Konami has revealed that one of the reasons it greenlit the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake is because younger gamers aren’t familiar with the series anymore.
Speaking to Play and shared by GamesRadar, series producer Noriaki Okamura admitted Konami is looking to capture a new audience with the remake, which arrives 20 years after the original Metal Gear Solid 3 and nine years after the last mainline entry.
“One of the things that really sparked us to do the remake in general is because we realized that a lot of the newer, younger generation of gamers aren’t familiar with the Metal Gear series anymore,” he said.
“It was basically our mission, our duty, to kind of continue making sure that the series lives on for future generations. After all, we leave behind much more than just DNA, as Solid Snake would say — but again, who is Solid Snake?”
In fact, this is one of the reasons Konami chose the Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater name for the remake, as opposed to simply calling it Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Timeline wise, Snake Eater is the first game in the series, so going with the Greek letter 'delta' helped get this new beginning across.
Thr franchise began in 1987 with Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear, and last saw a mainline entry with Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, released in 2015. Spin-off Metal Gear Survive launched in 2018, with only collections of older games coming out in the subsequent years.
So, it’s easy to understand where Konami is coming from here. Metal Gear is well-known by fans of a certain age and has enormous nostalgia potential, but without a brand new mainline entry in nearly a decade, interest among younger gamers probably isn’t where Konami wants it to be.
The question now is, after Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater comes out, where will Konami take the series next? We know MGS: Master Collection Vol. 2 is in the works, but could Konami be set to remake Kojima’s seminal Metal Gear Solid next? After that, could fans finally get a brand new Metal Gear Solid game? If so, would Konami continue the story as set out by Kojima, or start fresh?
As for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Konami is yet to announce a release date, but it's due out on
PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC at some point in 2025.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
