Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake hands-on: Snake is back and better than ever

Kojima’s genius unleashed on Unreal Engine 5

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater defies definition. It painstakingly references actual military close-quarters combat techniques, yet knocking someone out produces spinning stars above their heads. 

20 years on from its release, and now rendered in stunning detail on Unreal Engine 5, discovering all of the game’s genius quirks remains a treat. 

Set in 1964 amidst rising tensions of the Cold War, your mission begins after an audaciously long, exposition-filled cutscene. You can skip it and get the gist: basically, your character Naked Snake must drop behind enemy lines to save a Russian rocket scientist and sabotage a Soviet nuclear superweapon.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

Cue him smoking a cigar, doing a HALO jump out of a military plane, and landing in thick jungle. It’s more beautiful than ever, with dappled sunlight streaming through the canopy and individual blades of grass moving in the breeze. 

Snake’s character model in particular is stunning, with each nose pore and facial hair follicle represented. There’s an appealingly simulated quality to the stylised visuals, like those ‘what if The Simpsons were real?’ drawings. It’s the best he’s ever looked. 

Despite impressive graphics, the tired bones of the 2004 year old game become immediately apparent when you walk 50 meters ahead and trigger a loading screen. Then, just past the next area, another loading screen. What’s also apparent, though, is how little you’ll mind it. 

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

Each zone is like its own independent sandbox in which you can experiment with the hostile combatants and local wildlife, and refreshingly, if you mess up, you won’t instantly alert the entire game world.

For instance, in the first section I tranquilize a caiman, but it wakes up and loudly thrashes me, so I engage the reptile in furious hand-to-hand combat. If this was set in a continuous open environment I might have aroused the attention of patrolling enemies, but here, you’ll come to know exactly who’s in your specific area. There are no random elements, and that’s what makes stealth so enduringly precise.

There are just so many ways you can play the role of an elite spy: a motion sensor that highlights moving targets, active sonar that pings off animals who you might use as a distraction, a long-range microphone to pick up audio signals, and even a cyanide capsule you can swallow when spotted to evade capture (Snake’s fake death is so convincing you’ll even trigger a ‘game over’ screen).

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

That’s without getting to the individual ways you can mess with enemies. Sneaking up behind them presents you with options to judo throw or capture in a choke hold, and from there you can interrogate, throttle, stab, or use as a human shield. 

One person I interrogate tells me to “look out for hornet’s nests,” which seems a strangely specific piece of advice until I glance upwards and spot a hornet's nest in the branches. I shoot it to scare off the two enemies up ahead, and then collect the nest itself to eat for health, which Snake does, accompanied by this hardy special forces operative going “Yum, I want another!” Despite the silliness it’s hard not be charmed.

There’s a lot of nuance in your control system, which features a dramatic dive into cover for when you’re spotted, the ability to hide by dropping off ledges and hanging on, and a ‘tap on scenery’ feature that draws enemies over to investigate the noise. 

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

These were all moves present in the original, but they haven’t lost their luster in the intervening years. Stealth is best when it's exact, and MGS is nothing if not that.

Camouflage was a big feature introduced in Snake Eater, and it also feels just as fresh. The reason for that is no game has really attempted to ape it. You can change your camouflage at any point from a range of options including tree bark, olive drab, and tiger stripe, with each given a percentage rating for concealment based on context. 

If you’re in a heavily wooded area, for instance, you’ll want to go with tree bark. You also have the option of going topless. It has no camouflage bonus, but it looks cool.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

And that’s without mentioning natural camouflage. Wading through a bog coats your uniform in thick, chunky mud, precisely up to the level you waded, which proceeds to slowly bake in the sun. Lie in a swamp face down and you’re entirely covered in the stuff, which enemies have a hard time spotting.

Konami also says Snake can accrue battle damage throughout the game that stays on you forever as a permanent mark of your journey, but it’s hard to notice. After intentionally getting in a six-on-one firefight, I can’t see any of the promised realtime bruises, bullet wounds, and uniform wear-and-tear. Perhaps near the end of the game Snake will look a lot more haggard.

Besides that, Konami hasn’t added any notable new features or mechanics to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but such a timeless game doesn’t need them. If you’ve played it before, it’s remarkable just how good it still feels, whether you’re silently creeping through the undergrowth or noisily shotgun-blasting an enemy grunt. If you haven’t, you’ll love discovering its exhaustive list of legendary quirks and easter eggs. 

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater / Konami

Take your cigar, for instance. Snake can use it as a light source while in caves, and as a cure item to remove leeches. The downside is it slowly decreases your health. What kind of game thinks of something that? Metal Gear Solid does.