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The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake is officially happening

The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake is officially happening

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The new game appeared during Wednesday’s PlayStation Showcase, but is also coming to Xbox and PC.

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A screenshot from the new Metal Gear Solid game.
Image: Sony

After months of rumors, it’s finally official: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is getting a remake. It’s got a new name: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. The project was confirmed during Wednesday’s PlayStation Showcase. It’s set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, and Windows PC via Steam, according to a Konami press release.

In addition to this new game, a rerelease of the first three MGS games — Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Snake Eater — was revealed on Wednesday as part of a collection called Metal Gear Solid Master Collection: Volume 1. It’s scheduled to come out this autumn on PS5. The versions of Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater in this collection will be the ones from the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Konami’s press release said.

Metal Gear Solid 3, or MGS3, is widely considered to be one of the best stealth action games of all time. Originally released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2, the game serves as a prequel to previous games in the series, following protagonist Snake as he infiltrates a Soviet military base in the Russian wilderness. While other entries in the franchise are filled with high-tech gadgets and weaponry, MGS3 was more low-fi, with a focus on using camouflage to hide in each area and, of course, hunting down forest animals like snakes to keep your stamina levels replenished.

This new game will be a “faithful remake,” Konami wrote in the press release, and it will star “the original voice characters, rich storyline and expansive features of combat survival in harsh environments evolved with unprecedented graphics and immersive sound.” Oh, and if you were wondering how to pronounce that triangle symbol in the game’s title, Konami confirmed to The Verge that it’s “delta.”

Rumors that Konami is bringing back MGS3 have been around for some time. In 2021, VGC reported that a remake of the game was in development alongside revivals of its other major franchises: Castlevania and Silent Hill. Although the Castlevania project is yet to be officially announced, Konami revealed the all-new Silent Hill F alongside a Silent Hill 2 remake last year. 

The Metal Gear franchise has basically been dormant since series creator Hideo Kojima’s high-profile split from Konami back in 2015 beyond 2018’s mediocre Metal Gear Survive. Depending on which games you accept as canon (which isn’t a simple process for various reasons), there are a little under a dozen mainline entries in the Metal Gear franchise, starting with 1987’s Metal Gear for the MSX2 and ending with 2015’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

A promotional image for the new Metal Gear Solid collection.
A promotional image for the new Metal Gear Solid collection.

MGS3 has already seen a couple of remasters and rereleases over the years. An enhanced PS2 version called Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence was released shortly after the original that added a player-controlled camera, and the game has also been rereleased in various forms on the PS3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS. Oh, and I guess some of its cinematics were remastered for a pachinko machine around 2016, but the less said about that, the better.

Update May 24th, 8:22PM ET: Added confirmed pronunciation of the triangle symbol in the game’s title.