I’ve done my best to make peace with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater getting remade. I tried to ignor🌄e the leaks and rumors, but evidence has mounted to a point where it’s become irrefutable. Like it or not, we’re getting a new version of Snake Eater without the involvement of its creator, Hideo Kojima.
This kind of thing isn’t that out of the ordinary, and it isn’t necessarily even a reason to worry. This year’s Dead Space remake was developed without the involvement of the original’s creators, Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, and it turned out great. The new De🤪ad Space is even more well-regarded than Schofield’s Callisto Protocol, which goes to show how much authorship actually matters when it comes to remakes.
The Metal Gear games feel different though. Koj🍸ima’s fingerprints are firmly pressed into Snake Eater, and it seems unlikely that anyone else could match his style without it coming across like a weak imitation. The most faithful Snake Eater adaptation you could make would still be missing the signature of its creator. Kojima and꧃ Metal Gear are inextricably linked, which is why I’ve had a hard time accepting that the studio best known for porting The Outer Worlds to the Switch is currently remaking one of the greatest games of all time.
But we can’t hide from the truth forever, so let’s talk about what the Snake Eater remake should be. Admittedly, Metal Gear Solid 3 is the ideal candidate for a remake. Snake Eater can currently only be played on a PS5 via PS Plus, making it the oldest game in the series that can’t be purchased digitally (GOG has both 1 and 2). It is considered by many to be the best in the series, and it’s also chronologically the first g𝔍ame in the timeline. Snake Eater straddles the line between retro and modern, which makes it a great place for an unproven studio like Virtuos to start. It could probably get away with updating the visuals and remastering the cutscenes without touching the gameplay at all, but then what would be the point of remaking it in the first place?
As dubious as I am about remaking beloved games, I can’t deny that the new Dead Space did a lot to differentiate itself from the original. The Dead Space remake isn’t merely a fresh coat of paint, it’s a reimagining tha🎶t iterates on the original’s combat, level design, and traversal, while maintaining the style and tone that makes Dead Space iconic. The remake nails the feel of Dead Space despite changing a lot of things about it, and the same🐼 thing can be said for the remakes of Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy 7.
What makes these remakes great is that they aren’t so focused on recreating every aspect of the original that they end up feeling stuck in the past. Instead they build on them like a foundation, and pull on qualities and lessons learned from other games in the genre to become s꧙omething that moves the art of game design forward, just as the originals they’re based on did. Resident Evil 4 Remake will be just as influential to the action horror genre as the original Resident Evil 4 was because it didn’t just settle for being a faithful remake, and it didn’t ignore how far the genre has come since the original first came out so many years ago.
A successful Snake Eater remake would need to do the same thing. Virtuos needs to not just recreate Snake Eater, but also look at the games Snake Eater influenced and use those lessons to to take tactical stealth games another step forward. Metal Gear Solid 3’s systemic world, CQC combat, survival mechanics were revolutionary when it came out in 2004, but in the decades since then, other games like The Last of Us 🥂and Hitman, as well as the MGS games that came after it, all built upon the things Snake Eater pioneered.
There are countless exampl🍬es of stealth games that learned from and built upon the things S𓆏nake Eater is known for. The Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy took Snake Eater’s immersive simulation qualities and amplified them to create scenarios that truly feel alive. The Last of Us 2’s blend of outdoor stealth, melee brawling, and third-person shooting is an evolution of the Snake Eater’s gameplay, with more refined physicality and combat options. The Snake Eater will need to go deeper into the systemic features of the world to give Snake a bigger toolbox and smarter enemies that feel grounded, while also giving greater attention to the fluidity of motion to make Snake feel like the legendary CIA operative he’s meant to be.
So many of Snake Eaters mechanics could be refined by incorporating ideas from these games. The camouflage system has a lot of similarities to the disguise mechanic in Hitman, while the injury-and-treatment system could be improved and streamlined by adapting TLOU’s crafting system to allow you to navigate crafting menus without interrupting gameplay. And by pulling from advancements that Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 made, the way the Resident Evil Remake pulled from later installments💖, the Snake Eater remake can further take advantage of all the great ideas that came after it.
If I’m being realistic, I don’t expect that much from the Snake Eater Remake. Mass Effect Legendary Edition proved that we still have an appetite for purely visual upgrades of classic games, and there’s no reason to ever expect Konami to go above and beyond the bare minimum anymore. Still, the bar has been raised by games like Dead Space and Final Fantasy 7 that show what a remake can be, and the Snake Eater✃ remake deserves the same level of thought and care. Resident Evil 4 Remake is proof that a remake can surpass the original, but only if it refuses to stay stuck in the past.