Long before it became solid, the Metal Gear franchise was already defining the action-stealth genre.
One of the most notable games in the series, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, turns 25 years old today. Metal Gear 2 game out for the PC platform MSX2 in 1990 in Japan. It wouldn’t have an official release in the U.S. until 2006, when it was included with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. The Metal Gear Solid series would go on to sell over 33 million copies.
To celebrate Metal Gear’s birthday, we’ll be streaming the game over at our Twitch channel. Feel free to come join us.
When you play Metal Gear 2 today, it’s actually shocking how much it has in common with Metal Gear Solid, the 1998 PlayStation game that helped to make the series mainstream. Metal Gear 2 features similar stealth-based action. You have to infiltrate an enemy base while remaining undetected. It also had a riveting story that introduced the character Gray Fox, who would later become the Cyborg Ninja in Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear 2 was directed by Hideo Kojima, the man who has helmed every installment in the main series, including the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain (a game that stars Big Boss, who was actually the final … well, boss in Metal Gear 2). However, The Phantom Pain is likely Kojima’s last Metal Gear or Konami game.