On August 28, one of the most influential video games in modern history is returned: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. It’s about expected remake of Metal Gear Solid 3title originally published in 2004 for PlayStation 2 and that marked a before and after in the way of telling stories within the video game industry. More than two decades later, the Konami company recovers this iconic work with a technical face washing and the challenge of staying faithful to an experience that defined a whole generation. But behind this launch there is more than nostalgia: debates are crossed over the legitimacy of the remakesthe memory of a saga with its own name (whose first installment dates back to 1987) and a controversy that is still alive: the absence of its creator, Hideo Kojima, whose rupture with Konami marked one of the most popular chapters of the industry.
A jungle that marked time
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater He placed the players in full cold war, during the sixties. The story made Snake – the spy that would later become Big Boss – into an infiltration mission in the Russian jungle to stop a nuclear plot and face his mentor, The Boss, which had defected from the USA. Your film narrative, music a lo James Bond And scenes that touched theatrical converted to Snake Eater In a masterpiece. “We came from the futuristic environment with Metal Gear Solid 2and this third install Manual magazine and author of the essay Metal Gear Solid: Big Boss’s legacy. “No one expected a delivery of the saga where you had to hunt, eat, you could get bad, have to cure your wounds, calculate the camouflage meter … The game could have opted for something continuous, although it modified the way they play for everyone’s stupor,” says the expert.
The biggest difference between the original and the remake It is in the visual and technical section. He remake It uses the Unreal Engine 5 graphic engine, which allows the jungle scenarios to be rebuilt with an unpublished level of detail. The foliage textures, the lighting effects and physics of the environments immerse the player in a more realistic environment without abandoning the original design. The control system has also been adapted to modern sensibilities and sound has remade, although all respecting the foundations of the original. Those responsible have stressed that the objective was to pay tribute to the classic without reinterpreting it.
The phenomenon of the ‘remakes’
The announcement of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater He woke up enthusiasm, but also questions. To what extent a remake Could it alter such an influential work? Konami’s response has been clear: the script, dialogues and history remain intact. “We had nothing in mind. What we wanted was to transfer the game so that a new generation could discover it,” Yuji Korekado, creative producer of the project, in New York, explained in New York, in New York, where Konami took journalists from all over the world in early August to make the world game’s presentation.
The launch of this Metal Gear enrolls in an increasingly marked trend: remakes as the engine of the games industry. In recent years, titles such as Resident Evil 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake o The Last of Us Part I They have shown that remakeing classics can be a profitable business and a way of preserving the cultural legacy of the video game. Although everything remake It generates debate: if you have endured in collective memory, each change is looked with magnifying glass. Requena says, however, that he is “very in favor of remakes“:” They are good to approach players who did not enjoy the originals for not living that time, “says Requena, also a producer and screenwriter at the Quickfire Games studio. It is the same as they point out from Konami:“ When doing this remake We had in mind what the original supposed for the history of video games. On the one hand, we think of the fans of that time. On the other hand, there is the new player, those people about 20 years to whom we can offer something magical, ”Noriaki Okamura, producer of the franchise, said in New York. remaketherefore, it is not only a commercial operation, but an attempt to build a bridge between generations of players.
An open wound
You can’t talk about Metal Gear Not to mention the shadow of Hideo Kojima. Creator of the saga and almost mythical figure in the world of video game, Kojima starred in a media break with Konami during the development of Metal Gear Solid V (2015). The tensions arose from creative and budgetary differences, and ended with the company by seating the creator of their own project. Konami came to erase his name from promotional materials and forbade him to attend galas where his game was awarded. The episode became a symbol of the clash between artistic vision and corporate control, one of the hottest issues in the world of video games, in which the author’s figure is often buried.
“In the eighties and ninety years, many creatives were not accredited, and everything belonged to the company,” says Requena. There are hundreds of examples of developers, animators, musicians … who were present in many games and did not appear in the credits. “The game was not from the creative, but it was from the company, and this happened to Kojima. He is the creator and principal value of MGS; However, the brand is from Konami. It is so paradigmatic that a remake of a Kojima Hideo game without Hideo Kojima having approved it. “” No, I will not, “the creator replied at the end of July in an interview with the media SSense When asked if he would play this new game. Maybe he should, because his name is preeminent in credits, in which Konami has chosen to respect his figure. After his departure from the company, Kojima founded Kojima Productions, an independent study that debuted with Death Stranding In 2019, which this year has left the second part. “Hopefully one day let’s see Hideo Kojima and Konami reconciled …”, Smoplica skeptical Requena.
On August 28, the return of a classic is not played. For Konami, the remake It is a fire test: Can you relive Metal Gear Without its original creator? Can this game convince a generation that did not live the 2004 phenomenon? The expectations are high. Veterans hope to revive iconic scenes such as duel with The Boss or camouflage in the jungle with the same emotional intensity of that time, but the new players will run into a title that mixes action and reflection in a style that does not always fit the current trends.
The future of the saga is also at stake: Konami has slipped that, if the reception is positive, more could come remakes of the saga. Snake returns to the jungle, but this time he will do it in the midst of an expectation that transcends the technical: what is played is the memory, legitimacy and future of one of the most influential sagas of all time.
