Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater’s first gameplay shows off a faithful MGS3 remake in Unreal Engine 5
What a thrill
Metal Gear Solid 3 arrived on PC for the first time yesterday thanks to the stealth-action series’ Master Collection. Unfortunately, it seems to be a fairly underwhelming PC debut for Hideo Kojima’s frog-munching masterpiece, with Snake Eater’s Steam page full of negative reviews about the barebones port’s restriction to 720p resolution, reported startup crashes and lack of Steam Deck support.
Perhaps those disappointments of a proper return for MGS3 might be allayed somewhat by the first proper gameplay trailer for its full remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, which is looking very nice indeed.
Long-rumoured, the remake of Snake Eater was unveiled earlier this year with a pre-rendered tease of Naked Snake splattered with mud in the jungle. It was a highly-detailed Snake, sure, but there was nothing to help judge what the game itself might look like in action - especially given Konami’s reassurance that the 2004 game’s “gripping story and engrossing world” would be preserved.
Happily, it seems that promise seems to be holding true going by the first proper gameplay footage of MGS Delta: Snake Eater revealed during today’s Xbox Partner Preview stream.
The gameplay - said to be taken in real-time and rendered in the remake’s Unreal Engine 5 - appears to be highly faithful to the original Snake Eater. There’s footage of Snake sneaking up behind guards before going prone in long grass and lining up a first-person headshot, as well as shimming along a ledge, CQC’ing an unsuspecting enemy and wading through chest-high water.
Most pleasingly, as someone who has played the original Snake Eater and Subsistence more times than I can count, the up-rezzed recreations of Snake Eater’s levels appear to stick closely to their original layout and appearance. The trailer shows glimpses of the chasm-spanning bridge from early on, the building where you first meet Ocelot, the desert-like area overseen by a hovering helicopter and what I’m pretty certain is the watery cave where you fight hornet-covered boss The Pain. As far as my memory goes, they’re all bang on in terms of taking the PlayStation 2 maps and polishing them up with Unreal 5’s impressive lighting, reflections and particle effects.
We also get some closeup shots of the animals you’ll be able to chomp on, from frogs, vultures and rats to crabs and snakes, which all scuttle, slither and swim around as animals do.
So, in short, it’s certainly looking like a flashier Snake Eater remake. What we still don’t have is any idea of a release date - but given how the original Snake Eater’s PC release is currently going down, a bit of a wait for a polished release doesn’t sound like a bad idea.