Metal Gear Solid: 10 Things Only Die-Hard Fans Know About The Games

Hideo Kojima’s magnum opus Metal Gear Solid has built a large and loyal base of well-versed fans on its complex lore and production history.

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Publisher Konami and Hideo Kojima’s magnum opus series Metal Gear Solid has amassed a large, dedicated base of fans that are well-versed in the franchise’s complex and sprawling lore. The series’ universe has a deep history spanning several decades, giving enthralling — if occasionally to the point of convolution — stories with a plethora of intricate details and different agents pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Metal Gear Solid’s biggest fans have not only become entrenched into the world’s mythology, but they’ve also become aware of the influences and unfortunately tumultuous production issues that happened over at Konami.

Solid Snake’s Clear Inspiration By Escape From New York

Creator Hideo Kojima has made no secret of Metal Gear Solid’s many movie influences, and John Carpenter’s Escape from New York is the most visually apparent. The character design for the iconic Solid Snake is a clear homage to the movie’s lead Snake Plissken. Most notable are the eye-patch, gruff voice, and rugged physique.

However, the games make references to Escape from New York as well. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Solid Snake calls himself “Iroquois Pliskin” as an alias. Another small touch is when Snake wears his eyepatch over his left eye in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

The Phantom Pain Was Marred With Production Turmoil

Despite being one of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 generation’s best games, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had some unfortunately rough behind-the-scenes production issues. A lot of it came down to Konami’s hand in pushing Hideo Kojima out of the company and franchise.

The publisher has accrued plenty of ill will from fans for being notoriously bad at maintaining positive relationships with its creatives, and even more so for leaving the console gaming scene to pursue gacha mobile games and pachinko machines. This, along with some gameplay issues, culminated in the story having noticeable gaps and being stripped of a proper final act.

Peace Walker Was Partially Influenced By Pokémon

In one of the more bizarre influences the franchise used, Game Informer cites that Hideo Kojima said the PlayStation Portable spinoff Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was partially inspired by Pokémon. Though the Pokémon franchise has permeated to non-fans, the two series couldn’t be more different from each other.

However, Kojima was then pointing to how Snake could “capture” soldiers confronted on espionage missions and send them back to his base. It’s a funny way of linking Metal Gear Solid with the monster-collecting JRPG, but the recruitment element certainly shares some similarities.

Peace Walker Was Also Influenced By Sim City

Perhaps equally as bizarre is that Kojima also said Peace Walker was also influenced by the life-sim game series Sim City. Unsurprisingly, the similarities of the in-game mechanics go hand-in-hand with the PSP game’s use of Pokémon-like features. Both influences even carried over to MGSV.

In Peace Walker, the player has to do a degree of maintenance of Snake’s headquarters outside of special-ops missions in addition to recruiting soldiers. While this comparison sounds wilder on paper, in-game the simulation-lite elements add a fitting degree of management that complements the game’s story.

Peace Walker Had A Monster Hunter Crossover

Japanese games are no strangers to collaborations between franchises, and this was undoubtedly one of the strangest gaming crossovers. Before Capcom’s Monster Hunter franchise achieved the breakout status it deserved, it was predominantly on the PSP. As a cross-promotion of Japan’s Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Konami incorporated the Hunting Quests side missions in Peace Walker.

These side missions had Snake face off against iconic monsters like Tigrex and the flagship of the franchise Rathalos. Capcom’s action-RPG series would go on to do similar promotions, noticeably with the likes of Geralt and Aloy from The Witcher and the Horizon series, respectively.

Castlevania Inspired Kojima To Get Into Game Development

Another one of Konami’s major, and now-neglected gaming IPs is the Castlevania franchise. Along with Nintendo’s Metroid IP, the two ushered in the “Metroidvania” subgenre. However, Konami’s Metroidvania progenitor was one factor that indirectly pushed Hideo Kojima into game development and, by extension, created the Metal Gear series.

Kojima cited that the breakout success of the franchise’s first game specifically gave him the motivation to enter the industry himself, leading to his professional debut on Konami’s 1986 platformer Penguin Adventure.

Solid Snake Retired In Alaska To Be A Dogsled Racer

The Metal Gear series is a war-espionage epic serving as a metaphor for the traumas and horrors of war. Solid Snake eventually suffers from alcoholism and PTSD after killing Big Boss, but Otacon helps to bring him out of his illness by training dogs.

Before the Shadow Moses event of Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, he lived in Alaska to train 50 dogs and become a dogsled racer. Sadly the Shadow Moses incident with the terrorist organization Sons of Big Boss, which was led by Solid Snake’s cloned twin brother Liquid Snake, forced him out of retirement.

Solid Is The Genetically Inferior Snake Clone

While the chronological origins of the Metal Gear series date back to the 1970s, Metal Gear Solid takes place in the mid-’00s with Shadow Moses. Solid is one of three genetic clones of Big Boss, who was the playable protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, along with Liquid and Solidus.

Solid was given the weakest of Big Boss’ genes, making him technically weaker than his clone brothers. Despite this, Solid compensates for his cloning deficiencies with superior skill in every other attribute he has at his disposal, including his genius-level intellect and combat prowess.

The Big Boss/Solid Snake Twist Was Introduced In Metal Gear Solid

Before Metal Gear Solid itself, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake set up how the rest of the mainline saga would play out. However, the major twist of Solid Snake being Big Boss/Naked Snake’s cloned son wasn’t conceived behind the scenes until MGS.

That effectively makes this major plot device — driving the rest of the overarching narrative — a retcon of the original two games in the franchise. To plug this narrative hole, Solid mentions during MGS that Big Boss revealed this to him during the Zanzibar Land Disturbance, which took place during Metal Gear 2.

The Series Was Meant To End With Sons Of Liberty

Several high-profile franchises were revealed to have been meant to end much sooner. And according to Kojima in a Game Zone article, Metal Gear was intended to end with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty on the PS2. While the game was somewhat controversial at the time for surprisingly swapping Solid Snake out as the protagonist for Raiden, it garnered critical acclaim nonetheless.

Though, Kojima said that he felt compelled to do Snake Eater after fans felt that there were too many questions left unanswered. The same happened after the latter’s release, as well as the fourth game, Guns of the Patriots. Unsurprisingly, he also felt Guns of the Patriots was the best conclusion to the franchise since it was the last chronological entry in the main series.

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