50 Fun Facts About Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid (1998) was developed and published by which company?

Konami: the game was named Metal Gear Solid rather than Metal Gear 3, with 'Solid' nodding both to its hero Solid Snake and to the series' leap from 2D into 3D.

Which Alaskan island base does Solid Snake infiltrate in Metal Gear Solid (1998)?

Shadow Moses: officially a nuclear weapons disposal site in Alaska's Fox Archipelago, the island secretly doubles as a testing ground for a new walking tank.

Which nuclear-armed walking tank do the terrorists seize in Metal Gear Solid (1998)?

Metal Gear REX: the terrorists threaten a nuclear strike with it unless Washington pays $1 billion and hands over the remains of the legendary soldier they revere.

Who leads the rogue FOXHOUND unit in Metal Gear Solid (1998)?

Liquid Snake: for most of the game he also poses over the radio as Snake's trusted adviser Master Miller, tricking him into arming the very weapon he came to stop.

Which FOXHOUND member has his right hand cut off by the cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid?

Revolver Ocelot: the ninja's blade takes his hand in the middle of a gunfight with Snake, yet he survives the game and is revealed as a double agent reporting to the US President.

Which FOXHOUND member first attacks Snake from inside a tank in Metal Gear Solid?

Vulcan Raven: once the tank is destroyed he returns for a second fight in an underground warehouse, this time carrying a 20mm cannon built for fighter jets.

In Metal Gear Solid, what does Psycho Mantis scan to 'read your mind'?

The player's memory card: he names other games saved on it, so the English release dropped the titles never sold outside Japan.

On the PlayStation original, what was the trick to beating Metal Gear Solid's Psycho Mantis?

Using the second controller port: with the pad plugged in there, he can no longer 'read' Snake's moves, a trick the PC version swapped for the keyboard.

Which FOXHOUND member dies without ever fighting Snake in Metal Gear Solid?

Decoy Octopus: disguised as a hostage, he is killed by the FOXDIE virus Snake unknowingly carries, so the 'DARPA chief' who dies in the cell was him all along.

Hal Emmerich, the engineer Snake rescues in Metal Gear Solid, goes by what nickname?

Otacon: he designed the game's walking nuclear tank believing it was a purely defensive system, and turns on his employers once Snake shows him the truth.

The cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid (1998) is revealed to be which former ally of Snake?

Gray Fox: Snake's old comrade, believed dead, had been rebuilt as a cyborg test subject, and he dies crushed beneath the walking tank after crippling its radar dome.

Meryl Silverburgh is introduced as the niece of which character?

Colonel Roy Campbell: he later admits she is really his daughter, born of an affair with his brother's wife and raised without ever being told.

In Metal Gear Solid (1998), which support character invented the Soliton radar and saves your game?

Mei Ling: the young data analyst of 1998 returns in Metal Gear Solid 4 as captain of the battleship USS Missouri, which she commands in battle.

Who was Solid Snake's English voice in Metal Gear Solid (1998)?

David Hayter: by co-star Paul Eiding's account, he gave up half his own fee so that the original voice cast could be rehired for the game's 2004 remake.

Solid Snake's physique in Metal Gear Solid (1998) was modelled on which action star?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: the game's artist took Snake's build from him but borrowed the face from another actor entirely, Christopher Walken.

Kojima used which toy to mock up Metal Gear Solid's 3D areas?

Lego building blocks: his designers put levels together in bricks to see how the planned camera views would look.

Metal Gear Solid was originally planned in 1994 for which short-lived console?

3DO: early artwork of Snake even shipped on a 3DO preview disc for Kojima's Policenauts, but as the console faded the project moved to Sony's new machine.

Which artist designed most of the Metal Gear Solid characters and mecha?

Yoji Shinkawa: he started at the publisher in 1994 as a bug tester on Policenauts, rose to design the whole series, and followed Kojima out of the company in 2015.

The North American release of Metal Gear Solid added which unlockable outfit for Snake?

A tuxedo: it unlocks only once the game has been finished twice on one save, and the gag stuck, with later games in the series hiding a dinner suit of their own.

The 2004 GameCube remake of Metal Gear Solid was released under what subtitle?

The Twin Snakes: it was built not by Kojima's own team but by the outside studio Silicon Knights, with Kojima and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto overseeing the project.

Who is the rookie protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2's Plant chapter?

Raiden: he was hidden from players before release, with trailers showing Solid Snake in scenes that belong to the newcomer in the finished game.

What is the Big Shell in Metal Gear Solid 2?

An offshore clean-up facility: built off Manhattan to mop up a tanker's oil spill, it turns out to be a cover story hiding a vast submersible fortress.

In MGS2's Tanker chapter, Snake seeks evidence of which new Metal Gear?

RAY: unlike the models before it, it carries no nuclear missiles, because it was built to hunt down the copycat Metal Gears spreading around the world.

The rogue anti-terrorist unit in MGS2 with Vamp, Fatman and Fortune is called what?

Dead Cell: the unit was created to launch surprise mock attacks on friendly bases as anti-terror training, before it went rogue and took the Big Shell hostage.

In Metal Gear Solid 2, which of Snake's fellow clones leads the Sons of Liberty terrorists?

Solidus Snake: under the name George Sears he had been President of the United States, and he seizes the Big Shell hoping to break the secret group that really runs the country.

Under what alias does Solid Snake first assist the rookie on the Big Shell?

Iroquois Pliskin: he poses as a Navy SEAL lieutenant, and the surname winks at Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's antihero in Escape from New York.

The shadowy organization pulling the strings in MGS2 is known as what?

The Patriots: the captive US President confesses that American elections are a drama they stage, and that they even choose who gets his job.

Metal Gear Solid 2's expanded edition was released under what subtitle?

Substance: it reached Microsoft's Xbox first, in late 2002, before arriving on the PlayStation 2, the console the original game had been made for.

Snake Eater's backstory rewrites the resolution of which real crisis?

The Cuban Missile Crisis: in the game's secret history, the Soviet missiles left Cuba only after America quietly returned the weapons designer it had just helped defect.

Snake Eater introduced which hand-to-hand combat system?

CQC: short for close quarters combat, it pairs a pistol with a knife so Snake can seize a guard, then throw him, choke him out or question him at knifepoint.

In Snake Eater, what percentage gauge measures how visible Snake is to enemies?

Camouflage index: the figure climbs as players swap uniforms and face paint to match the terrain, and it drops below zero when Snake stands out.

Which Snake Eater enemy can be beaten by waiting a week until he dies of old age?

The End: the sniper is over a hundred years old, so saving mid-duel and returning a week later, or just winding the console's clock forward, finds him already dead.

Who is Naked Snake's defected former mentor in Snake Eater?

The Boss: her defection was a mission ordered by Washington, and Snake is sent to kill her to clear America's name, learning the truth only after she is dead.

Which electricity-controlling GRU colonel is Snake Eater's main antagonist?

Volgin: he fires an American-made nuclear shell at a Soviet research base and lets the blame fall on Washington, the act that sets the whole plot in motion.

Snake Eater's opening theme is a pastiche of which film series?

James Bond: the brassy theme, sung by Cynthia Harrell, comes back mid-game with nothing else going on, as Snake spends minutes climbing one enormously long ladder.

Kojima found Snake Eater's closing song after mishearing a friend's tip for Stellastarr as which band?

Starsailor: Kojima bought the wrong band's album, liked 'Way to Fall', and ran it over the credits after shelving his first plan of two David Bowie songs.

By what name is the playable Solid Snake known throughout Metal Gear Solid 4?

Old Snake: his cloned body was engineered to age fast, so although the story is set only nine years after the 1998 game, he already looks like an old man.

Which MGS4 gear lets Snake copy the colour and texture of any surface?

OctoCamo: named for the octopus's colour-changing skin, the suit takes on the pattern and texture of whatever Snake holds still against within moments.

In MGS4, weapons are bought from which arms launderer with his own points currency?

Drebin: he 'launders' ID-locked guns so that anyone can fire them, and turns up in every war zone Snake visits with a pet monkey in tow.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was released exclusively for which console in 2008?

PlayStation 3: it stayed locked to that one console for some 18 years, until a collection announced in 2026 promised to carry it to PC, Xbox and Nintendo machines.

Peace Walker (2010), set in Costa Rica, was built for which handheld?

PlayStation Portable: Kojima meant to leave it to younger staff but took over as director himself, wanting its story of nuclear deterrence to land with the handheld's younger players.

Which studio took over Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance after Kojima halted it?

PlatinumGames: Kojima's own team could not build a full game around slicing anything at will, so the project was quietly cancelled and handed to the Bayonetta studio to rebuild.

Who provided Snake's voice and facial capture in The Phantom Pain?

Kiefer Sutherland: Kojima wanted an actor who could play a man in his late forties with his face as much as his voice, and film producer Avi Arad suggested the star of 24.

The Phantom Pain plays out in Africa and which Asian country?

Afghanistan: Snake rides in on horseback during the Soviet occupation to rescue his captured partner Kazuhira Miller, before the story moves to the Angola-Zaire border.

What is the name of Venom Snake's mercenary group in The Phantom Pain?

Diamond Dogs: after an outbreak forces Snake to shoot his own infected men, he has their ashes pressed into diamonds so they can go on fighting beside him.

The Phantom Pain's twist reveals Venom Snake is really what?

A body double: he was the helicopter medic who shielded his commander from a bomb blast, then was given that man's face and memories so the real one could slip away.

Skull Face's plan in The Phantom Pain involves a parasite that kills people who do what?

Speak English: robbed of his own mother tongue as a child under foreign occupation, he means to wipe out the language he blames for making the world culturally American.

Before its NES port, Kojima's original Metal Gear ran on which home computer?

MSX2: the machine could not handle a screen full of enemies and bullets, so Kojima turned a planned combat game into one about slipping past the guards instead.

Which 2019 game was the first from Hideo Kojima's newly independent studio?

Death Stranding: after his old employer cancelled his horror game Silent Hills, Kojima left, re-formed his studio as an independent in December 2015, and made this with Sony's backing.

The 2025 remake of Snake Eater swaps the '3' in its title for which Greek letter?

Delta: the publisher said the symbol, which stands for change or difference without altering structure, suited a remake meant to keep the original story intact.