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Solid Snake

An infiltration specialist and former FOXHOUND operative, Solid Snake has already survived the crises at Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land. The handbook describes a soldier equally capable of operating in hostile terrain, handling unfamiliar equipment, and entering an enemy stronghold alone. His record has made him indispensable to the people who command him, even as he repeatedly tries to leave military service behind.

After periods with the CIA and as a mercenary, Snake retreats into isolation. By the time of Shadow Moses, he is living in the Alaskan wilderness and preparing for a sled-dog race. That hard-won distance from his past ends when Roy Campbell calls him back. This time, the unit waiting on the other side of the mission is his own former organization.

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Meryl Silverburgh

Raised in a military family, Meryl Silverburgh has trained to become a soldier for as long as she can remember. Discipline and determination have given her the skills expected of a combat operative, but her experience has come from training and simulations rather than a battlefield. Shadow Moses will force her to discover the difference.

Campbell’s niece is newly assigned to the island when the uprising begins. Caught in the takeover, she is believed to be held somewhere inside the facility. Her silence on the Codec adds a personal urgency to Campbell’s involvement. The handbook presents her as someone whose military upbringing has left little room for an ordinary life, with the events in Alaska beginning to challenge the assumptions she has grown up with.

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Naomi Hunter

Dr. Naomi Hunter is a scientist whose work in genetics places her close to the heart of FOXHOUND’s transformation. The handbook traces her career through DNA testing, genetic counseling, and research at the biotechnology company ATGC, before her recruitment to the unit’s medical staff. Her specialty is gene therapy intended to enhance a soldier’s performance.

As medical chief, Naomi has worked directly with the genetically altered operatives now involved in the uprising. That familiarity makes her an important member of Snake’s support team: she understands their treatment and can provide information about the people he will face. Her calm professional manner conceals a strong will, while her research brings the mission’s questions about heredity and the limits of human intervention into sharp focus.

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Mei Ling

Mei Ling is the young specialist responsible for the mission’s communications and information systems. Her background in image and data processing leads her from an interest in aviation toward technology that helps a field operative understand his surroundings. The handbook connects that research to the radar and Codec equipment used during Snake’s infiltration.

Working with Campbell’s team at the submarine command post, she handles incoming records and helps maintain Snake’s link to the outside world. Her role is technical, but her conversations also provide a little relief from the pressure inside Shadow Moses. Chinese sayings and an enthusiastic manner give her a distinctive voice on the radio—a reminder that the support network behind this solitary mission is made up of people, not just equipment.

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Jim Houseman

Secretary of Defense Jim Houseman oversees the operation from an airborne command center known as the Knee-Cap. A former Marine with decades of military experience, he remains committed to the idea that nuclear deterrence preserves peace. The handbook portrays him as a man whose outlook has been shaped by the strategic assumptions of the Cold War.

Houseman relays information to Campbell and holds authority over the larger military response should Snake’s mission fail. He is also closely associated with ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker. While the infiltration depends on one soldier moving quietly through the facility, Houseman represents the power waiting beyond the island: command structures, political priorities, and the possibility of a far more destructive solution to the crisis.

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Roy Campbell

Roy Campbell is brought out of retirement to direct the Shadow Moses mission. His military background includes service with the Marines, Green Berets, and Delta Force, followed by a leading role in FOXHOUND. An experienced planner, he has earned Snake’s respect through earlier operations and is one of the few people capable of bringing him back into action.

The handbook describes Campbell’s efforts to modernize FOXHOUND and his growing unease with the unit’s genetic enhancement program. Now he must help Snake confront what that organization has become. From the submarine command post, he supplies guidance throughout the infiltration. His responsibility is also intensely personal: Meryl Silverburgh, his niece, is trapped on the island, tying his duty as commander to the safety of his family.

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Otacon

Hal Emmerich is the gifted engineer behind ArmsTech’s Metal Gear project. Soft-spoken and more comfortable with technology than combat, he has pursued an exceptional academic career and a fascination with the robots of Japanese animation. His preferred nickname, Otacon, reflects that enthusiasm and the conventions he loves to attend.

The work that once seemed to fulfill a childhood dream carries a much darker responsibility. His family’s scientific history is already entangled with nuclear weapons, and the prospect of his own research becoming an instrument of mass destruction confronts him with the same conflict. The handbook describes a man caught between the excitement of invention and the consequences of its use. Inside Shadow Moses, his technical knowledge can become one of Snake’s most important advantages.

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Nastasha Romanenko

Nastasha Romanenko brings specialist knowledge of military hardware and nuclear weapons to Snake’s support network. The handbook roots her opposition to nuclear danger in her childhood near Chernobyl, where the disaster devastated her family. Her later career takes her into American defense and intelligence work before she becomes an independent military analyst.

Called in to assist the Shadow Moses operation, she explains weapons, their capabilities, and the risks posed by the material held on the island. Her experience extends beyond equipment to the policies and institutions built around it. For Nastasha, the crisis is not an abstract strategic exercise. It concerns a destructive power whose consequences she knows personally, giving her practical advice a conviction that reaches well beyond the immediate mission.

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Master Miller

McDonnell Benedict Miller is a veteran survival instructor whose experience spans several elite military organizations, including FOXHOUND. His demanding standards and authority in the field have earned him the respectful title “Master.” The handbook presents him as an instructor whose practical knowledge has been tested through a long military career.

Like Snake, Miller has withdrawn to Alaska. His interest in the region’s legends and wilderness accompanies a life away from active service, but Campbell persuades him to help with the operation. Over the Codec, his assignment is to offer survival advice and guidance for dangerous situations. His value lies in the habits of an experienced soldier: reading an unfamiliar environment, anticipating trouble, and finding a way through when formal plans offer no easy answer.

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Kenneth Baker

Kenneth Baker is the president of ArmsTech, a major weapons manufacturer, and one of the hostages Snake has been ordered to rescue. The handbook describes an executive determined to protect his company as the end of the Cold War brings reduced spending, canceled projects, and fierce competition for military contracts.

ArmsTech’s setbacks push Baker toward a new project with DARPA: Metal Gear REX. His ambitions are shaped by a defense industry in which technical achievement alone does not guarantee success, and political relationships can be as influential as engineering. Now imprisoned on Shadow Moses, he is both a rescue objective and a crucial connection to the work carried out there. Reaching him may reveal how a disposal facility became the center of an international nuclear emergency.

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Liquid Snake

Liquid Snake commands the FOXHOUND operatives behind the Shadow Moses uprising. His resemblance to Solid Snake is unmistakable, but the handbook describes a military career that has followed a very different path. Training under British intelligence, experience in the Middle East, and a command of several languages make him far more than the spokesman for a group of terrorists.

A veteran of infiltration and irregular warfare, Liquid eventually rises to lead FOXHOUND’s combat unit. He cuts the organization’s ties with the government and takes control of the island with the other renegade specialists. His demand for Big Boss’s remains gives the crisis a purpose beyond a conventional ransom. For Snake, facing him means confronting an opponent whose appearance, abilities, and obsession with inheritance turn the mission toward deeply personal territory.

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Revolver Ocelot

Revolver Ocelot is a veteran gunman with roots in Soviet special operations and intelligence. The handbook follows his career through the upheaval after the Soviet Union’s collapse and mercenary operations across Africa and Central Asia, before his arrival in FOXHOUND. His contacts and experience make him useful well beyond the battlefield.

His fascination with Westerns is expressed in the revolver he carries, the one-handed style he favors, and the theatrical confidence of his gunplay. Beneath that performance is a precise and calculating marksman. Ocelot is also a feared interrogator, known by the name Shalashaska. His connections help supply the uprising with equipment, while the uncertainty surrounding his loyalties makes him difficult to read even among the men taking part in the takeover.

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Psycho Mantis

Psycho Mantis brings telepathy and psychokinetic power to FOXHOUND. The handbook describes abilities that emerged in childhood and brought him to the attention of Soviet intelligence. Trained as a psychic operative, he later works in the United States before moving through freelance intelligence assignments and into the unit.

The power to enter another person’s thoughts has left a profound mark on his own life. The guide portrays his mask and restrictive clothing as part of his effort to manage an existence overwhelmed by other minds. In combat, his threat extends beyond physical force: he can read intentions and manipulate the world around him. At Shadow Moses, Snake faces an adversary for whom conventional concealment may offer little protection.

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Cyborg Ninja

A mysterious armored figure moves through Shadow Moses with speed and strength beyond an ordinary soldier. The Ninja’s powered exoskeleton responds to the wearer’s movement, while optical camouflage and a high-frequency blade make him a dangerous presence even among the island’s elite operatives. His connection to the uprising is uncertain.

The handbook identifies the man beneath the armor as Frank Jaeger, the former FOXHOUND operative known as Gray Fox. His history reaches back to Big Boss, Outer Heaven, and Zanzibar Land, where he was believed to have died after fighting Snake. Survival came through military experimentation and an artificial body. What remains is a man drawn back toward the soldier who defeated him, with a purpose that cannot be reduced to the simple categories of ally and enemy.

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Donald Anderson

Donald Anderson is the chief of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and one of the two hostages central to Snake’s assignment. His background in intelligence, international politics, and military strategy places him inside the government’s most closely protected research programs. He is a firm supporter of nuclear deterrence.

The handbook links Anderson to the secret development and testing of Metal Gear, as well as the security procedures surrounding its weapons systems. His presence at Shadow Moses therefore makes him more than a captive official. He may hold information essential to understanding the terrorists’ threat and the means of stopping it. Snake’s orders are clear: find him inside the facility and bring him to safety before the situation reaches its deadline.

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Vulcan Raven

Vulcan Raven combines enormous physical strength with the endurance of someone at home in Alaska’s harsh environment. The handbook describes a scholar, hunter, and mercenary whose travels brought him into contact with Soviet soldiers, Outer Heaven, and eventually FOXHOUND through Revolver Ocelot. His battlefield presence is matched by a powerful spiritual outlook.

Raven carries a heavy rotary cannon with a confidence that makes its weight seem almost irrelevant. Rigorous training and familiarity with the wilderness allow him to endure conditions that would overwhelm other soldiers. His connection to ravens, ritual, and the unseen gives his confrontations with Snake an atmosphere different from a simple exchange of fire. He is an opponent who tests both the infiltrator’s resourcefulness and his ability to withstand relentless pressure.

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Sniper Wolf

Sniper Wolf is FOXHOUND’s patient and exceptionally skilled marksman. The handbook traces her early life to the conflict suffered by Kurdish communities in Iraq, followed by military training and a later connection with Big Boss. Her route into FOXHOUND grows from that experience of displacement, survival, and war.

With a PSG1 rifle, she turns distance and waiting into weapons. The guide emphasizes an ability to maintain her aim for an extraordinary length of time, observing a target rather than rushing the moment. Yet the severity of her profession exists alongside a strong attachment to the wolf dogs kept at Shadow Moses. That care for animals reveals another side of an adversary whose encounters with Snake are defined by precision, patience, and the vulnerability of anyone caught in her sights.

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Decoy Octopus

Decoy Octopus is an impersonation specialist whose talent lies in becoming someone else. The handbook traces his fascination with disguise to Hollywood effects, makeup, and acting, skills that eventually bring him into intelligence work and FOXHOUND. For him, a convincing appearance is only the beginning of an identity.

He studies a subject’s habits, voice, background, and manner of movement, using a command of languages and carefully developed techniques to sustain the imitation. The guide describes an obsessive attention to detail that makes the boundary between performer and role increasingly difficult to maintain. Among FOXHOUND’s more visibly intimidating combat specialists, his danger is quieter: he turns familiarity itself into something that can no longer be trusted.

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Big Boss

Big Boss is the legendary soldier whose influence continues to shape events long after his defeat. The handbook presents a veteran of numerous conflicts, a commander of FOXHOUND, and the architect of the military states challenged by Solid Snake. His reputation attracts soldiers who see him as far more than another commanding officer.

The confrontations at Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land make his history inseparable from Snake’s own. At Shadow Moses, his remains become the central demand of the uprising, and his genetic legacy is tied to the ambition of producing superior soldiers. Although he is absent from the island’s immediate struggle, his name connects the combatants, the experiments, and the unresolved grievances driving them. The mission unfolds beneath the shadow of a man whose influence has outlasted his life.

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