Metal Gear

• 1. Origins And Evolution

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  Hideo Kojima designed the original Metal Gear, which debuted in Japan and Europe in 1987 for the MSX2 computer platform. The first game was released on the 22nd of December 1987, in Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System port created by a separate team. A heavily modified NES version followed in North America in June 1988 and reached Europe and Australia sometime in 1989. Konami produced an NES sequel called Snake's Revenge without Kojima, releasing it in North America and Europe in 1990. One of that game's designers later asked Kojima to create a real Metal Gear sequel. In reaction, Kojima began development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which appeared in Japan in 1990 for the MSX2. Following Metal Gear 2s completion, Kojima directed his third Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid, for the PlayStation. It began development in 1994 and debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show before being released in 1998. The success of Metal Gear Solid resulted in a series of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, ports, and remakes for multiple consoles including Microsoft Windows, the Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Metal Gear Solid was followed up by the sequel Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty released in November 2001 for the PlayStation 2. A remake of the original Metal Gear Solid called Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was released for the Nintendo GameCube in early 2004. Later that year, the third numbered entry, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was released on the PlayStation 2. This is the first prequel which was set prior to all the previously released Metal Gear games and which acted as an origin to the franchise. These games were followed by a sequel to Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which was released on the PlayStation Portable in 2006. The series' main storyline was concluded in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PlayStation 3 in 2008. In April 2010, another sequel to Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, was released for the PlayStation Portable and was set shortly after the events of Portable Ops. The spin-off game, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, was released in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and in Jan 2014 on Steam (PC). On the 2nd of June 2011, Konami announced the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection which was released in November 2011 for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The collection features remastered versions of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, rendered in 720p and running at 60fps. On the 24th of May 2023, during Sony's PlayStation Showcase event, a remake of Snake Eater, titled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was announced, as well as the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, which was released on October 24 of that year.

• 2. Narrative Architecture

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  In the Metal Gear universe, history had diverged at some point during World War II, with the fictional Cobra Unit, led by The Boss, being instrumental in the defeat of the Axis Powers. Cloning, AI and robotics technology of the 1970s are more advanced. The eleven games in the main Metal Gear series continuity reveal a narrative that spans five and a half decades, from the Cold War, until the near future. Big Boss is the most relevant character within the story of the series and, of the canonical 11 games, five are prequels centering on his story, set decades before the events of the original Metal Gear. However, Solid Snake is still depicted as the primary main character of the series, as the prequels create context of his purpose and him being the antithesis of his father. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater which is chronologically the first game in the series, introduces Naked Snake (or Snake for short), an operative working for the fictional Force Operation X (FOX) unit of the CIA during the Cold War. The game focuses on the rise of Snake from an apprentice to a legendary soldier, as well as the downfall of his mentor and matriarchal figure, The Boss. After The Boss defects to the Soviet Union, Snake is sent into Russia to kill her and end the threat posed by Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, a GRU colonel with plans to overthrow the Soviet government. Snake's heroics during the game earn him the nickname "Big Boss" at the end. The origins of The Patriots, an organization founded by Zero, are also explored. Metal Gear Solid elaborates on the storyline of the earlier games and reveals that Solid Snake is a genetic clone of Big Boss, created as part of a secret government project. An antagonist is introduced in the form of Liquid Snake, Snake's twin brother who takes control of FOXHOUND after Snake's retirement. Liquid and FOXHOUND take control of a nuclear weapons disposal facility in Alaska and commandeer REX, the next-generation Metal Gear weapons platform being tested there. They threaten to detonate REX's warhead unless the government turns over the remains of Big Boss. Solid Snake destroys Metal Gear REX and kills the renegade FOXHOUND members, with the exception of Revolver Ocelot. A third Snake brother known as Solidus Snake is introduced as the United States President at the end of Metal Gear Solid and serves as the main antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. During his time as president, Solidus became aware of a secretive cabal known as "The Patriots" who were steadily manipulating the course of history. After his tenure as president is over, Solidus takes control of the "Big Shell" offshore facility, which is being used to develop Arsenal Gear, a mobile undersea fortress designed to house and protect a network of AIs created to influence human development by filtering the availability of information across the Internet.

• 3. Thematic Deconstruction

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  The overarching theme of the Metal Gear Solid series is that of the "gene, meme, scene, sense, peace, revenge and race," and how people are affected by these factors according to the game's producer Kojima. Metal Gear Solid deals with genetics and the moral implications of genetic engineering. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty deals with how identity can be affected by the philosophies of one's society (a "meme") and the effects of censorship on society. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater deals with how the time and place one lives in (a "scene") affects their identity, how politics change along with the times and hyperreality, the inability to distinguish fact and fiction in an information-saturated world. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots deals with "sense", which is a person's understanding of the world that is lost when they die. It also encompasses how some things cannot be passed down to future generations and be misinterpreted as well as the artificially controlled (and globally shared) sense-data of the new era's nanotech-enhanced soldiers. With Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker the plot deals with the true nature of 'peace', and the concept of conflict in human societies. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain deals with the themes "race" and "revenge" and how the latter can make one lose their humanity. Following the initial Metal Gear, each game has been a deconstruction of action movies and video games, using tropes to invoke the themes and ideas especially those of spy movies. It examines what kind of mind and complete control of a situation would be needed to pull off the absurdly complex and convoluted plans that rely on events completely within the realm of chance yet comes off without a hitch. Furthermore, it examines what happens to a child soldier forced to take up a normal life through the characters Eli (also known as Liquid Snake) in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Jack (primarily known as Raiden) in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Solid Snake serves as a deconstruction of the action hero archetype, as his wartime experiences have turned him into a bitter, broken-down soldier who wishes to retire, but cannot escape the life of conflict that had entwined him for so long. This concept is further explored through Raiden, who is put through the same torments as Snake in explicit detail. Big Boss is similarly not immune to this theme: as Naked Snake, he does not resemble a suave, impeccable secret agent that would otherwise fit into the 1960s spy film pastiche of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but is instead an everyman character. Only after undergoing immense psychological and physical scarring does he begin to resemble the ultimate soldier known as Big Boss.

• 4. Creator Vision And Conflict

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  The Metal Gear franchise has sold over 63.3 million units as of the end of June 2025. By February 2007, the series had grossed more than $1 billion (equivalent to between $1.5 billion adjusted for inflation) from 100 million copies sold, in addition to having sold ancillary merchandise including strategy guides, action figures and 200,000 comic books. The PlayStation Portable games were met with notably lower sales, but it has been analyzed that this was because of the low sales of the console when the games were released. Metal Gear Survive, the first Metal Gear game to be developed since series creator Hideo Kojima left Konami, sold only a fraction of the sales made by Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The series as a whole (namely concerning the Kojima-directed titles) is often regarded as one of the most influential of all time and has received largely critical acclaim from critics and players. Most of the numbered installments are considered to be some of the greatest video games of all time. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty currently possesses 95.09% on GameRankings and 96/100 on Metacritic, making it the highest-scoring game of the series to date. In 2002, IGN's editors ranked Metal Gear Solid as the best PlayStation game ever. In Game Informer Magazines list of top 200 games of all time, Metal Gear Solid 2 ranked at No. 50 on the list. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was also voted as the fifth greatest PlayStation game in a poll from PlayStation Official Magazine (UK). Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 were featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "The Art of Video Games" exhibition taking place from March 16 to the 30th of September 2012. Games have won multiple awards such as Metal Gear Solid, which won the "Excellence Award for Interactive Art" by the Japan Media Arts Festival, and Metal Gear Solid 2, which was given the Game of the Year award by Game Informer. Metal Gear was the first mainstream stealth game, with the player starting the game unarmed, and sold over a million copies in the United States. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake evolved the stealth gameplay of its predecessor and is considered one of the best 8-bit games of all time. Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 are credited with pioneering stealth mechanics. Metal Gear Solid, which debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show, was the first 3D stealth game, and is credited with popularizing the stealth game genre, as well as the hiding-behind-cover mechanic. The series pioneered the integration of cinematic techniques into video games, especially Metal Gear Solid which Eurogamer considers the "first modern video game." Several boss fights have been praised for their variety and strategy required to beat them. The series is notorious for its fourth wall breaking scenes. The storyline has been commented to maintain "rich characterization" while touching

• 5. Cultural Impact And Legacy

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  on some controversial themes. Hideo Kojima's ambitious script in Metal Gear Solid 2 has been praised, some calling it the first example of a postmodern video game, while others have argued that it anticipated concepts such as post-truth politics, fake news, echo chambers and alternative facts.

  A novel adaptation of the original Metal Gear was published in 1988 as a part of Scholastic's Worlds of Power line of novelizations, which were based on third-party NES games. It was written by Alexander Frost. A Japanese-language novelization of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots by Project Itoh was published on the 12th of June 2008. The novel was translated into English by Viz Media and was released on the 19th of June 2012. A comic book adaptation of the original Metal Gear Solid was published by IDW Publishing in 2004. It was written by Kris Oprisko and with illustrations by Ashley Wood. A comic book adaptation of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has also been published by IDW, written by Alex Garner with illustrations by Ashley Wood. The series lasted 24 issues and has been collected in two trade paperbacks as well as a single hardback collector's edition which is currently out-of-print. The entire run of the comic was collected again in a paperback book, Metal Gear Solid Omnibus, and released in June 2010. A digital version of the first comic book adaptation was released for the PlayStation Portable, Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, in 2006. A second digital version, Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinée, was released exclusively in Japan as a DVD release in 2008 and features fully voiced versions of both comic book adaptations. A radio drama based on the original Metal Gear Solid aired in Japan from 1998 to 1999 as part of Konami's syndicated CLUB db program. Directed by Shuyo Murata and written by Motosada Mori, the serial lasted over 12 weekly installments spanning three story arcs. In 1999, McFarlane Toys, with the collaboration of Konami, launched a series of action figures depicting key characters from Metal Gear Solid. In 2001, following the success of the first series, and with the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, McFarlane Toys, and Konami combined their efforts to produce a line of action figures depicting Sons of Liberty's main characters. Each character has a piece of Metal Gear RAY, so collecting the entire set is essential to build the robot. Konami has also released 4" scale blind-box figures based on MGS2 released in Japan, Sons of Liberty in 2002 and Substance shortly after in 2003. During the release of MGS3, Medicom released 12" figures of Snake as part of their Real Action Heroes line. In 2009, toy company ThreeA joined forces with Kojima to make related products. The first fruition of this partnership came in late 2012, when ThreeA released a massive 1/48 scale figure of Metal Gear REX, with working LED lights.