Along with confirming a shiny remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 at last night’s PlayStation Showcase, Konami announced a collection of ye olde Metal Gears Solid 1-3. These sound like straightforward rereleases of the classic stealth games and I’m cool with that because I am deeply wary of Konami touching Metal Gear at all. I just want Snake Eater on PC at long last. Konami are vague about platforms, but I’m expecting/hoping we’ll see this collection on PC? And more vintage Gears Solid might follow.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1 is due to arrive this autumn, toting Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Konami’s website say it “allows fans to play the games as they were, as first released on the latest platforms.”
They don’t specify which platforms (plural) those are, but I certainly hope PC is included. And I do expect it. Konami did start selling Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 again on PC in 2020, though they soon needed to pull MGS2 from sale due to licensing issues with historical footage in cutscenes. And the Snake Eater remake is coming to PC, so the original would make sense. And Konami have released their recent collections of old Castlevania, Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and arcade games on PC, and their upcoming Suikoden 1 & 2 remasters are coming our way too. My only doubt comes from Metal Gear Solid 3.
Unlike the first two, MGS3: Snake Eater was never released on PC. That might presumably make it more of an effort to bring our way. But I really hope they do, because the historical Big Boss era of Metal Gear Solid is so much more interesting to me than the contemporary Solid Snake games. (Though I do have to admire the self-indulgent audacity of MGS4. And Platinum’s spin-off, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a near-perfect game and obviously exempt from this comparison)
The Master Collection website teases that more games might follow, saying “Stay tuned for more information.” And, y’know, the whole ‘Volume 1’ part of the name is a little hint.
Some people might hope this means a rerelease of Metal Gear Solid 4, but it’s Peace Walker I really want. Give me cheery old Big Boss and his chums larking about in their special secret clubhouse, befriending children and building a mech. Though knowing Konami, I wouldn’t be surprised if they immediately swerved into re-releasing the squillion little side games.
It is hard for me to have much hope in anything Konami do. At this point, they’re one of the companies who own the rights to a lot of old games people like but seem incapable of making anything that good again. Especially not a Metal Gear game, after ditching series overlord Hideo Kojima in a very messy way. While Kojima and pals went on to create their own new fun weirdness with Death Stranding, Konami’s first post-Hideo Metal Gear was disappointing craft-o-survival game Metal Gear Survive. They wisely stopped after that.
Seemingly all Konami can offer are rereleases and remakes and I don’t have much faith in their remakes either. They handed Silent Hill 2 to Bloober Team and yup, even the little we’ve seen of that shows it’s handling subtlety as well as you’d expect from the studio behind Layers Of Fear and The Medium. Konami might say their Snake Eater remake is “a faithful recreation of the original story and game design” but why would you listen to Konami.
Still, if they rereleased Snake Eater, Peace Walker, and maybe MGS 4 on PC in decent technical shape, that would be enough for me. That’s all I want, Konami. If all you can do is trade on former glories, make those former glories available to us then leave them well alone.
Fingers crossed that Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1 will be on PC when it arrives this autumn.
