Opinion: How much can a Metal Gear Solid remake change before it loses its identity?

How much can you change Metal Gear Solid in a remake before it stops feeling like Metal Gear Solid?

We’ve been thinking about that question a lot lately. The prospect of returning to Shadow Moses with modern technology is exciting. It also worries us. There’s an incredible opportunity to preserve the original atmosphere, story, and identity while reimagining its gameplay for a new generation. There’s just as much room to lose what made it special.

A potential remake presents a much bigger creative challenge than Delta. Rebuilding familiar rooms and cutscenes would only be part of the job. Modernizing Snake’s controls would affect how the whole game plays, from slipping past a patrol to fighting a boss. Once those encounters start changing, where do you draw the line?

Modern controls would change Shadow Moses

The original game’s spaces were designed around the way Snake moved, the information the camera gave you, and the tools available at each point in the mission. Give the player a freer camera, more precise aiming, or the ability to move and fire more comfortably, and those same spaces could become very different encounters.

A corridor that once demanded careful timing might become easy to clear. A boss built around limited movement and a particular viewpoint might no longer present the same challenge. The developers would have to consider sightlines, patrols, cover, enemy behavior, and the rhythm of each fight together.

Making Shadow Moses larger could create room for those changes, but size alone would not solve the problem. Its confined spaces help establish the tension of being a lone infiltrator inside an enemy facility. Expand everything too far, or fill every quiet stretch with new activity, and the island could lose some of its character.

The team has already acknowledged the challenge

In Famitsu’s October 2, 2024 interview, producer Noriaki Okamura explained that a remake of the original Metal Gear Solid or the first two Metal Gear games would require elements that could not follow Delta’s methodology, including redesigned levels. More would have to be created anew.

That gets to the heart of our concern. Updating the controls is one decision. Rethinking the game around those controls, while preserving what made the original special, is a much bigger creative responsibility.

Faithfulness means more than familiar scenes

For us, the atmosphere, story, and identity of Metal Gear Solid have to remain at the center of any remake. That includes the isolation of Shadow Moses, the personalities on the Codec, the strange humor, and the way the game sometimes reaches beyond the screen to surprise the player.

Some of those moments were built around the hardware and habits of their time. Recreating their effect for a new audience could take imagination. Simply repeating every action exactly might preserve the reference without preserving the surprise. Replacing them carelessly could be worse.

We would welcome improvements that make the game more responsive and accessible. We would also want every larger change to have a clear purpose. Does it strengthen the original encounter? Does it give the player a better way to experience the same idea? Or does it replace that idea with something more familiar from other modern games?

A chance to earn confidence in what comes next

Get that balance right, and a reimagined Shadow Moses could be incredible. It could also give us real confidence in this team creating an entirely new Metal Gear. A project like this would ask them to make creative decisions about the series’ design and identity, rather than rely on recognition alone.

Get it wrong, and even a visually stunning remake could lose the soul of the original. That is why the thought excites us and horrifies us at the same time. We want to believe in what this team could do, but we still have questions about the ideas, direction, and development time a project of this scale would need.

We would want the team to have the time and care a project like this deserves. That means room to test its ideas, reconsider what does not work, and protect the qualities that are easy to overlook until they are gone.

So, if you were making the decisions, what would you change, and what would be absolutely off-limits? Would you welcome a substantially reimagined Shadow Moses, or would you want the team to stay as close to the original as possible?

Source: https://x.com/MGSMGN/status/2118124056797171967

Source: https://x.com/MGSMGN/status/2118125093201326294

Source: https://www.famitsu.com/article/202410/19148