Solid Snake is one of the most iconic heroes of the stealth genre, perhaps even more than Sam Fisher of Splinter Cell fame. But this isn’t a game centered around Solid Snake himself. Rather, Snake Eater focuses on his predecessor, Big Boss, and how he came to inherit that title. Originally the third title in the Metal Gear Solid series and one of the most critically acclaimed stealth games of all time, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater remakes that iconic spy thriller for a whole new generation.
In a lot of ways, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater reminds me of how this massively influential stealth title played back on the PlayStation 2. My younger mind would’ve thought that graphics could not possibly get any better, and the Metal Gear series would continue to improve. Wrong on both counts (although I certainly have a soft spot for Peace Walker’s multiplayer), it’s instead perhaps a testament to how well this title has held up after two decades.
At its core, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater is a sneaking mission where players must procure everything on sight. Armed only with a silenced pistol and some novel tools (a cigar, a fake death pill, and binoculars, among others), the player must rely on what they can come across in the wild in order to survive. When the player doesn’t even pack an MRE or CalorieMate in their gear, it comes down to the wildlife to sustain the player. After all, some days you’ll feel like feeding on a tree frog.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater starts as a simple extraction mission. As the solo member of FOX tasked with infiltrating deep into enemy territory, it’s up to the player to rescue a weapon developer named Nikolai Sokolov and safely get him to safety. Unfortunately, this quickly devolves into an international incident and results in a far more deadly and in-depth mission to make up for this mistake. Even with the game being more than twenty years old at this point, there are still a great number of spoilers to keep quiet about for new players who might find this Metal Gear Solid title to be the first they’ve experienced in the series.
Suppose all you want out of playing Metal Gear Solid Delta is the identical experience as on PlayStation 2. In that case, the legacy controls allow you to enjoy Virtuous Mission as Kojima intended back in 2004, for both good and bad, with only a fresh coat of paint to highlight the experience. The only real omissions to Snake Eater this time around are several stock footage clips that play during important cutscenes (these were initially changed during the release of the HD Collections back two console generations ago) and the initial recording of Cynthia Harrell’s Snake Eater. This time around, Cynthia’s iconic vocals hit all the hallmarks of a top 10 James Bond theme, but her new take on the vocals gives the familiar track an almost haunting appeal, especially during that particular iconic moment where the song plays as an interlude between the chaos.
The original Snake Eater was developed with the limitations of the camera and vantage point in mind. While players could go into a first-person view when aiming a gun, being able to freely look around was intentionally limited in the original release. With the remixed controls, players gain a drastically more mobile experience that bypasses many of these limitations. Players are no longer limited to just being able to eye what’s on screen at the time, but rather anywhere that they can rotate the camera around and peer beyond. This makes finding hidden enemy patrols or the odd collectible a breeze.
Another part of the charm of sneaking around in Snake Eater was the introduction of the Camo system, which was a part of select games later on in the series. By combining a suit design and face paint, Naked Snake gains a small percentage of stealth to indicate how invisible he was to the naked eye based on colors and design. Now it’s going to be impossible to blend into the background with 100% success (bar a specific camouflage earned by taking out a certain boss with non-lethal attacks), but even a stealth rating in the 70s will give enemy soldiers pause if they see an odd figure skulking through the bushes.
If stealth games aren’t your jam and you’re just in it for the story, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater still offers the same Very Easy difficulty that rewards the player with a so-called EZ Gun that can tranquilize most enemy soldiers in a single shot while also increasing their camo index up to 80% just by having the weapon equipped. Now you won’t be able to get the higher ranks needed for a 100% trophy completion (beating the game with a Foxhound rank first requires playing the game on Extreme mode with certain criteria, which is, in turn, unlocked by beating the game for the first time).
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater finds itself trapped in a weird position where both first-timers and Graniny Gorki experts find that this remake perhaps doesn’t go far enough. Yes, it’s been completely overhauled to work in a brand new engine not named after an animal, but note for note, bar for bar, Naked Snake’s journey plays it too safe without a real overhaul that would justify another trip into the wilderness that subsequent releases like MGS3: Subsistence and Snake Eater 3D brought to the table.
One thing that I will have to give Konami props for this time around is managing to include everything that players remembered (with the obvious omission of Metal Gear Online) and this even includes the Guy Savage minigame that somemight remember as Snake’s Nightmare (if para-Medic recommends you take a break at a key point in the story, its recommended to follow her advice and save your game and reload it at a later time to find this secret minigame). Both Demo Theatre and Secret Theatre are also here, with the latter including the weirder cutscenes all remade in Unreal Engine 5 with the original audio and even some new surprises players haven’t seen before. Unfortunately, these secret cutscenes require unlocking during the course of normal gameplay by holding up soldiers in specific areas before they divulge their secrets.
Apropos of nothing, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is the de facto perfect way to experience the rise and fall of Big Boss. Each detail has been meticulously refined and brought to modern standards while leaving nothing behind in the past. While this also means retaining both the campiness and jank, there’s no better way to experience the first Metal Gear Solid title in the timeline.
[Editor’s Note: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was reviewed on the PlayStation 5 Pro. Review code was provided by the publisher. Travel accommodations were also provided by Konami for a review event earlier in August 2025.]
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