METAL GEAR SOLID DELTA: SNAKE EATER

Metal Gear Solid Delta is Metal Gear Solid 3. “What a revelation,” you’re thinking, “I can’t believe this remake is a lot like the game it’s remaking”.

- Joshua Wolens

But no, really, listen to me. Delta isn’t MGS3 the way that the Silent Hill 2 remake is Silent Hill 2 (see p26). Having spent an hour and a half with it, I can say this thing is a shot-for-shot, not-a-hair-outof-place recreation of the original PS2 masterpiece that I regard as one of the greatest videogames ever made. Konami seems to have taken zero liberties.

Close your eyes and imagine MGS3 in scintillating Unreal Engine 5 and you’re 95% of the way to experiencing what I saw. Aside from a dusting of mechanics from MGS5 and a couple of quality-of-life features, this is the game as it was in a sparkly new package. With Hideo Kojima long-since absconded from Konami and trust in the company in short supply, I think that’s exactly what fans are looking for, even if I might question the value of a remake that hews so single-mindedly to the original.

AND SCENE

My demo consisted of the entire Virtuous Mission – MGS3’s prologue that sets up the stakes of the story to come, introducing us to characters like Naked Snake, The Boss, Ocelot, and Volgin. It is – I’m going to have to find lots of different ways to say this throughout this preview – exactly as you remember it.

Except, of course, that it all looks a lot nicer. Konami has taken advantage of the last two decades of technological progress to make MGS Delta look sharp as hell in Unreal Engine 5. The foliage is luscious; the jungle feels hot, looming and oppressive; and all those characters now have detailed faces and expressions to go along with their voice acting, which is taken directly from the original game – no re-recordings here.

There’s no denying it looks great. Konami and Virtuos have done an excellent job translating the feel of the original game to a slick modern package, so much so that I didn’t even miss the yellow-y piss filter that was a trademark of OG MGS3 (and which Konami says will be an option in the remake’s full release).