A legend is brought back to life with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, in a surprisingly sensitive remake from Konami featuring developers from the original.
I, like many, was worried about Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater when it was first announced. A remake of what to me is one of the best Metal Gear games ever made, all these years later it could easily have run havoc over an all-time classic for the sake of nostalgia bucks. I am so, so happy to have been wrong.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original Snake Eater, which first parachuted down onto the PlayStation 2 all the way back in 2004. New voice lines are wonderful, all the original areas are polished to a glistening sheen, a new multiplayer mode dubbed Fox Hunt has been added. It’s positioned as both a loving recreation of a classic for old fans of the series and a new jumping-on point.
The reason it can be both quickly became clear: Metal Gear Solid 3 is still as good as it ever was. As far as a foundation for a new era of Metal Gear, Konami both picked the right game to kick off the process and was clearly careful enough to leave its merits unspoiled. Delta is thankfully a classic restored, its brush strokes still visible, its spirit intact.
Metal Gear Solid 3 is still an outstanding stealth action game after all this time, the soul of a spy thriller, the ghostly essence of Cold War paranoia running through its veins, and game effortlessly able to channel red-knuckle action, vicious betrayal, and borderline tone-ruining silliness that, somehow, only elevates the whole experience rather than dooming it to absurdity. All this perched atop rock solid stealth-action itself, that binds the game together like a makeshift war zone splint.
Crawl through the fauna, swap out camo to better hide yourself in the tall grass. Snake! (An actual snake). Stab it, and eat it raw for stamina. See a custom animation of you pounding back that cobra like a 2AM kebab. Lurk around dark corners, slither beneath parked trucks like a coiled viper. Use CQC to quickly snatch guards from their patrols, drag them to a secluded spot for interrogation and a cheeky choke.
You’ve got to understand, while Metal Gear Solid defined this particular genre of stealth action, Metal Gear Solid 3 perfected it. Truly distinct, truly idiosyncratic to its director Hideo Kojima. A balancing act of cool and weird and outrageous that somehow pulls it off, with gameplay that respects your own boldness. A game that rewards you for taking your time and consistently rocks you with little touches – presents that even today remain gift-wrapped and glorious.
The reason Metal Gear Solid 3 remains so special is these minute details, all of which are untouched and preserved in Delta.
You come across a helicopter early in the game, near a small base. You can walk right past, go on your way, but if you clear out this base you’ll find some TNT in a nearby storage room. Using this TNT to blow up this helicopter will drastically change a mountainous section a few hours later. No one tells you to do this, you’re not given a tutorial about it. But taking the time to wander around and excavate this merry sandbox will reliably uncover such treasures.
The same goes for store rooms – blow up these small, loot-filled closets and you can leave enemies in a worse state when you return. My favourite are food store rooms; exploding them up leaves enemies in that area hungry. Who cares, right? Well, if you experimented with food you’ve gathered along the way, you’ll have no doubt found a few poisonous frogs, say. Throw these deadly snacks on the ground near hungry guards, and they’ll scurry over for a bite.
You can take out a major boss early with a sniper rifle, you can use a fake death pill to bypass tough stealth sections, and yes, you can close the game down and wait for a tricky boss to die of old age. These intricacies are so core to the appeal of Metal Gear Solid 3 that without them the game would be far worse, and I’m glad that Delta has left them all in place.
Without spoiling things, as much as a 20-year-old game can be spoiled, yes, Metal Gear Solid 3 is also probably one of Kojima’s better narratives. A riveting tale of political intrigue during the Cold War. Nations clash in the (fictional) jungles of Russia to avoid nuclear armageddon and to shift the balance of power. Zooming in, you also get a deeply personal story of what it means to be a soldier, to be a patriot, and the importance of finding something to fight for. An ally one day could be an enemy tomorrow, a truth as true today as it was back in 2004.
As with the action itself, meanwhile, this otherwise lofty story of twists and occasional, heart-wrenching turns does leave room for silliness, for hijinx. Snake does still have a lady in a swimsuit on the inside of his state-of-the-art stealth jet. You can still throw adult magazines at guards and they will still stare at them, gormless. Time paradoxes remain possible and hilarious all these years later. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s all the better for it.
Okay, so a lot of this review has been focused on the merits of the original game, which thankfully are still true in Delta. But what about what’s new?
Well, obvious points first, it looks wonderful. It’s somewhat of a running joke to say “hey let’s take this legendary retro video game and remake it in UE5, please give me $100m”, but Konami has genuinely done the original game a service here. The game has not been stripped of colour nor soul, and instead the little additions made possible with this new engine make for welcome improvements. You can now gain a coat of muddy camouflage when crawling through the muck, for instance – which hey, is a rad bonus. It’s easier than before to switch camouflage on the go, removing needless menu navigation, especially during tense sneakathons. It is also easier now to plant yourself up against a wall, which otherwise felt a tad clunky after all these years.
I would also be remiss in my duties to not mention Snake vs Monkey, which is available on the PlayStation and PC versions of the game. This not only brings back an incredibly silly side activity to the Delta Remake, but also adds a contemporary twist that acts as a pinch of salt on a caramel sweet, bewildering mode. Some things must be seen to be believed, and you must see Snake vs Monkey.
That said, Konami, through Delta, does the smart thing by not adding where it didn’t need to. The vast majority of the game remains as it was, the only additions implemented as enhancements to the core experience that won the hearts of fans back in the day.
I’ll also note that the voice performances in Metal Gear Solid: Delta stand stalwart against the ravages of time. Many will point to David Hayter and Lori Alan as outstanding examples, both in the original recordings and additional lines added in Delta. That is certainly true, and they deserve their flowers, preferably white ones. But the entire cast of performers in MGS3 are superstars. Shout out to Michael Bell for making me hiss “The Fear!” at my cat just like I did years ago.
Jodi Benson, who only recently stepped forward and officially confirmed her role as Eva, also brought a load-bearing talent to the game, for which I’m glad she’s finally able to take a bow and much-deserved credit for.
I do feel the game has a major downside – albeit one that’s also totally avoidable. The new control scheme is cool, it allows for a freely movable camera, as well as the ability to move and shoot at will. It also, however, makes the game a bit of a cakewalk. Now, on harder difficulties you’ll still get spotted if caught lacking in the camo department, but actually fending off enemies isn’t especially challenging.
Take The Fury, for instance. With the original control style, you’ve got to stop and shoot in first person mode when using a big weapon like a sniper, right? Even when using smaller arms, the time it took to get into position and line up a shot was enough for The Fury to start blasting flames at you.
With the new control scheme, it’s so convenient to take quick pot-shots that the cat-and-mouse dynamic of the fight kind of falls apart. Those familiar with the original game will likely chip in here to say that the fights were never that hard, and sure, that’s true. But the tension kind of falls apart in these moments. The Fear isn’t really that scary when you can easily keep track of him, and trading shots with The End isn’t really too daunting when you can do so with ease in third person.
Usually this would be a big deal for me, but here’s the thing: both control schemes are available at the start of the playthrough. You can quite happily just settle back in your chair and go through the game the old way. As for which I would recommend you use? Honestly, go with the original to start. If by the opening credits you find yourself frustrated, start over and swap over to the new style.
And that’s… Well that’s all my complaints really. Metal Gear Solid Delta is a fantastic recreation of arguably the best Metal Gear game ever made. It doesn’t change what it doesn’t need to, it restores a classic, rather than implanting it with new features. A new coat of paint and a slap on the back and she’s off, an excellent excuse to hop into the series once again – or indeed for the first time.
Playing through Delta I had to sit down and think about what I really want from remakes like it. With a game like MGS3, which hasn’t aged poorly in my book, I want the remake to act as a pseudo-museum piece. Only not behind glass but out there on the floor, for new generations to play with and discover. In Delta’s case, it’s remade in a modern engine, sure, but all the quirks, all the animations are painstakingly recreated. Original voice lines are consecrated save for some additive new performances. That’s the trick, I think. Adding without accidentally taking away.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is faithful, it’s a church dedicated to one of gaming’s best stealth games. Updates to how the game plays are subtle, and in regard to the new gameplay style, totally optional. So much is left untouched, and that’s for the best. Add in some original art, some obscure modes, and let her loose.
Maybe the team behind Delta could have made an absolute scorcher of a game if they were allowed to change more, to innovate more. But given where MGS3 lies in my heart and the pantheon of gaming greats, I think the safer, restorative approach was the best here.
It’s an achievement for the development team behind Delta too, some of whom were original staff from the Metal Gear Solid 3 team. The legend of Metal Gear Solid 3 has been brought back to life thanks to their efforts, and the experience of playing it has put me in a position I could not have foreseen just a few years ago. Suddenly, I’m excited for the next Metal Gear game, whatever it will be. If it’s made with a modicum of the care Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was, it might well live up to the series’ legacy.
A copy of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was provided for this review by Konami.
