Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots launched in 2008 as one of the PlayStation 3’s biggest system sellers. Sony desperately needed that win after the Xbox 360 dominated the opening years of the seventh console generation, but Kojima Productions had something far more ambitious in mind than simply another Metal Gear Solid sequel.
MGS4 wanted to conclude Solid Snake’s story, tie together years of increasingly complicated lore, and push the PS3 hardware as hard as possible. Nearly 18 years later, though, its biggest legacy might be the fact that it never escaped that console. Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 finally fixes that.
This is a game I associate so strongly with the thrill of booting up my 60gb ‘fat’ PS3. Yet, after seeing the game’s opening cutscene unfold, I felt like I’d seen a vision of God – that’s if he looks like Old Snake, of course. Running at 1080p in Handheld Mode and 1440p in Docked Mode on the Nintendo Switch 2, it looks sharper than ever, and more importantly, Konami hasn’t completely stripped it of its iconic ‘piss filter’. Yes, even Hideo Kojima got caught up in the wave of games soaked in amber color grades.
However, the biggest improvement here is that it runs at a framerate that’s actually stable. Playing it on PlayStation 3 is rough, with a framerate that fluctuates between 25fps and whatever number the game feels like picking that day. Konami does more than visual polish, though. MGS4 brilliantly utilizes the rumble of the Joy-Cons. From in-cutscene action to getting my shit rocked by enemies, it all feels pleasingly tactile.
Where Konami gets more granular is in what it retains from the original version. I never expected elements like the fully licensed iPod. But alas, it’s back, along with the Playboy magazine, Regain energy drinks, and more. Despite all the history between Kojima and Konami, it’s good to see the studio take extra steps to honor his vision. Of course, MGS4 is a product of its time.
Its weapon/item management system is still remarkably obtuse, requiring a full pause to navigate sub-menus, attribute what you want, then return to the game. MGS4’s control scheme doesn’t fare much better either, coming across as clunkier than I remember. After the relative bliss of how The Phantom Pain feels to play, it is interesting to see some of the ideas in primitive forms. There’s also the matter of when the game decides to stop you from playing so it can explain another piece of Metal Gear’s labyrinthine history.
But that excess forms such an important part of MGS4’s identity that I still wouldn’t want Konami to sand it down. Can I order a takeaway and have it arrive while a cutscene happens? For any other game, probably not, but it’s more likely here. Of all the Metal Gear entries, Guns of the Patriots rivals Sons of Liberty when it comes to sheer ambition. That’s most true when you examine its story: a maze of political conspiracies, genetic manipulation, private military companies, nanomachines, artificial intelligence, and enough returning characters to make the credits feel like a family reunion.
How Kojima treats all of it with gigantic bombast is unreal. Fittingly, I can only think of Death Stranding 2 when it comes to a Kojima product that’s equally as uninterested in doing anything remotely normal. It’s not surprising, but I’m a little sad Metal Gear Online isn’t included here. However, there is a silver lining.
Peace Walker has a completely different preservation story. Originally designed around the PSP, its mission-based structure and portable-first design make it feel very different from MGS4, but bringing it alongside Snake’s PS3 finale creates a fascinating snapshot of how much the series experimented with hardware and format. What some players may have forgotten about is its excellent multiplayer features.
Peace Walker’s ‘Co-ops’ mode lets you play with up to four people, featuring a separate campaign of base infiltrations and boss battles. If you never experienced it on the PSP, its transition to modern consoles is a real treat. I highly recommend giving it a go, as its balance of tension and laughter is a great blast from the past. Speaking of the past, there’s Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, which might be the collection’s biggest surprise.
I’ve written about Ghost Babel before because it remains one of the most fascinating games in Metal Gear history. Released for the Game Boy Color in 2000, it doesn’t simply squeeze Metal Gear Solid onto a handheld. Instead, Shinta Nojiri and his team rework the formula around Nintendo’s hardware, creating an alternative sequel to the original MSX2 Metal Gear.
The game’s inclusion alongside MGS4 feels so significant. One game represents the enormous, cinematic ambitions of late-2000s console gaming; the other represents an experimental Game Boy Color branch of the franchise that many players never touched. Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 is a very important victory for game preservation, reviving one of the most important games of the last 20 years at its core.
