Metal Gear Teaser for Game Awards?

Within days of me giving myself hope for a Metal Gear future, some more evidence has popped up that may or may not add to that foolish optimism. The developer rumoured to be working on a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake has teased something… right before deleting it again.

The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake has been rumoured for several years, and is bizarrely often mentioned along a new set of remasters for 1, 2 and 3 as well. Virtuos – the developer behind a seemingly endless lists of ports and remasters – published a tweet with morse code for December 8, 1964 included. 1964 is the year Metal Gear Solid 3 takes place. This year’s Game Awards will take place on December 8.

This latest slip-up is about as close to a solid confirmation of the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake as we’ve had. And if you come out of this article thinking “and that’s saying something”, you’re probably right.

As with all rumours, it’ll be December before we know for sure. But thankfully that’s not very far away now.

Does Metal Gear Solid 3 NEED a Remake?

D0es an old game need a remake? The answer – depending who you ask – is probably always going to be no. Especially since the original game holds up really well.

There’s a downside to that though. If you own a PlayStation 4 or 5, you have no way to play the original game. On Xbox – the best place to play it – you must have already bought it.

But availability shouldn’t be justification for a remake. It’s justification for a re-release.

But that doesn’t mean that modern consoles can’t offer a deeper gaming experience than the PlayStation 2. Light and dark can be enhanced to make stealth much more visceral. Graphics on the woodland setting can be massively enhanced, and a better third person camera will add to that too. Improved shooting should offer an interesting new way to play.

But it is important that the heart of the game remains the same. It’s one of the best games ever made for a reason. We don’t need skill trees (except for that one you climb to get the ba- you know, never mind). Story should remain unchanged. That’s not just because it’s a great story, but because it feeds into every other Metal Gear game too. That’s a responsibility Virtuos must take seriously.

Oh, and if one single rung of the ladder boss is missing – we riot.

Here’s To You

Earlier this week, in an article about Silent Hill, I spoke with excitement about the future of Metal Gear. As a kid who spent a lot of time on the Metal Gear Solid GameFAQs message boards in the early 2000s, just being able to speak about a new Metal Gear again is incredible. Whatever else comes of it, this is a positive. In the proverbial Sonic Cycle of this game, all we have is potential.

I hope this remake stars a new and exciting era for the franchise – one in which it actually exists. In the Bayonetta controversy, people were listing projects that replacement voice actress Jennifer Hale had been involved in. Very few were mentioning Naomi and Metal Gear. That is a problem teenage me would have been devastated about.

So here is to the future. And, hopefully, it’ll live up to our expectations.