I was waiting with quite some anticipation for the PlayStation Showcase this year. Not that it was particularly impressive in the past, but simply because I knew many promising remakes were in the making, and could be featured there. I was hoping for some new details on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, since its prequel Final Fantasy VII: Remake had implemented very ambitious changes from the original game. Silent Hill 2 was a potential candidate too, although a trailer had already been published a few days before (upcoming article very soon!). I even dreamed of some good news about the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) remake. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the case.
Instead, only two remakes were featured in the Showcase. The first, a VR version of the Resident Evil 4 remake, feels like no real news anyway and is unlikely to differ much from the 2022 remake beyond the gameplay. The second, however, came like a bomb with the official announcement of a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake.
No release date, and no gameplay, but a short, powerful, and quite smart teaser. Smart because although short, it provides us with quite a few hints as to the direction this remake may take, and how faithful it will try to be in regards to the original game. Let’s decipher it.
What the trailer effectively shows
Although the reveal trailer is short, it builds up quite slowly. The camera travels over a jungle’s grounds, following a trail of ants feasting on a frog’s carcass. A bird grabs the frog, and flies through trees and an electrical fence, before landing on a trunk in the middle of a river. It is jumped on and swallowed by a snake, which is immediately attacked by a crocodile. As the camera moves beyond the ongoing struggle, and dives further into the jungle, we start to see the game’s protagonist, codename Naked Snake, gradually emerging from the shadows, and staring at the jungle fauna devouring each other.
Now, we only understand that this is going to be a Metal Gear Solid game in the last few seconds of the trailer. But once we know it, there are quite a few hints we can go back to. An article by IGN just listed (as I was already drafting this post) cool Easter Eggs to spot in the trailer. Here, I want to focus specifically on what the trailer can effectively tell us about the direction the remake will likely take.
The "survival" mechanisms of the original
The original game was very much focused on survival elements; including hunting and eating, as the title suggested, snakes, frogs, and other beasts we encounter in the jungle. The remake’s trailer, building up tension with a frantic “survival of the fittest” battle brings back that specific theme. Naked Snake’s intense stare at the end of the trailer suggests that he is more than a simple witness to the confrontation between the crocodile and the snake. He is the next predator in line, waiting for the perfect moment to strike from the shadows.
The theme of survival is so strong in the trailer that it goes beyond simply playing with the title of the game or a sense of nostalgia in the showcase’s audience. It suggests that survival will be, just like the original game, a central feature of the remake’s gameplay.
Stealth's comeback into the series
The artistic direction of the trailer also suggests an intention to go back to the roots of the Metal Gear Solid series when it comes to stealth. The original Metal Gear Solid 3 was, to be fair, the last of its kind to make stealth absolutely necessary for survival. The game’s narrow pathways literally forced us, in many segments of the game, to advance very slowly, and to wait in bushes or other hidden areas for enemy patrols to give us an opening. Being spotted meant little chance of survival.
The 4th and 5th installments, in part due to their much more open environments, allowed players to rely on less stealthy tactics, or full-on firefights to reach their objectives. Maybe the remake will try to find a good balance between stealth and action-oriented gameplay, but the trailer’s mise-en-scène is remarkable in its slow, carefully crafted reveal of Naked Snake in the swamp’s shadows.
This is extremely efficient as a “reveal trailer”: after all, the whole point of the Playstation Showcase was to create suspense, pushing viewers to (second)guess the games they were discovering as long as possible. But in this case, I believe it also represents the remake’s acknowledgment that the original MGS3’s stealth mechanics were so central to the gameplay, and the whole feel of the game.
A faithful soundtrack
A small but noteworthy detail. The song at the end of the trailer sounds, after I listened to both this version and the original soundtrack, exactly the same. Same arrangement, same orchestration, and same vocals by Cynthia Harrell recorded back in 2004. I don’t believe it is a re-orchestration or reinterpretation in any way.
And this is interesting because, according to MetalGear Fandom, an official Konami re-recording of that song, this time by vocalist Donna Burke, was released in 2015 in the album Metal Gear Solid ~Vocal Tracks~. Burke was also reported teasing an MGS3 remake a month ago, with pictures suggesting she was recording a new score for that game. Weirdly enough, the trailer still showcases Harrell’s 2004 vocals, not a newer version.
There could be many reasons for this choice, including the fact that the remake’s music score may not be finalized. With that said, and in line with the other “homages” to the original MGS3 I have discussed above, I cannot help but see in this 20-year-old song another hint from the trailer that this remake will try as much as possible to capture the essence of the original game.
Metal Gear Solid 3, or "Delta"?
There is however one thing that seems to consciously depart from the original game, and that’s the title itself. “Metal Gear Solid 3” is now replaced by “Metal Gear Solid Δ”, or “Delta”. I must admit I was at first – and still am to some extent – a bit lost on that one. And I don’t seem to be the only one. Matthew Byrd from Den of Geek reported several interpretations emanating from fans and commentators, some quite reasonable, others quite goofy. My first instinct was to simply consider the “tri-angle” form of the delta sign, and therefore a simple figurative way to represent the number three that would subtly distinguish both titles. But a few hours after the Showcase, Metal Gear’s official Twitter account explained that:
This confirms some of the theories referred to above. And is also quite reassuring. The remake is therefore likely to be a full-on modernized remake. Not a simple remaster in terms of graphics, but a true remake that will try to make sufficient changes to the gameplay, the artistic direction, and maybe even the story, to satisfy retro and modern gamers alike.
This makes even more sense knowing that the final part of the trailer shown at the PlayStation Showcase also announces a separate, “simple” remaster of the first three installments to be released in Autumn 2023. This suggests an obvious, intentional, strong gap marked between the remaster and the proper Delta remake: the first will build up the hype for the second, not step on its foot.
A release for late 2023 already?
This leads us to the big question: when can we expect this remake to be released? Some claim, without proper sources, that it is planned for 2024, which would make sense. But what if MGS Delta was already released in late 2023, at the same time as or just after the remaster? Precisely to make the most of that hype?
As I tried to understand – before Konami’s explanation – the meaning of “Delta” for this remake, I tried to dive back into the Metal Gear Series and see if anything pertained to such a Delta symbol. The only thing I could find was this Delta Force, a combat unit belonging to the original series’ lore, but this unit doesn’t have a role to play in MGS3. However, I did find out that “November 21″ was the date Delta Force is established in the lore.
Is this Delta reference therefore also an obscure hint at the remake’s planned release date? Maybe. After all the Development team used “simultaneously” to describe the release of both the Delta remake, and the remasters, the latter being announced as planned for Autumn 2023.
In any case, I hope so. The remake’s trailer made me so enthusiastic that I may have fallen into wishful thinking. In that, it served its purpose well.
Sources & further reading
All visuals from the trailer belong to ©Konami, and were slightly framed / adapted for the purpose of this analysis.
Sources:
- Playstation Youtube Account. 25 May 2023. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – Announcement Trailer | PS5 Games [Youtube]. https://youtu.be/iNX8QCeymFM
- IGN. 24 May 2023. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – 11 Details You May have Missed in the Traile. https://www.ign.com/articles/metal-gear-solid-delta-snake-eater-11-details-you-may-have-missed-in-the-trailer
- GameRant. 15 April 2023. Metal Gear Solid Singer Working on MGS3’s Snake Eater, But It’s Not For The Reason You Think. https://gamerant.com/metal-gear-solid-singer-donna-burke-snake-eater-remake/
- MetalGearWiki. 8 March 2020. Metal Gear Solid ~Vocal Tracks~. https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_~Vocal_Tracks~
- DenofGeek. 24 May 2023. Why the Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake Is Called Metal Gear Solid Delta. https://www.denofgeek.com/games/why-the-metal-gear-solid-3-remake-called-metal-gear-delta/
- MetalGearWiki. 28 July 2019. 1970s. https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/1970s
- MetalGearOfficial Twitter account. https://twitter.com/Metalgear
