I Played Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater (& You Probably Have Too)

It’s impossible to separate Hideo Kojima from Metal Gear, and Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater doesn’t even try. Aside from a few new menu options – we’ll get to those later – and the clearly updated visuals, the first and only real indication that this isn’t the exact same game from 2004, or the Subsistence version from 2006, or the HD Version in 2012 (which was the version also included in last year’s Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1) is shown by the game’s title cards.

“Directed by Hideo Kojima” is replaced by “Original Directed by Hideo Kojima” and a splash screen of the “This content may contain views and opinions considered outdated, but are presented without changes because…” variety. Other than that, strap in, it’s time to play Metal Gear Solid 3. Again.

As I mentioned in my Silent Hill 2 remake preview recently, there are two different ways to remake a game, and now that MGS’s embargo has passed I can finish my thought: it’s fascinating Konami picked both ways at once. While Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 is a from-the-ground-up remake most comparable to Capcom’s handling of Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta is strictly a one-for-one adaptation of MGS3, with only minimal changes to everything not centered around the game’s graphics. It’s doubly interesting that Silent Hill 2 retains its name while being a different game, and MGS3 gets a new name (with a triangle!) despite the fact that it’s nearly the same exact experience.

You’ve Eaten Snake Before, Haven’t You?

If You Liked Metal Gear Solid 3, This Is That

I only had an hour and a half to play Metal Gear Solid Δ during a preview event hosted by Konami, which was just long enough to get through the game’s introductory Virtuous Mission a good one and a half times. Because of this, I can’t speak about how the game has adapted things like the Cure menu, the various boss fights, or anything at all that happens post-Snake being thrown off the bridge. What I can say is how that opening area felt – it felt like that opening hour of Snake Eater. So much so that I skipped a few cutscenes because, well, I’ve been listening to them for 20 years.

It’s an interesting feeling. The game looks gorgeous, and the “new” 3rd person camera (we had a version of this in Subsistence, right?) makes it far easier to scan the environment for enemies and snakes to eat than it was previously. However, underneath that visual sheen and remarkable attention to detail (again, this feels like exactly the same game most of the time, down to retaining the same specific points where the different jungle “rooms” fade in and out as they did in 2004) Metal Gear Solid Δ feels oddly hollow.

I was fully on board up until I grabbed an enemy. Something was different, it felt – and I discussed this later with another journalist who was at the event to confirm I wasn’t misremembering things – slower, more clunky than it should have. I’m not saying grabbing enemies and the various intricacies of CQC were always smooth and fluid, but I swear the act of picking up and putting that enemy back down should not take ten seconds, especially when it can happen from a simple accidental button press. It was then that the whole concept of fully remaking Metal Gear Solid 3 from the ground-up in Unreal Engine 5 started to worry me.

Presented Without Context

Does Metal Gear Solid 3 In 2024 Make Sense?

When Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater originally launched in 2004, the game’s opening menu screen asked players if they preferred Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, or if this was their first Metal Gear Solid game. This was the setup to a neat gimmick where, if the player selected the option “I like Metal Gear Solid 2,” they would begin the game wearing a mask of the then-divisive (long story) Metal Gear Solid 2 protagonist, Raiden. A Raiden-like character is also introduced later in the game as a blatant response from Kojima directed at that divisiveness. However you felt about the implementation of these ideas, Kojima was undeniably in conversation with the audience itself in these moments, and that is what made the Metal Gear games so interesting.

The option to select “I like Metal Gear Solid 2!” still exists here. Metal Gear Solid Δ also adds to this list games which have released in the years since, such as “I like Peace Walker” and “I like Metal Gear Solid V.” Selecting these options gives new easter eggs and bonuses, like a banana-print camo set which makes any food instantly delicious, but none of them are saying anything. The Raiden Mask still appears if you select MGS2, but now you also get a special camo which prevents any equipped suppressors from wearing out. No explanation as to why, no meta reason beyond just “game need bonus item,” and for any other game, for any other series, I think that would be fine. But this is Metal Gear Solid 3.

It’s weird that we’re doing this without any sort of involvement from Hideo Kojima. That’s definitely a part of it. Even if it was just a remake, or a remastering or whatever we’re going to end up calling Metal Gear Solid Δ, you know Kojima would have brought something interesting to the table, even if it was just him inserting himself as a mission objective again. I was hoping to see some neat new additions which indicated the team was carrying on Kojima’s legacy of these odd inclusions, but save for one particular thing mentioned below, what I saw was just graphical updates and good, logical gameplay improvements.

Finally, The Gameplay Tweaks MGS3 Sorely Needed

All The Small Things Metal Gear Solid Δ Does

Despite the reservations listed thus far, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater does bring some welcome quality-of-life changes to the MGS3 experience. Players can now set their favorite camouflage combinations to a quick-select menu, allowing them to swap camos on the fly without ever having to pause the game and go to the camouflage screen. A similar quick-select function also applies to the radio, which isn’t quite as useful but still helps to speed the experience along.

Spending too much time going in and out of menus was one of the big complaints players had about Metal Gear Solid 3, especially the Cure and Camo menus, and combining this update with those new “special” camouflage bonuses will likely make sections of the game far more enjoyable than they have been in the past. I’m really intrigued to see if the Cure menu will be updated in some way that makes it less tedious to manage, and I like the idea of the “persistent battle damage” mentioned by Konami, although I didn’t really see any examples of it during my gameplay session.

M etal Gear Solid Δ also contains a new form of collectibles called GA-KOs (pictured above) which are like little rubber ducks wearing gilly suits. Out of everything I saw while playing Snake Eater, these give me the most hope for the rest of the experience. This is the kind of weird, random nonsense I would expect from an MGS re-release, and I hope that there are more things like this Konami is keeping under wraps.

Now It’s Time To Leave The Capsule, If You Dare

I asked a lot of questions about what else players can expect in the full Metal Gear Solid Delta title, like whether any sort of online mode like what we had in Subsistence would appear (no comment) or if there would be new NG+ features (also no comment). It’s clear Producer Noriaki Okamura and the entire development team at Konami have a lot of respect for the original game – Okamura says it is his favorite in the franchise – and that shows in how faithfully they have tried to adapt MGS3 for a modern audience. The jungle is lush, the character models are stellar, and Ocelot’s howl finally looks as ridiculous as it deserves.

Ultimately, at this point it’s still too soon to say whether Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater does enough to really justify buying MGS3 again, at least for me. If you haven’t yet jumped into the world of Metal Gear, however, this is undeniably the best-looking place to start.