Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection: All Games Included and What to Play First

Since when is this releasing on PS4? All press releases have only mentioned PS5

It's crazy to me that they didn't port the twin snakes instead of the ps1 game.
At least on switch. But, not even that.

If you have never played them and this collection will be your first foray into Metal Gear, please do not play them in chronological order.

If you start with MGS3 then try and jump into NES Metal Gear, I can all but guarantee you will not finish it, and will fall off the series entirely.

In fact, I would suggest skipping Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, and Snake's Revenge entirely and stick exclusively to the Solid series and play them in release order. If you enjoy those, then maybe go back and try the originals.

@pushtriangle You're right, completely forgot it's PS5 only!

Revengence would be a great shout but i doubt itll be included.

@Nem Likely because Twin Snakes is pretty contentious among MGS fans, and most prefer the original over it.

Its going to be great to catch up to all these games after the lame duck MG: Survive.

I get that Metal Gear Solid is the recommended place for newcomers to start, but I'm actually very tempted to try out the original Metal Gear first once this collection releases.

Portable Ops and Ghost Babel just going to die out there on their original platforms. RIP non-canon entries.

I heard a rumour that the reason why it has been so difficult to port MGS4 is due to licencing issues with the likes of Apple and Regain.
Whether that is true or not, this is a fair warning against product placement in games for they are not like films where you have one release and that's it.

BTW, Metal Gear Solid Acid sucks. I have no idea what drugs they were on when they made that.

Doesn't it have the MSX version of Metal Gear as well as the NES one? Is there a difference? Am I just misremembering this?

It's bizarre that Snake's Revenge is included. But that does give me hope that Portable Ops will be in Vol 2 or maybe a Vol 3.

@LifeGirl on acid? xD

Sort of lazy not doing a widescreen hack on the ps1 original. I'd rather have twin snakes then.

Settle in for another boring story from a gaming old timer, (46).
I remember when metal gear solid first came out, me and my partner at that time, had a flat, you know, young couple, not too shabby, 28 inch TV that was the envy of friends lol
30 kilos plus!
Anyway, she toddled out with a group of our friends, and sent one of the lads back to get me cos I had committed day one to play it.
Anyway, long story short, too late, he knocked just as I was starting it.
Said was I coming out I said nope, playing new game, he sat down on the floor in front of me to have a look and I kid you not, he was transfixed.
Every now and again I'd say, do you want a go mate, and he'd say no, I'm loving just watching it.
It was probably 5 hours, the two of us, me with the wired controller on the sofa and him sat on the floor.
2 am rolls on, the door goes and my partner walks in with friends and kebabs in tow, (remember, this was before mobiles were absolutely everywhere), and said where you 2 been all night!!!

Gaming. Sometimes, just sometimes, it's special.

@Skeletor85 And Gear, and Solid.

There’s no way I can pass up this collection with MGS getting trophies for the first time.

Metal Gear is one of my favorite franchises ever. It's the reason I got a PS3 and a PSP back in the day. I played all canon games, discussed the lore endlessly in forums and read everything I could. I will revisit the series in a more calm manner now. It's too many years I played those 3 games. And get trophies for Metal Gear Solid will be a special thing.

I'd consider this for the HD version of MGS (PS1), but I can't justify full price to play one game in the collection. I'm just not that big a fan.

@BeerIsAwesome To this day I see Portable Ops as canon. We even see some mentions in MGS4, in some cutscenes. And the story really adds to the lore. And the game is great, the plot hit hard!

@GeneJacket That is silly. It's the same game with better graphics and better cut-scenes. Purists are a real bother.

Where was it confirmed that the first one has trophies now?

Weird, it comes out a few days after Spiderman 2. Maybe push it up a couple weeks?

@RatmCky The games will be available separately, and you can’t really put a game out without Trophies.

"First released on the NES"
Um no guys, Metal Gear released on the MSX2, It got ported to the NES a year later. The version of Metal Gear that will be in Vol 1 will be the original MSX version and not the crappy NES version.

@Nem
The twin snakes is considered controversial among the MGS community due to changes it made to the narrative and the gameplay. I personally don't mind it but most people seem to prefer the original and it's still one of the few mainline MGS games that isn't widely available still on console so Konami likely wanted to appease the fans that way.

@freddquadros I enjoyed both it and Ghost Babel, but Kojima wasn't involved in either, so by word of God they are not canon. The official line by Konami may be different when these games eventually get put out over the next few years.

@GeneJacket why is that?
Isn’t it a remake of the first game with better graphics?
Or is it something like Resident Evil 4 remake but received poorly ?

I never played it and only knew about it few years back.

@Skywalker1080p Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed you story and it reminded me when MGS2 came out me and my cousin devised a system where he wakes up 2 hours before me and plays in the dark and I would sleep 2 hours after him so we don’t spoil it for each other.

Do we know exactly what is on the disc for the PS5 physical edition? I tried looking it up but still a bit unsure…

I know the Switch version is a joke and the cartridge has nothing on it.

You should play them in the order they were released.

@BeerIsAwesome It's a shame because Ghost Babel is legit a great 2D game and a great jumping off point to the older MSX games and Portable Ops has a really unique and fun gameplay loop. Portable Ops with better controls would be a delight.

@Cashews As a huge Metal Gear fan, It really is that simple, honestly.

@LiamCroft well they do it on the ps plus premium tier. Tons of ps1 games don’t have trophies. So they can do that, that’s why I was wondering if it was actually confirmed.

@Dr-M Mainly because of the extremely over-the-top anime style cutscenes that people felt weren't in-line with the tone of the game and because of a rumor that Kojima said he hated it.

There's no evidence of him ever having said that, though it still gets passed around, and he personally hand-picked the director and expressly told him he didn't want the cutscenes to be 1:1 recreations and to make the cutscenes as crazy as they ended up.

Personally, I think Twin Snakes is fine. It plays better, but I don't think it holds up as well graphically as the original, and I do think the cutscenes are a mixed bag. Some are better than the original, some are on par, some or worse...overall, I enjoy it, but I don't think it's as consistent as the PS1 original.

Metal Gear Survive should not be included in any of these collections and should be allowed to go quietly in the night. Abomination of a game and shouldn't even be part of the Metal Gear franchise.

@GeneJacket problem with Twin Snakes is it's held up in copyright limbo between Silicon Knights and Nintendo, I believe.

I think, if it were included, it would be the definitive way to play MGS1, though.

Is it out tomorrow?

@GeneJacket Thank you for the insightful answer, appreciated.

You’re pretty good @LiamCroft

@Uncharted2007 Each title will be available separately friend 👍

The three older games that were made during the Cold War itself are peak OldSchool Hard. You will need to rely on guidebooks online to understand some of the puzzles where you instantly die unless you follow a completely complex pattern on the floor that the game provides zero context or hints for. At the end the game starts giving you directions to your death (for a plot reason but still it is really awful to have to restart from a long time back).

In fact I recommend you just watch play throughs of those three on YouTube after you sample them a bit.

@Uncharted2007 The collection isn’t priced at full AAA price (£45 instead of £70) and you can also buy them individually on the PS Store

@GeneJacket I have to agree it's even really hard to go back even with recent games with basic quality of life improvements upgrades (sorry i don't know how you call it exactly).😅

Please put Rising on volume 2 Konami... Pleeeeaaaaase!

Why not the original MSX ver of Metal Gear? I would presume they're using the ports for Metal Gear 1 and 2 that were created for MGS3 Subsistence.

@LiamCroft Something else to add to this brilliant guide. Metal Gear 1 debuted on MSX and is the definitive version that's available via MGS3. The NES version came after MSX for the western release but with a number of revisions in order to fit inside the NES cartridge (cut levels and infamously the change in the final boss).

I believe the NES version is also going to be included separately? If so, has enough differences to be in its own category and would tie in with Snake's Revenge as an alt storyline. But, this tibit of info is up to your discretion. It's nice to read an article that doesn't neglect the games prior to Metal Gear Solid.

Everybody gushing about this as though 90% of these games don't belong in the ps classics collection. I know £50 isn't a lot of money nowadays but when you've bought all these games previously and been unable to play them due to hardware limitations... And with the snake eater remake being around the corner too... As much as I'm dying for another injection of metal gear I won't be buying this. It's a cash grab. Pure and simple. Sorry.

@BeerIsAwesome Ghost Babel never was canon, but Portable Ops was. Kojima ever stated that he waited the story of PO before writing MGS4. Later Kojima stoped promoting the game, but canon is plot, and PO is refferenced in other games, even if slightly. In MGS4 scenes of PO appear in very few cutscenes.

Kojima says it isn't one of his games, he did not directed it, but the game is canon.

It's such a shame they did not put the Gamecube MGS 1 on the disc.

@Zemo55 @AgentCooper — I didn't know that. I may just end up buying the PS1 game for an HD replay then. Appreciate the info.

@WhensDinner playing them in order of the year they supposedly take place is a really bad idea. It takes away from the artistic merit of the series.
This article is bad advice.

Anyone know if the Ape Escape mode will be back in Snake Eater? Loved that on PS2

@WhensDinner I can't disagree with this. The stylised cutscenes worked well with the limitation of the hardware at the time, so an out-and-out remaster could probably get it looking great!

@freddquadros I guess any franchise can canonise something by virtue of mentioning it at some point. Like, say if Snake just happened to mention a wormhole opening up after the Ground Zeroes incident, all of a sudden that game actually happened. Although it can be said that even without prior mentions, Ghost Babel could've happened. I can't imagine an army sitting around for 20 years doing nothing, so somewhere in the middle of that timeline the Ghost Babel incident could've happened as a self-contained incident that just happened to be covered up so well it was almost forgotten.

Yay, headcanon!

@BeerIsAwesome Stick with your "ifs". I will consider what I SAW when I played MGS4 (and PW), and the sure fact that nothing in the MG canon contradicts PO, or any other game cover the year 1970. We can't go and erase scenes from the games right? That would be headcanon. Cheers!!

I think this list should be updated to reflect vol 2. Which means the chronoligical order means you're going to be waiting a bit after completing MGS3. Since if memory serves its MGS3, Portable Ops, then PW, then MGS5, then MG, MG2, then MGS1,2,4, and Revengeneance. I really do hope we see a MGRR remaster out of this. That would make Vol 2 complete imo.

@freddquadros Sorry, the "if" from my own headcanon was actually supposed to be regarding Ghost Babel. Portable Ops is fine. 🙂

@Nem I am guessing Twin Snakes may continue as a Nintendo exclusive or may be in the second volume.