Why Metal Gear Solid 3 Is The Right Game To Remake First

What a thrill! Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is getting a full-fledged remake. Admittedly, this isn’t the first Metal Gear game I’d pick to get an overhaul, but it makes the most sense for a lot of reasons. For starters, it’s an awesome game. Duh. 

Snake Eater isn’t even in my personal top three Metal Gear games (a controversial, borderline blasphemous stance) but I fully recognize it’s the best entry in the series. Despite being one of the more divisive outings, Snake Eater’s predecessor, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, was also one of the best-selling. Love it or hate it, Naked Raiden cartwheeled so Naked Snake could crawl. MGS2’s success was undoubtedly a bit of a monkey-paw wish, since it earned Kojima and company plenty of creative freedom, but apparently on the condition that it was used to make another Metal Gear.

Since MGS2, Hideo Kojima has repeatedly claimed that each new entry would be his last Metal Gear game – except, ironically, MGSV, which WAS his last. It seems like this urge to move on to new things is why Snake Eater, Guns of the Patriots, Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain are each such distinctive experiences. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” might be the mantra of many massively successful triple-A video game franchises, but it seems like Kojima’s anathema, which is by no means a bad thing. All forms of entertainment would be better if innovation and creativity were seen as worthwhile pursuits rather than financially risky endeavors. That said, video games are software, and development is an iterative process. 

As Carl Sagan famously put it, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,” which is especially true of making video games. Not only do game developers regularly have to reinvent the wheel, they also have to reinvent (or at least replicate) the laws of physics that allow it to roll, turn, spin, and so on. 

Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the rare instances when Kojima’s team made a game that wasn’t breaking new ground in some capacity: MGS4 pushed the limits of the PlayStation 3’s cell architecture and Peace Walker did the same for the PSP, while also splitting the Metal Gear experience into portable bite-sized missions that could be played co-op. In order to make Metal Gear Solid V, Kojima and his team developed a brand new proprietary game engine, The Fox Engine, from the ground up. After parting ways with Konami, Kojima quickly got to work on Death Stranding, but that required founding an entire studio, hiring a team, and traveling the globe to find a game engine that was capable of rendering a photorealistic Norman Reedus taking a dump and chugging Monster Energy.

MGS3 felt familiar but also introduced new concepts like picking the right camouflage, tending to wounds, and the eponymous addition of a stamina gauge that would necessitate the eating of snakes

Metal Gear Solid 2 put the PlayStation 2 through its paces, and while Metal Gear Solid 3 by no means rested on its laurels or felt samey, it was very clearly built on the foundation of its predecessor. That said, it certainly zigged when everyone expected a zag: after MGS2 concluded its story with a rat’s nest of loose ends dangling off the edge of a cliff, the sequel was actually a prequel. MGS3 felt familiar enough to play but it also introduced completely bonkers new concepts like needing to pick the right camouflage for each environment, tending to wounds and illnesses, and of course, the eponymous additions of wildlife and a stamina gauge that would necessitate the eating of snakes. It’s very possible that the development team was able to focus on these novel new ideas because they weren’t preoccupied figuring out new hardware and/or completely reinventing basic mechanics.

So, yeah, that’s a roundabout way of saying it’s a great idea to remake Snake Eater because it’s a great game. Not exactly rocket science. Making sense of the many twists and turns of the Metal Gear series’ convoluted narrative? That’s another story. The other big thing Snake Eater has going for it is that it’s a prequel – it’s chronologically the earliest game on the Metal Gear timeline, and can therefore be played as with no prior knowledge of the lore.

The numbering of the Metal Gear series is almost comically obtuse: Metal Gear Solid is technically the first entry in the “Solid” series, and was many players’ introduction to the universe, but it’s the third Metal Gear game. Despite Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake never getting a western release, Metal Gear Solid has numerous references to it. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was a straight sequel, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, contrary to its number, was simultaneously the fifth game but also a prequel. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is the direct sequel to MGS2, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a non-numbered sequel to 3, but also sets up Metal Gear Solid V, which is actually in two parts, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain. If you’re a Metal Gear fan, you already knew all this, and if you’re not, you stopped reading three paragraphs ago.

Snake Eater has plenty of winks and nods to returning players, but it doesn’t require any requisite knowledge for the story to make sense (well, a crash course in Cold War-era global politics doesn’t hurt). If more remakes are on the table, Snake Eater is an excellent means of onboarding first-time players, and even if there are no more remakes planned, going from Snake Eater to The Phantom Pain isn’t too jarring. Aside from Snake suddenly sounding like Keifer Sutherland. Who knows? Maybe the Snake Eater re-snake will pave the way for a full-on modern reimagining of the very first Metal Gear – though it’s hard to imagine that without Kojima’s involvement, which seems very unlikely.

This isn’t the Metal Gear game I most wanted to see remade, and I have some complicated feelings about how the publisher treated the series’ creator, but ultimately, I’m just happy to see some signs of life from my favorite video game series, which I’d written off as totally dead. Will the remake be the second coming of Snake, or a soulless, shambling undead abomination devoid of what made the original special? That remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: it’s better than another fucking pachinko machine.

And yes, that WAS the last Metal Gear game released.