On one hand, that disappointment is, of course, easy to understand. We’re living in an era where video game remakes are more ambitious and exciting than they’ve ever been. From Square Enix’s radically expanded Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy to 2019’s incredibly reimagined Resident Evil 2, we’ve seen plenty of examples in recent years of the heights that remakes can touch when they’re not afraid to deviate from the script. With Metal Gear Solid Delta being the first Metal Gear game in what has felt like an eternity, it’s not surprising that there are some who were hoping that if the series were to come back with a remake, it would be a much more ambitious one- one that would be able to generate far more excitement with the promise of improvements and additions with story and gameplay.
As exciting as that prospect is on paper, however, in the real world, it’s probably a good thing that Konami is playing it safe with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. For multiple reasons, this is the perfect remake to play things this straight with. There is, of course, the fact that even now, more than two decades on from its original release, Metal Gear Solid 3 is an outstanding game. Barring some annoyances with dated controls and a couple of frustratingly designed sections, it has aged incredibly well. Beyond that, unlike, say, the original Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 3 is also long enough on its own to be able to sustain a straight, no-frills, faithful recreation. Just take that game as is and slap modern visuals, controls, and quality-of-life features on top, and you still have an unabashed masterpiece. Konami, of course, knows that it can get away with that approach for this game in particular, which, for all we know, may have been among the reasons it was chosen as the one to bring the series back from its exile.
More importantly, however, playing it safe with the comeback of Metal Gear Solid makes sense because, as we mentioned earlier, this (along with Silent Hill 2’s upcoming remake, which isn’t internally developed) is going to be the first we’ll be seeing of Konami in the AAA space in about a decade. The company is, of course, receiving development support from Virtuos, but we don’t know how rusty Konami’s development pipelines are, nor do we know how much faith we can put in that team right now from a creative perspective in the absence of Hideo Kojima.
That last bit is particularly important. If Konami was, right off the bat, promising big changes and additions in Metal Gear Solid Delta, there would likely be widespread skepticism over whether the company could be trusted with something like that, especially with Kojima no longer there to lead them. Metal Gear as a franchise is something that is perhaps more strongly linked with its creator and his particular vision than any other IP in gaming, so it’s safe to assume that the idea of radical story or gameplay changes in a Metal Gear Solid remake from a post-Kojima Konami would get more than a little bit of pushback from the series’ fanbase.
With Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, playing it safe is perhaps the smartest thing Konami can do. Thanks to the game’s timeless strengths in both story and design, the upcoming remake is pretty much guaranteed to deliver an unforgettable experience to both new and returning players (unless, of course, Konami messes things up, which isn’t a possibility that can be totally discounter). Meanwhile, by relying on that timelessness and not having to make any significant changes or additions, the remake also avoids the inherent risks of doing so. It can very literally have its cake and it eat too, and given the terrible position that the Metal Gear IP has been in for so long, that is pretty much exactly what it needs right now. Do we hope that future Metal Gear remakes – assuming that they get made – will be more bold and ambitious? We absolutely do. But we’re completely fine with that not being the case with the upcoming Snake Eater.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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