Metal Gear Saga: games in order, origin and characters

It is one of the best-known sagas in the history of video games. Japanese through and through and with the pedigree of one of the most successful companies in the early days of the industry, in addition to bearing the signature of those author programmers who turn each of their works into a planetary event. Indeed, we are talking about Metal Gear , Konami and of course the famous Hideo Kojima.

A story from the 80’s

Before getting into the history of Metal Gear and its games, we must understand the time in which its premiere takes place. The 1980s are those of Ronald Reagan as President of the USA, of Pope John Paul II and of the determined struggle of both against communism. That took the Cold War to unprecedented levels of relevance that were reflected in the video games or the movies that were shot in those years. This sense of conflict between the two sides gave us characters who, in any of their forms, fulfilled the mission of fighting against tyranny in the name of freedom , such as Snake: John Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone, or the hero movies muscled like Commando , Predator and the fun Delta Force starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris.

Product of that cinema that had in the Soviets and the Cold War its enemy and scenario ( War Games , Red Dawn , etc.), we must frame the birth in 1987 of Metal Gear for MSX , a hero from head to toe who fought against the forces of a tyrannical evil, not so much Soviet, but with an air of what in those days was the pure representation of what someone later called “axis of evil”.

But before we get into the games, would you recognize the protagonists of the games?

The protagonists of the saga

The protagonists of Metal Gear Solid are already icons in the history of videogames and if you’re new, you’ll get mixed up with each one of them. To say that most use the name “Snake” but later there are differences between each of them , the time in which they live and the enemies and armies they will have to fight. All those Snakes represent the different incarnations of a hero created to fight through time against everything and everyone.

Solid Snake

A product of the secret Les Enfants Terribles project, he is the most perfect soldier developed in the 20th century and capable of achieving suicidal goals such as infiltrating any enemy facility. His prestige has made him a living legend in the army.

big boss

Founder of FOX HOUND, Outer Heaven, Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF), Diamond Dogs or Zanzibar Land, he is a powerful fighting force although over the years, and as he gets older, he ends up making some decisions that seem to go in against your own resume. Even so, he is considered one of the best soldiers of the 20th century.

venom-snake

We are before the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain already as commander of Diamond Dogs and whose mind led him to think that he was actually Big Boss. Actually, his past has to do with an MSF doctor. Many of his war injuries (on his arm, face, and legs) were sustained trying to save Snake.

raiden

He will be the savior of Solid Snake on several occasions and will star in games like Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty . Despite his experience, his completed missions and the scars he has suffered, he will end up passing away and his body destroyed …which will be replaced with a cyborg who is, more or less, one of his most well-known reincarnations.

Main Metal Gear Saga

Many Metal Gear games have come out but they are part of the main story arc, only the ones we tell you about below.

Metal Gear (1987)

The year is 1995 and the US government is in the hands of FOX HOUND with a Big Boss who commands that elite force, although it will be Gray Fox that we see in this game that brings to the table some of the characteristics key to the saga: stealth, infiltration and combat when there is no other choice.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1988)

This game begins with Solid Snake retired and the kidnapping of a scientist by the rogue nation Zanzibar. FOX HOUND takes matters into their own hands again with Commander Campbell at the helm. The game was a continuation of the first, obviously due to the success that marked the beginning of the legend.

Metal Gear Solid (1999)

Eleven years after the last installment, Konami broke the rules and created one of the most important classic games in history. Metal Gear was a household name, but not as much as from this game which takes us back to the year 2005 and the glorious setting of Shadow Moses. FOX HOUND returns to make an appearance using a Solid Snake who must stop some terrorists who threaten to launch a nuclear missile.

Need I say something about this wonder? He basically took the idea of the original games, applied a portion of 3D graphics to them, set everything with cinematographic scenes, an impressive dubbing in Spanish and the rest was the magic of a saga that is classic in the history of video games.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2002)

After the success of Metal Gear Solid, Konami had the entire gaming community eating out of his hand. The expectation for this game exceeded everything known and broke absolute sales records. Solid Snake and Otacon founded Philanthropy in the year 2007 and investigated at the time if the Marines are building and transporting a Metal Gear RAY. Revolver Ocelot appears on the scene, sinking the freighter in which they carry this new weapon and our protagonist disappears. But that’s just the beginning, because it will be Raiden who appears on behalf of FOX HOUND with the mission to stop the terrorist threat.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2005)

The franchise jumps ahead in time from 2005 to 1964, at the height of the Cold War: Naked Snake is sent to Tselinoyarsk to rescue a Russian scientist named Sokolov who is dealing with the Shagonod project, a devastating weapon that allows its owner to launch a nuclear attack from anywhere on the planet. This title managed to give the series a new direction and, above all, offer a much richer background that made the franchise even bigger.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

Metal Gear Solid 4 runs the calendar again and leaves behind the 60s of the 20th century and transports us to 2014, when the threat of nanomachines capable of killing targets in an extraordinarily precise and selective way appears . Here, we will meet a version of Solid Snake especially aged and uncommitted to the ideals he had in his youth, who will have to finish off Liquid Ocelot as quickly as possible.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)

The clock returns us to the 70s for a game that first came to PSP (although it later had HD versions for home consoles). Now MSF is fighting in South America, a place shaken by the growing influence of the Soviet orbit and the impact of the Cuban missile crisis. Big Boss will have to defend nations that do not have armies from this authoritarian threat that spreads dangerously.

Metal Gear Solid V (2015)

The last of the games in the canonical saga (if that can be said of those that tell us the main story) and that came in two phases. A first with Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes , which takes place in 1975 and tells everything that happened after Peace Walker . In this title we control Big Boss and the Omega camp to which we must go to assault a base in Cuba where Chico and Paz are being held.

It is already in 1984 when Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain appears, with Venom Snake waking up confused in a hospital in Cyprus . After some encounters with Big Boss and Ocelot (in the moments before the creation of Outer Heaven) he will travel to Afghanistan where he will have to rescue one of Snake’s most trusted people, Kazuhira Miller, who is under surveillance by Soviet soldiers.

Unfortunately, this was the last installment of the saga waiting for either Konami or Hideo Kojima to take over the story in the future. Something that does not look good at all because the thing ended badly between the production company and the Japanese creative, who already in the last moments of development of this title showed his disagreement with how things were being managed.

How to play them in chronological order

As you have seen, the temporary jumps from one game to another are more than evident. If you want to enjoy them in the order that the characters and their history mark, here is the ordered list with the date on which each one takes place in quotes:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (1964)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (1974)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (1975)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (1984)
Metal Gear (1995)
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1999)
Metal GearSolid (2005)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2007-2009)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2014)

Other Metal Gear

The Metal Gear that we have mentioned so far are the ones that clearly develop the history of the different Snakes, their organizations and most recalcitrant enemies. But there are others who are halfway and a good bouquet that does not affect what happens at all . Even its development departs from the canon flirting with very different genres.

This is the case, for example, of the superb Metal Gear Acid! for PSP, which mixed the development of stealth, infiltration and card combat and were very successful at the time of their release almost 20 years ago. Or the simpler mobile editions. Here you have them all: