Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater review - Kojima's masterpiece reborn

I can't lie, I hated Metal Gear Solid 3 when it first launched in 2004. The '50s setting robbed me of the futuristic gadgets that drew me to the series with Metal Gear Solid 2, and the game ran at a pitiful 30fps compared to MGS 2's solid 60fps. As you can probably imagine, I eventually came around on Kojima's masterpiece, and with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, I've grown to appreciate it all the more.

With the flurry of remakes this past decade, it didn't come as a surprise to anyone when Konami announced its plans to revisit MGS 3. As the earliest game in the timeline, it serves as a natural entry point for newcomers. Taking place in Tselinoyarsk, a fictional region in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, you play as Naked Snake, a black ops agent assigned to a classified operation. By relying on survival instincts, close-quarters combat training, and sneaking expertise, you're tasked with 'Operation Snake Eater,' a mission that could determine the fate of the entire world.

As is the case with every Metal Gear Solid game, you'll often find yourself watching cutscenes rather than playing, but that's also among its biggest draws. While it's easy to compare this to a classic 007-esque adventure, the overarching story and its weird and wonderful characters make it something other. It's the boss fights in particular that have stuck with me after all these years. From the iconic sniper showdown with The End in the forest to the final fight in a field of white flowers, each confrontation challenges you to devise a creative strategy using your full arsenal of tools.

Given that MGS 3 is over 20 years old and has been analyzed countless times by some of the smartest minds in the industry, my review will mainly focus on the new additions to MGS Delta. Konami has played it safe with this remake from a gameplay standpoint, focusing primarily on incorporating many of the QoL upgrades introduced in MGS 4 and 5 to enhance the experience. The integration of crouch-walking, streamlined aiming, and improved cover mechanics enhances the fluidity of stealth encounters, offering more granular control over Snake than ever before. As for the story, there aren't any missing segments or surprise additions here; it's the original game as fans remember it.

When you start a new game, you're presented with two play styles: New Style and Legacy Style. To my knowledge, the game doesn't highlight any gameplay differences between the two, and yet it doesn't allow you to swap between the camera perspectives mid-game. After wrapping the campaign on each mode, I can confirm that there are some notable distinctions between the two styles, including one big change that makes the tranquilizer considerably better when playing in the Legacy mode.

These tweaks make each style feel like two distinct games, and though I would've appreciated the option to switch between them at will, I came to appreciate their addition for offering a fresh challenge. New Style's over-the-shoulder camera perspective allows you to move and shoot at the same time, giving you more control than ever before. While MGS 3 wasn't originally designed for this, gaining extra freedom doesn't inherently break the game, though it does make combat significantly easier.

There's a lot of controversy surrounding the MGS 1 remake, Twin Snakes, which added mechanics that threw off the game's balance, and I believe this new play style will evoke a similar concern. Playing on keyboard and mouse, I felt overpowered using my newfound ability to drop enemies without having to fight with the cumbersome aiming controls. Previously, I would have to carefully consider my approach to combat, but now I can dispatch my foes with ease, barely pausing to think.

While the 'Tactical Espionage Action' subtitle is proudly displayed above the game's name, serving as a reminder that this is, in fact, a stealth game, MGS Delta's QoL changes make it easy to think otherwise. MGS 3 constantly tempts you to embrace your inner Rambo, inciting you with several lethal weapons within the opening hours of your first mission. Deep down, you know you're supposed to be playing as an undercover spy, but when things start going sideways, it's never been easier to tear through the enemies standing in your way.

Considering MGS 3 wasn't designed with this perspective in mind, it's shocking how well the game works using the modern play style. There are times when it isn't immediately apparent what direction you're supposed to be heading in, but that's where the compass comes in. This new tool always leads you to your primary objective by providing an icon on the HUD if you have it equipped.

While MGS 3's codec acts as its hint system whenever you need a reminder on what to do, the compass supersedes it entirely by pointing directly to your goal. Aside from the two instances where the compass isn't available, there's very little reason to give your comrades a call with this item in your arsenal. Unless you make a deliberate effort to play stealthily, most people will have it active at all times.

As a result, your exposure to and connection with the side characters is weakened by an easy overreliance on the compass. It's a pity, as one of the new additions to Delta streamlines the codec calling process, but I found myself using it mainly to save my progress. Speaking of QoL changes, you can now access the camouflage system without having to go into a separate menu, making it possible to adjust your camo on the fly. There is a slight delay when switching between outfits, but it's much faster than scrolling through menus. Personally, I would've liked to see changes to the healing and food mechanics, both of which seem unnecessarily slow, particularly on New Style where the action is sped up.

It wasn't until I switched to the Legacy Style that I realized just how different the original game is. Right away, the fixed camera's top-down perspective makes the expansive environments feel much smaller in comparison. Certain areas I explored during my first playthrough suddenly made more sense in hindsight, with the fixed angles naturally guiding me through the environment. The Legacy Style also has a visual filter applied, restoring the original game's signature green tint.

With the wider viewpoint making it easier to track enemy movement patterns, I naturally gravitated toward a stealthier approach - this time relying on battery-powered equipment to quietly slip past patrolling soldiers. While you still have access to the first-person view whenever you need to land a precise shot, being anchored to the spot severely limits your killing potential.

A fresh perspective might not be appealing enough to warrant playing through the game again, but MGS Delta's New Game Plus offers more reasons to crawl back in. With over 100 Kerotan and GAKO figures to locate, unique rewards for taking down bosses with non-lethal weapons, and game-breaking rewards for finishing the campaign under specific conditions, you'll want to experience Naked Snake's journey at least one more time.

Konami isn't exactly known for its quality PC ports, with its most recent example being 2023's Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection, which received a patch a year after launch that finally allowed players to change the game's internal resolution. MGS Delta isn't quite that bad, but there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm pleased to report the game doesn't suffer from the typical Unreal Engine 5 stutter that the engine is almost synonymous with these days. Running the game on a PC equipped with an RTX 5090 and 9800X3D, I only experienced a frame rate dip in one water-heavy scene.

As I've touched on already, the keyboard and mouse controls are fantastic, featuring rebindable actions, in addition to handy accessibility options to further tweak the controls to your liking. The game features a 60fps cap, which is obviously a major disappointment, as is the lack of support for ultrawide aspect ratios. Though you can enable HDR, you can't set your display's maximum luminance or get granular with any of the settings as you're restricted to just one brightness slider.

On top of this, the game needs to run at fullscreen to activate HDR, but I couldn't set my monitor to its highest resolution without running borderless windowed mode. This is something I experienced during my time with Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, another Unreal Engine 5 game, so it's likely something engine-related. I love a good photo mode, but MGS Delta's doesn't make the cut due to the restrictions on how far you can move the camera - another item on the list of things I hope modders can address. At the bare minimum, the MGS Delta PC port is good enough, but as I wrote about recently, the bar for a quality port isn't that high these days.

With the Secret Theatre, Snake vs Monkey, and even the Guy Savage demo making a return, there's so much to do after the main campaign is over. The only thing that might disappoint some hardcore fans is the loss of Metal Gear Online, but a new Prop Hunt-style multiplayer mode called Fox Hunt is coming at the end of the year that may satiate MGO players.