Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater - That's Damn Good! (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- 2 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Released: August 26th, 2025
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox X/S
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is undoubtedly one of the greatest videogames of all time. A meeting of unapologetic eccentricity and thoughtful storytelling, it's full of captivating characters and political messaging that has never stopped being relevant. Snake Eater's wild script makes it a classic - what makes it a masterpiece is the mechanical layer cake around which that script is structured.
Naked Snake's Russian Munchfest offers a level of interactive density unmatched in its genre even after two decades - its variety is so extreme I’m still discovering new things about it to this very day. Snake Eater is one of the very few games to which the label of “sandbox” applies in totality, a brilliant toy that also happens to have one hell of a spy thriller attached to it.
The game's been around so long it's easy to take what it does for granted, but I urge you to sit and really appreciate that you can let a rabbit you hunted go rotten so that when you find and sabotage the enemy's food storehouse, they'll be hungry enough to eat it and be sick. Truly consider how many ways you may fuck with a single guard - flinging spiders at them, interrogating them, shooting their limbs, dropping hornets on them, etcetera. Remember how there's a dozen ways to perform a dozen tasks in this PS2 production while more recent games promise half as much and can't even deliver half of that.
It's a genuine marvel how much complexity is there... and hardly any wonder that Metal Gear Solid Delta is an almost 1:1 reproduction.
The state of the modern industry is such that it would be impossible to make Snake Eater today - a publisher like Konami would never invest in it, that’s for damn sure. The production value, the wealth of bells and whistles, the giddy self-indulgence, it’s a precious breed of creative freedom that has gasped its last in practically every corner of mainstream entertainment.
Konami jettisoned Metal Gear Solid’s director for a reason - Hideo Kojima is an expensively decadent creator. He was lucky to land on his feet and make perhaps the most self-indulgent game of all time in Death Stranding, but outside of being used for the corporate dickswinging of a platform holder, how else are games like this getting made in the mainstream space?
Hell, Snake Eater’s voice acting alone is so extensive that replacing it would be a momentous task, and it’s a task that simply wouldn’t be done without cutting all of it. Do you think 2025’s Konami would hire actors to record hours of discussion about the individual flavor profile of every animal in Tselinoyarsk? It’s likely the sole reason Troy Baker hasn’t replaced David Hayter on this thing.
Also, assuming there was plenty of crunch involved in making the original, I wouldn’t want another team to go through it, especially with how bad things are today.
Delta is more than a remaster but not quite a remake as we’ve come to define them. It actually reminds me a lot of “reissues” in the toy industry, like when Hasbro makes new versions of 1980s Transformers from modern material that won’t crumble if a kid looks at it too long. That is essentially what Metal Gear Solid Delta is - same mold, different plastic.
And I, for one, love that.
I can certainly understand people being disappointed if they expected another Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 4 production, but after a run of high profile remakes trying to be different, it’s refreshing to play one that just goes shot-for-shot with it. In a strange way, it feels almost bold that Delta does absolutely nothing bold.
So yeah, you could say Metal Gear Solid Delta has no imagination, you can say it’s safe, you can say it has nothing of its own to say, and I’ll only argue against that last accusation. I reckon Delta does say something very important - it says not every game needs to be reimagined, sometimes they nailed it the first time and trying to put a spin on it is creatively arrogant.
At least, that’s what it says to me.
With that in mind, what is the point of Delta? A new remaster of the original came out not very long ago, so why would anyone need this? In all honesty, I can’t say anybody needs this. However, I think Delta demonstrates that just because something doesn’t need to be made, that doesn’t mean making it is inherently bad.
In fact, while most modern remakes do nothing to supplant the original version, I think Delta may be the definitive way I play Snake Eater from now on.
This new version has two things to offer. Firstly and most obviously, the PS2 graphics have been replaced with fully contemporary visuals. Secondly, modernized controls now reflect the years of design evolution that third-person games have experienced since MGS3. Both of these updates are welcome.
Visually, Delta looks lovely. While cutscenes and body movements are fully replicated, the remake allows characters to be so much more expressive, with facial animations that enhance narrative. Subtle glances and ticks do a lot to increase a character’s relatability, especially for ones like EVA and The Boss who benefit a ton from the touches of conflict that appear on their faces.
The updated character models are incredibly faithful, the only major difference being most of the cast got noticeably prettied up. The exception to this makeover is, fittingly, the big bad Colonel Volgin, whose various burns and scars have been given so much depth they look truly ghastly. Anyway, call me shallow but I like the new faces - EVA is stunning and the boys have jawlines to die for.
For all the praise I’ll happily lavish on Metal Gear Solid 3, I have to say its original control scheme borders on maniacal. Many actions are awkward and unintuitive based entirely on the weird input combinations required to perform them. When the simple act of shooting a gun feels like a strange ritual, engaging with the more esoteric mechanics isn’t suitably encouraged.
Until Metal Gear Solid V came along, I always put up with the series’ controls to get to the good stuff, but I never liked them at all.
By standardizing basic controls, Delta really opens MGS3 up and makes it inherently more playable. Now that core mechanics are intuitive enough for newcomers to easily internalize, the brilliantly weird shit is much more accessible - just being able to aim and throw things properly increases the immediacy of loads more actions.
In some regards, modern controls make the core experience easier. Seamlessly switching between first and third person, firing weapons, and using gadgets is such a fluid experience now that areas of the game I’ve historically dreaded gave me no trouble at all this go around. Frankly, I’m very okay with that.
For those who’d rather a more authentic layout, however, the original controls and camera are available to you. Yeah, the folks who made this thing really hedged their bets.
Being able to swap out the fixed camera for a fully controllable one also has a notable impact on the way Snake Eater plays. Depending on where the camera was placed, certain maps may be easier or trickier with the new point of view, and first-person mode has become far more important in general. The biggest impact for me was finding items I don't think I’ve ever found prior to having 360 degrees of immediate surveillance.
Delta does its best to streamline the more laborious UI elements, particularly when it comes to Snake’s survival maintenance. A new radial menu allows you to quickly make radio calls, eat food, access the backpack, and bring up a list of your commonly used camouflage. Whenever Snake’s injured, a single button press opens Survival Viewer to fix him - a particularly handy addition.
These changes don’t completely eliminate the need to navigate through menus (and muscle memory caused me to keep doing it anyway), but there is a lot less fiddling around with the interface. For a game that constantly requires feeding, dressing, and digging bullets out of yourself, anything that reduces menu time is a good thing.
Beyond these differences, and perhaps a few tweaks here and there, you’re getting no more and no less than the proper Snake Eater experience. At least, that’s my take as someone who’s been loving the original for nearly half her lifetime.
All those funny radio conversations between Snake and the FOX unit, all the optional perspective shifts in cutscenes, all those escaped apes, all the bonkers camouflage options - including ones that were previously so exclusive nobody had them anymore - are preserved with almost zero concession. There’s even a certain Easter egg that hasn’t been seen since the very first PS2 release, and it’s been returned with fucking interest.
Metal Gear Solid Delta might be the least necessary remake ever produced, but it might be my favorite remake for exactly that reason. It’s just Snake Eater with modern graphics and controls, and that’s actually more than I’ve come to expect from the industry these days. By being such a faithful reissue, Delta has secured its place as the definitive way I play MGS3 - I can’t say that about any of the more imaginative remakes we’ve seen in recent years.
A brand new version of Snake Eater would be a massive indictment of modern games because there’s no way it wouldn’t look flimsy and threadbare by comparison. In order to do one of the greatest videogames of all time justice, Metal Gear Solid Delta had to replicate rather than reimagine. It’s a damn good replica, too.
If nothing else, I can say I felt just as awed upon defeating The End as I always have done after fighting that wonderful old bastard, so I’m pretty confident Delta’s nailed it.
10/10
