Metal Gear Solid 3 remake news, cast and spoilers

Why the Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake Is Called Metal Gear Solid Delta

Metal Gear Solid 3 remake have been proven true, as well as a remaster compilation featuring the first three games.

There were two big rumours going into the PlayStation Showcase on Wednesday night: that there’d be an announcement for Persona 6 and that Konami was planning a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and possibly a new remaster collection of the earlier games in the series.

Persona 6 never happened but Metal Gear definitely did, with the remake revealed by a rather strange trailer (we could’ve sworn that was a plesiosaur trying to eat the bird) that was entirely pre-rendered, with no sign of any gameplay.

All the trailer shows is Snake being sneaky, hiding in a swamp, but Konami subsequently offered a few more details, claiming it will be a ‘faithful’ remake of the 2004 original and that it will be coming to Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Konami also promises that the remake will retain the ‘original voice characters’, which is a somewhat nonsensical phrase but seems to imply that David Hayter will be back as the voice of Snake, and not Kiefer Sutherland.

The remake will be called Metal Gear Solid Delta, which is presumably meant to hide the fact that remaking the third game before the other two is a bit weird (chronologically speaking the third game is actually the first but delta is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, so we’re not sure what’s going on there).

There’s no more information than that, but the development team, promise a ‘faithful recreation of the original story and game design, while evolving the gameplay with stunning visuals and a seamless user experience.’

Despite that, there’s no indication of who the development team actually are, and whether they’re an internal team at Konami or a third party studio.

One thing seems certain and that’s that series creator Hideo Kojima is not involved, as he was hounded out of Konami in 2015 and subsequently set up his own studio, where he’s currently working on Death Stranding 2.

The rumoured Metal Gear Solid remaster collection was also proven to be real. It’s called Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 and will include the first three games, originally released on the PlayStation 1 and 2.

Even though the trailer for Konami’s remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 is just over two minutes long, it’s packed with easter eggs and nods to the original game if you look hard enough. Some of them may be blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments, but don’t worry! We’re here to help you spot them all. These are the 11 details you may have missed when watching the trailer.

Friend of The End

The green parrot that has more air time in the trailer than Snake himself has to be the feathered-friend of ancient sniper The End. Anyone who played Snake Eater will remember how the parrot acted as The End’s spotter, waking him when Snake approaches.

Some days you just have to feed on a tree frog. The parrot appears to agree, clutching a tree frog which it carries through the dark sky before landing on a floating log in the middle of a lake. Moments later, a huge snake bursts from the water and snaps at the parrot, which narrowly escapes, minus a few feathers.

Crocodile Rock

Just as the snake pounces on the parrot, it is attacked by an Indian Gavial, which if you remember can be captured and eaten in Metal Gear Solid 3. It’s hard to make out in the trailer, but a screenshot released alongside the announcement gives us a better look at the croc and its pointy snout. It’s also the basis for one of the most amusing cosmetics in the game, the Crocodile Cap, which when worn in the water can trick enemies into thinking you’re a deadly animal, instead of just the world’s deadliest man.

Shagohod Incoming

One of the coolest details was just under a minute into the trailer, when the green parrot (more on that later) is swooping above the canopy of the forest, a dead frog in its claws. But it’s what’s in the distance that’s interesting, because when lightning lights up the sky it’s possible to make out the shape of the Shagohod being airlifted by several Mil Mi-24 Hind Helicopters. This is a direct reference to what happens in the game, as Volgin readies the Shagohod to take over the USSR. While it’s too far away to see it in detail in the trailer, we’ll definitely be getting much more up close and personal with it in the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake.

Here Comes The Fear

Going back to the bosses of Metal Gear Solid 3, there’s a dead Poison Dart Frog early on in the trailer, which can be found in game and actually help you in a fight against The Fear — a member of the Boss’ Cobra Unit, who poisons Snake with a venom-coated crossbow bolt.

During the battle Snake is able to drop poisoned (or rotten) food like the Dart Frog, which The Fear will eat if he runs low on stamina. This in turn poisons him, which makes him vomit moments later, seriously depleting his stamina further still.

The Food Chain

The entire trailer is one extended sequence of the food cycle. Small ants eat into a frog, which then gets picked up by a bird, which then gets attacked by a large snake, which then gets into a fight with a big crocodile. All of it leads to a reveal of the pointy top of the food chain, Naked Snake

The visualization of the food chain in the wilds of nature is a recurring motif in the Metal Gear series, something we saw in Metal Gear Solid 4 as a snake is seen eating a guinea pig in the opening of Act 2. Metal Gear Solid 3 also made this metaphor a gameplay feature as Snake is forced to hunt and cook his own food while in the wilds of Tselinoyarsk.

Attack of the Giant Ants

Digging a little deeper into the different animals on the screen, however, you’ll find that each creature is a nod to something from the original Metal Gear Solid 3. For example, the first animal is a line of ants marching toward their food.

If you listened to every codec conversation in the original Metal Gear 3, you might remember hearing movie-buff Para-Medic talk about the movie “Them”, which features ants “so big they filled up the entire screen. The whole movie theater was screaming.”

Death From Above

As the camera zooms through mangroves and pans in on Snake, the light shines through the trees in a way that is reminiscent of Ponizovje South, one of the coolest areas in Metal Gear Solid 3. Set along a winding river, Snake must ford a river while avoiding GRU soldiers buzzing through the skies on flying platforms. He can do this by ducking under the water’s surface or eventually finding rocks and boats to hide behind. Wading through the river and its trees was a highlight of Metal Gear Solid 3’s level design and represented creator Hideo Kojima’s vision of wanting the player to feel like they were traversing a real forest.

Fenced In

The river and the trees from Ponizovje South is just one of the familiar locations in the trailer. Earlier, the Green Parrot flies through an electrified fence, similar to the ones that guard Bolshaya Past South area. While the teaser is purely cinematic, it’s a good indication of what real areas in the game could look like in this remake.

The screenshots that accompanied the trailer give us a better look at the areas of the game, including one where a backpack is hanging from a tree – which most will remember from the beginning of the original game, when Snake has to retrieve his belongings after halo jumping behind enemy lines.

Tiger Stripes

Even though it’s dark and Snake is caked in mud, you can just about make out the uniform he’s wearing, which is the tiger stripe camo you begin the game with. Of course, one of Metal Gear Solid 3’s most interesting features was the ability to unlock and switch camos to suit your environment, or wear totally inappropriate attire like the tuxedo, and we hope everything makes it into the remake.

Delta Force

The title for the remake won’t be Metal Gear Solid 3, however. Konami is calling it Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

It’s unclear exactly why Konami chose to subtitle the remake with Delta. It’s the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, which doesn’t make much sense as it’s a remake of the third game in the Metal Gear Solid line, and the fifth game overall in the Metal Gear franchise.

The title could be a reference to the United States Delta Force, a counter-terrorism unit famous for its covert enemy operations, which lines up nicely with the plot of the game, but also applies to all of the games in the series. Finally, Metal Gear character Roy Campbell famously is a former Delta Force member but he does not appear in MGS 3.

Hopefully, Konami explains the reasoning behind the new subtitle, but even if it’s just there to sound cool, that’s part of the Metal Gear ethos too, so it works.

Oh, and one other cool detail about the delta logo – when it disperses the leaves turn white and then red, which is a nod to the final battle in the game.

Snake Eater

The teaser ends with a brief snippet of Metal Gear Solid 3’s famous theme ‘Snake Eater,’ originally performed by Cynthia Harrell. We’ll have to hear the full thing to make a judgment call, but the theme does sound remastered. It’s potentially a new version of the song recorded for the remake. This was something that was teased earlier this year when Donna Burke posted a photo of herself holding a folder titled ‘Snake Eater.’ Burke, it should be said, is a singer who has done numerous songs for the Metal Gear series, including ‘Heavens Divide’ from Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker ‘Sins of the Father’ from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

Some have also suggested that the symbol could be used to represent the Metal Gear Solid trilogy that Konami is also remastering. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case at this time. Not only does that symbol not appear in the teaser for those remasters revealed at the end of the Snake Eater trailer, but Metal Gear Solid is obviously bigger than a trilogy.

The more interesting theories regarding the game’s name revolve around the meanings of the Delta symbol/character. See Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet and also has a value of four in the Greek numerical system. While none of that information helps explain why a Delta is being used to represent the third Metal Gear Solid game, the Delta symbol is also often used to represent the change of a variable in math equations.

There’s no indication of when the remake will be out but the Master Collection will launch in autumn 2023. The official website hints that it may include additional games, with the original MSX games being likely candidates, as they’ve been included in previous compilations.

The Vol. 1 part of the name clearly implies a second collection, although it’s not entirely clear what this would contain as Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 don’t need much remastering. Perhaps instead it will involve some of the portable games and spin-offs, like Metal Gear Rising.

The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake will obviously feature updated graphics, refined gameplay, and other such modern upgrades, but just how different is the rest of the game going to be? Granted, the Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes remake made some pretty substantial changes to the base game, but those changes were made under the guidance of Metal Gear Solid creator, Hideo Kojima. Obviously, things have fallen apart between Konami and Kojima since then.

In a press statement, the remake’s developers note that they intend for “Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater to be a faithful recreation of the original story and game design.” They suggest that most of the changes to the game will be made to evolve “the gameplay with stunning visuals and a seamless user experience.” If that is the case, then this will likely not be a Final Fantasy 7-style remake that reimagines pretty much everything. If I had to guess, it will probably be closer to the Demon’s Souls remake in terms of what it does (and doesn’t) change.

In any case, we hope to bring you much more about this game as it nears its currently unconfirmed release date for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.