Metal Gear Solid Delta is a loyal remake that could signal Konami’s return

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’s influence on modern games is hard to overstate. The original, which came out 20 years ago, was a departure for the series, taking the MGS trappings and putting it into a much wider space than had previously come before. 

Metal Gear Solid, in its earlier years, often took place in indoor or enclosed areas. It was sneaking around vents and corridors to try and knock out guards with stealth-based gameplay. MGS 3 shook that up by placing you in a large jungle that you could navigate and backtrack through, making it feel like a larger, connected open area. 

It also told a really ambitious story tinged in world politics that had a killer hook. You’re a one-man army, dropped into the wilds of the soviet jungles to save a scientist in the 1960s Cold War era. You can’t be detected, and if you are, you’ll be disavowed, and the government will deny all knowledge of you to try and avoid an international incident. The game then sprawls out from there, as Hideo Kojima tasks you with navigating the wilderness, surviving, and trying to save the world. 

Its design, while not itself Open World, has influenced countless games that attempt to create a sense of space. Going back and playing it now, it’s pretty remarkable how well the game still plays for something that’s twenty years old.

However, it’s ready to reenter the world of video games with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – and we got to play it recently. In a world where remakes are becoming more and more common, though, how is the Konami classic holding up, and just what kind of remake is it? Well, if you’re a purist, you’re in for a treat. 

A soldier’s loyalty

Remakes of older titles are all the rage at the moment, with many having different sensibilities on how they approach recreating a classic. There are the likes of Resident Evil 4 Remake, which take the basis of the original game and remakes it top to bottom albeit faithfully, making a visually impressive update with some reworks around the core gameplay. There’s also the likes of Silent Hill 2 Remake which we recently got to play too, which takes an original game and tries to reimagine it in a different form.

Metal Gear Solid Delta is neither of those. Instead, the approach is one of extreme loyalty. From what I’ve played, it’s clear how much reverence the game has for the original, only painting with a new brush to update the look of the game.

Konami and its devs (some of whom worked on the original) are not trying to reinterpret anything here – this is as close to Metal Gear Solid 3 as you can possibly get but with beautiful redone graphics. That’s all impressive too – the title really does look beautiful.

From how Snake moves, the mechanics, and how the world is constructed, it’s clear Konami is trying to retrace the original with only light touches of reinterpretation. Playing through a portion of the opening mission Virtuous, it became abundantly clear where Delta’s intentions lie.

This is a very strong visual upgrade for a classic, bringing the game into the modern age. However, there’s confidence in the original title here. It’s not trying to spoon-feed it to audiences with all sorts of conveniences and reworks. It trusts the original to translate into a modern setting on its own. That really works too.  

An illustrative step to this is that the game uses all of the original audio files of the voice actors and their characters. It’s a simple but nice touch that shows Delta’s commitment to the original. 

Eating good

You may ask “That’s all well and good; what does Metal Gear Solid Delta feel like to play?” The answer to that is pretty straightforward: It feels like Metal Gear Solid 3. A lot like Metal Gear 3. 

As stated, Konami is brushing with pretty light strokes here. You’re still sneaking around, trying to slowly and methodically take down soldiers in the jungle, while you hide in the bushes or throw distractions. And then, when it inevitably all goes wrong, going loud and frantically trying to kill as many soldiers as possible before you’re downed yourself. 

Of course, even with over an hour with the remake, a large portion of that was spent not playing the game. Metal Gear Solid as a franchise is known for its excessive cutscenes, and that’s no different in 3, and by extension Delta.

This entry also has a lot of setup, introducing an alternate reality to the Cold War, and you feel it in the opening mission, as you get both a helping of political history, as well as character and situational setup. That said, if you know and love the cadence of the franchise, this should be no obstacle. It’s certainly gratifying to see these cutscenes lovingly recreated with a new graphical overhaul, making them very pretty to gawk at, while never losing their nostalgia factor.

The world of Metal Gear Delta is also constructed in the same way as before. This might have been one area that players will have hoped to see a little modernization. While the world is connected, it’s still constructed piecemeal, with smaller areas you need to go to load between.

It might have been nice to see the game flex modern hardware a little more and make an attempt at weaving this world together a little more seamlessly. However, again, this is about light touches with a big graphical overhaul. Changing how the game’s environments are constructed could have messed with the feel of this location, which many will remember like the back of their hand. 

If there is one mild concern, it centers around that remake’s performance. In some sections I played through it got quite frame-y, and clearly struggled a bit. However, as ever, this is only a preview, and there is time where all of this can be ironed out. While the graphical improvements are excellent, it’d be great if that extended to the game’s performance. 

Is Konami back?

Amongst all this, there is something glaring, too – and it has nothing to do with how Delta plays or what it looks like. No, it’s Konami’s commitment to the game. It’s no secret that things didn’t exactly work out between Hideo Kojima and Konami when the two entities split. However, this remake feels like one that has nothing but full reverence for the original.

There’s a feeling of deep respect. This obviously comes from the developer side, especially those who did work on the original, but Konami as a publisher seems committed to making this as faithful as possible. 

Perhaps with only a little over an hour with the game, it’s a bit naive to make any big conclusions, but this is all very promising from Konami. The company felt like it had stepped away from serious, mainstream games in the past decade. Metal Gear Solid Delta suggests maybe something has changed, though. That, maybe, we are on the path to Konami becoming a serious player in the space again, embracing and celebrating its past rather than trying to bury it. That’s an exciting proposition. 

As for Delta itself, it’s shaping up to be a loyal reconstruction of one of the most beloved games ever made. With an interest in updating the game graphically, but having a keen devotion to the original design, this is a remake for the Kojima purists. This isn’t trying to wow you with flash and gimmicks. Its goal is very simple, pure, even – it wants the title to feel and look how you remember it. And maybe, just maybe, suggests a publisher trying to do the exact same.