Metal Gear Solid Delta remake hands-on preview and interview – old school stealth-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – new and improved (Konami)

GameCentral talks to the producer of the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake, about recreating a classic and the possibility of making a brand new game.

It’s now nine years since Hideo Kojima was chased out of Konami and almost 20 years since the release of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, regarded by many as the best entry in the series. Even though it’s their fault he left, it’s been clear that Konami has had no idea what to do without him, when it comes to the Metal Gear series, and after the release of two volumes of Master Collection it’s seemed obvious that remakes are the only other logical choice.

The question is which one to start with, as while Metal Gear Solid on PS1 seems the obvious place to begin it would require an awful lot of work, if not a complete redesign, to match modern expectations – especially for someone that has never played the game before.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is only six years younger but, with its 1964 setting, it’s chronologically the first in the series. So that together with the game’s reputation is why we assume it was picked. We did ask producer Noriaki Okamura, when we played the game earlier in the month, but on that note he was very circumspect. Although he did go into more detail on a number of other aspects of the game.

‘What sparked us to do the remake is that we discovered there’s a younger generation of gamer who either have never heard of this series before or have never played a Metal Gear Solid game,’ explains Okamura.

‘We did release the Master Collection, with Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3, but it still felt like an old game and they may not enjoy it in the way it was originally intended. And that’s why we saw the need to start this project.

‘We get asked a lot by people: ‘If I’ve never played a game which one should I start with?’ And timeline-wise it makes sense to start at the beginning of the story. I’s also a great standalone game, where you don’t necessarily need to have played any of the other games and don’t need to continue on with the other games to understand anything.’

The demo we played started at the very beginning of the game and ended with the first confrontation with The Boss. That’s not long, in theory, especially if you’ve played the original, but the last time we played the game was the 3DS version in 2012. It all started coming back quite quickly though and it’s interesting that while the game has a new, behind-the-shoulder camera view this remake otherwise sticks very close to the original design.

Other changes are more subtle but there is now a dedicated roll button and you can drop to the ground from standing, instead of first having to go into a crouch. You also now get a compass and an onscreen objective reminder, so it’s a little clearer where you’re supposed to be going.

In terms of story, everything is the same, including keeping the same voice-acting and dialogue, and exactly the same cut scenes as before – only with better graphics. Visually, it’s hard to say where the game stands without seeing more, as everything is designed around PlayStation 2 era limitations, which makes it seem more like a high-end remaster than an actual remake. Although the realistic mud, that deforms around you and threatens to suck you under if you stay still too long, is quite impressive.

Given a full redesign would lead them back to the same problems with remaking Metal Gear Solid 1 the compromise they’ve reached for Delta makes sense and for us the visuals struck just the right balance between retro and modern. Although they suffer from the usual problem of remakes, where they only manage to keep pace with your memories and you don’t realise how much they’ve improved until you make side-by-side comparisons.

‘While we were in the process of upgrading the graphics we realised that some of the new graphics didn’t blend well with some of the gameplay. For example, the character motions and animations started looking clunky and old,’ says Okamura.

‘But our goal isn’t to create a new Metal Gear game. That’s why we only chose to change or upgrade the things we felt were necessary. It still feels like you’re playing Metal Gear Solid 3, without it feeling like you’re playing a 20 year old game.

‘Even for those that have never played a stealth game, or haven’t played one in a while, we hope this doesn’t take away from experiencing the thrill of what makes the original game exciting. But it wasn’t our intention to modernise any of the stealth mechanics.’

Time for a costume change (Konami)

As far as we could tell, the level design is identical to the original, which includes everything being made up of very small areas that work as their own discreet maps, with a short transition between each one. That’s one of the most obvious signs of the game’s age, since today all that would be just one big open world, but the other telltale indicator is that the game’s stealth is really hard.

Coming from simplified, modern stealth, in games like Star Wars Outlaws, the difference is immediately obvious in Delta, as you’re given much smaller windows of opportunity and soldiers are much more alert in terms of noise and sound. But then stealth is the primary gameplay mechanic in Metal Gear Solid and that’s almost unknown nowadays, where it’s generally just a side element.

That means Delta takes the concept of not being seen a lot more seriously, with percentage indicators of how visible you are at any given time and a range of unusual options and equipment. The most infamous is that you can change camouflage to suit the location, although since the game is set in 1964 the implication is that you’re taking off all your clothes and putting on a new outfit every time, which is laughably absurd – although you never see exactly how it’s meant to work, as the change occurs when using a menu.

If you’re already feeling intimidated by the game’s difficulty it’s not so much that it’s hard but that it requires a skill that few games nowadays depend on: patience. Watch the patrol routes of guards from a position of cover and you’ll find a weak spot in every defence. Likewise, combat should be avoided if at all possible, as any lengthy contact with the enemy will just lead to a firefight you can’t win.

The demo included a slightly larger area where you’re trying to exfiltrate an ally from a half-ruined building and it’s a marvellously designed map, where you’ve got half a dozen different options as to how to get at him and avoid the enemies – from crawling under the floorboards to dropping in from above, via the ruined roof.

You don’t necessarily have to kill minor enemies (Konami)

The other sign of the game’s age is the incredibly long Hideo Kojima cut scenes, although Metal Gear Solid 3 was generally more succinct than later games, which is another reason it’s so well regarded. It’s the radio conversations, that often have little in the way of visual accompaniment, that are the worst and the remake does little to ameliorate them, other than letting you skip them.

Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun with the demo, including the final cut scene where you meet the main bad guy and all the various bosses you’ll end up fighting as the game continues. The sequence perfectly illustrates Metal Gear’s weird mix of military realism and anime style absurdity and, especially since it’s a long time since the series has been in the spotlight, it’s a fun contrast to many of today’s less distinctive games.

Seeing that the remake has worked out well we can’t help but ask Okamura the obvious question, of whether this is a prelude to making a brand new, original game.

‘It’s a bit too far out in the future for us, to really dive into whether or not we’ll be expanding on the series,’ he told us. ‘But for now the focus is definitely on building our Metal Gear team, with Delta and the Master Collection, and making sure that we can deliver quality Metal Gear titles.

‘Hopefully, due to these games, people will start to love stealth games once again and if there is popular demand in the future, that will be a huge driving factor for us. But for now our focus is to make sure we have the team to back us up on this.’

Without Kojima’s involvement this remake was always going to be controversial but Konami – including what Okamura describes as a ‘handful’ of people that worked on the original series – have done the sensible thing and tried to stick as close to the original as possible. That should please existing fans and we have a sneaking suspicion it will gain a number of new ones too.

Formats: Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC
Price: TBC
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Virtuos and Konami (original developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan)
Release Date: 2024
Age Rating: 18

Metal Gear Solid Delta – the graphics are certainly better (Konami)

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