Warning: This text accommodates spoilers for Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4.
It’s been a very long time coming however Metal Gear followers lastly have one thing concrete to stay up for. Though collection creator Hideo Kojima has moved on to different tasks, his long-beloved stealth motion franchise is making a grand return to the forefront of gaming with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Now that now we have our first take a look at Delta’s gameplay from the new trailer proven at the Xbox Video games Showcase, we’re much more excited to get our arms on it. However for now, we wish to have a look again at the unique Metal Gear Solid 3, which can have fun its twentieth anniversary this 12 months on November seventeenth, 2004.
Particularly, we’re going to speak about how MGS3 tells a extra important prequel narrative than most different franchises can match. What was at the time seen as a course correction from Metal Gear Solid 2’s lack of Solid Snake playtime and even perhaps a delaying motion of paying off 2’s narrative threads to the eventual Metal Gear Solid 4, the advantage of hindsight has proven that MGS3 is a crucial installment in the collection’ mythology. Certain, it obtained great reviews on launch, however why does the story not likely work when you simply performed MGS1, 2 and 4 as a trilogy once they occur in chronological order? Let’s check out what makes MGS3 so important.
A New Mission
After two video games set in a “few years in the future” sci-fi setting, Kojima went in a wholly new route with Metal Gear Solid 3. The mechanics and methods he used to create such iconic stealth motion gameplay in MGS1 and a pair of might have been iterated on to even better success, however 3 made the daring leap of growing new methods to interact with the style. From the camo index system the place gamers needed to alter their disguise to match their environment, needing to hunt for meals in the wild to maintain up stamina, curing severe accidents in the area, and depriving gamers of a lot of the futuristic devices that had been so useful in earlier video games, MGS3 compelled followers to rethink their methods as they explored the Soviet jungle in pursuit of goals.
The mission took gamers by means of a wide range of unique areas and thrilling sequences, with the Shagohod chase particularly being one in all the greatest motion set items on the PlayStation 2. But if the Metal Gear franchise is identified for something gameplay clever in addition to stealth, it’s a penchant for artistic boss fights in opposition to weird villains, and MGS3 has one in all the greatest rogue’s galleries in the franchise. The Cobra Unit had been extremely expressive each in visible design and the way they let the methods they fought give gamers an perception into their personalities as a substitute of every one telling an elaborate backstory as they died. The bosses interacted with the new gameplay methods, such with the ability to use camo to cover from The Fury, or tough gamers giving The Worry meals poisoning utilizing rotten meals to rapidly drain his stamina. The crown jewel of the Cobra fights was The Finish, which used an enormous atmosphere and all the sport’s stealth mechanics to create a correct sniper’s duel that for some gamers went on for over an hour.
Kojima’s expertise for merging story and gameplay reaches its peak in the sport’s remaining encounter: the battle between Snake and The Boss. With solely 10 minutes earlier than the area is bombed to smithereens, all of the abilities gamers developed over the course of the journey, particularly with reference to sneaking and CQC, are examined as they attempt to defeat Snake’s outdated mentor. The white flowers and timber of the area matching The Boss’ outfit, the sluggish construct up of the Snake Eater theme track as the timer winds down, and forcing the participant to push the button to ship the remaining shot throughout what seems to be a cutscene all coalesce to kind one in all the most artistically resonant remaining battles in sport historical past. The design template Kojima utilized in earlier video games is expanded and refined into its purest kind in MGS3, making the sport a becoming prequel not simply in story, but additionally in gameplay.
In Love and (Chilly) Warfare
Set in 1964, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is, at first look, a again to fundamentals tackle the Metal Gear collection. Snake is again in the lead position, albeit technically not the identical one as earlier video games, with the protagonist as a substitute being the unique Snake, aka Large Boss, whose DNA was used to create the clones Solid, Liquid and Solidus. The setup is basically traditional MGS motion however in the jungle, and with a 007-style spy thriller/romance angle added on prime. The difficult philosophical ideas and labyrinthine unhealthy man plans from MGS2 are dropped for a extra easy Chilly Warfare story about Snake making an attempt to cease a nuclear struggle from breaking out, whereas additionally coping with his relationships together with his apparently traitorous mentor, The Boss, and his budding maybe-maybe-not romance together with his spy companion EVA.
What some seemingly took as a creative retreat from Kojima into much less controversial territory has as a substitute revealed itself over the years to be a acutely aware addition of key emotional context to what had turn into a sprawling multi-decade saga. Making an attempt to attach all the numerous threads of MGS lore and the political machinations of dozens of characters and factions is usually a dizzying prospect, however MGS3 cuts by means of the chaff and reminds the viewers that these are tales not nearly nations and lofty concepts however about characters, ones who MGS3’s script mines for a shocking quantity of depth. At the heart of all of it is Snake, a person and soldier nonetheless holding onto the final of his beliefs, solely to lose all of it as he “succeeds” in the mission that will break each him and his hope in his nation.
His battles with The Boss, who is revealed to not be a traitor however as a substitute a patriot permitting her status to be destroyed with a view to protect world peace, shatter Snake’s religion in all the pieces he’d ever been led to consider in. In the meantime, his romance with EVA turning out to be a ruse to pilfer him of the Thinker’s Legacy ruins his means to place belief in anybody in addition to his fellow troopers. These two relationships crumbling not solely provides a solution as to why he finally turns into Large Boss, the villain of the unique two Metal Gear video games on the MSX2, but additionally establishes that the recurring theme of troopers being betrayed by their governments and wanting to construct nations of their very own that had been one in all the central operating motifs of the collection, has a basis that goes past the battle followers had been already conversant in. Even earlier than Solid Snake was born, this was only a reality of this world, and cementing that world is what makes MGS3 so essential to its quick successor.
A Solid Circle
Moreover telling its personal story, MGS3 additionally provides vital definition to the world of Metal Gear that helps solidify (hah) the plot threads that MGS4 would conclude. Certain, in timeline order, MGS4 is technically a sequel to MGS2. However when taking a look at the precise meat of plot and world-building, MGS3 is the sport that the majority informs MGS4. We’re speaking about greater than fundamental stuff like studying about the Shagohod, which was the genesis from which Metal Gear expertise would later develop, or introducing the character of Large Boss to collection followers who by no means performed the unique two MSX video games (which, let’s be trustworthy, is most of them). MGS4 solely works as an ending to the saga due to the way it builds off of MGS3’s themes and characters.
The concept that the conflicts between troopers and their governments that led Large Boss and different Metal Gear villains into wanting to determine some model of Outer Heaven are cyclical throughout historical past solely sells if we’ve really seen that battle, properly, throughout historical past. The reveal that EVA is the one who gave delivery to Solid and Liquid and really did love Large Boss regardless of her betrayal would come out of nowhere with out us changing into invested in her in MGS3. And with out attending to know them once they had been younger and charismatic, the twist that the Patriots, the final villains of the complete Metal Gear saga, had been in reality the mission assist workforce who helped the unique Snake (and by extension, the participant) in the Nineteen Sixties wouldn’t register as such a tragic gut-punch.
Certain, there are worthwhile prequels that fill in lore gaps or recontextualize points of plot or character: Rogue One, Andor, Higher Name Saul, Home of the Dragon, and Furiosa to call a current few. However what makes MGS3 stand out from the pack is that in most different circumstances, later tales in the timeline work completely properly on their very own with out the prequel materials. Metal Gear tales set after MGS3, resembling MGS4, MGS5 or Peace Walker, don’t actually perform dramatically with out understanding the story from MGS3. Nothing that occurs in MGS3 is a “bonus”; it is the beating coronary heart of a saga Kojima had been telling throughout quite a few video games since 1987. It is the connective tissue that brings the unique MSX video games, the early Solid collection, and the remaining entries collectively right into a single entire. That it’s additionally a superb title by itself phrases, stuffed with a few of the collection’ most enjoyable motion set items and strongest character work, solely additional cements its standing as the best prequel ever made.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Impact essays. You possibly can comply with his fixations on (*3*).