When Konami announced Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater on PlayStation 5, you could almost hear the iconic “!” alert ring across the gaming world’s collective ears. A remake of the stealth genre classic Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – originally on PlayStation 2 – coming our way? With a wealth of updates and enhancements? There’s no place for Snake to hide – the entire planet is watching…
I got to play a short demo of MGS Delta, as well as talk with the game’s producer, Noriaki Okamura, on how the game is shaping up to be much more than simply solid.
It’s no small feat to remake a revered classic like MGS3. Which is exactly why Komani and Virtuos Studios’ combined development team has a mixture of talent new and familiar to the original, combining fresh eyes and safe hands.
“We had to sift out some old dev documents, but thanks to the expertise of some of the veterans who worked on Snake Eater we didn’t have to spend too much time figuring out preparation,” says Okamura. “We’re also aware that there’s an entire generation who have never played a single Metal Gear Solid game before.”
Keeping with the vital but tricky philosophy of ensuring Delta appeals to all, a strong focus has been on the controls. Traditionalists to MGS3 will feel right at home, but there’s also an option that will feel natural to modern audiences. So if you prefer to play with a third-person camera on the right stick while being able to move and fire simultaneously via an over the shoulder viewpoint, you’ve got it.
“Initially our goal was to keep things as close to the original as possible,” explains Okamura. “But obviously over the course of 20 years, the way people play games has evolved and changed. So we looked at modern action games to ensure Delta was on par with some of those, so it doesn’t detract from the experience.”
This definitely had a desired effect on my playthrough of the demo, where the changes to Delta created a satisfying illusion of how I remembered MGS3 controlled even
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