38 Years Ago, Konami Released One of the Most Influential NES Games

38 years ago, on this very day, one of the most influential NES games ever was released in 1987. The NES obviously debuted four years earlier in 1983, at least in Japan. It didn’t come west until 1985. And like most consoles, it took a few years before the software really started churning out. To this end, it wasn’t until four years into the NES generation that a game that would essentially birth and popularize the stealth genre came out.

On December 22, 1987, Konami and Hideo Kojima released Metal Gear for the NES, after debuting the stealth game earlier in the year on the MSX2. It was Kojima’s second release in his, at the time, young career, following 1986’s Penguin Adventure. While Konami was well established by the time of 1987, it was the game that springboarded Kojima’s career and put him on everyone’s radar. Obviously, it would evolve into the greatest stealth series in gaming history, and one of the greatest series in gaming across all genres.

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A Landmark Game

Not only is Metal Gear one of the most influential NES games, and the introduction of the iconic Metal Gear Solid series, but it’s a pioneering game because it birthed the stealth genre. At the time, most games were focused on direct confrontation with enemies. The idea of trying to avoid enemies was a novel one at the time.

While Metal Gear wasn’t the first game to have cutscenes, cutscenes as a means to progress and evolve the story were not commonplace back then, especially to the level and scale Metal Gear was doing it. Kojima revolutionized storytelling in video games, and the first Metal Gear was an important step in this journey.

As an NES game specifically, Metal Gear is sometimes forgotten as one of the great games for the console, for the simple fact that it is not a Nintendo game. Further, and unfortunately, the NES version is not as good as the MSX2 version due to removed and reworked content. Nonetheless, it was one of the first NES games to have a complex plot and introduced the stealth genre to owners of the Nintendo system.

Metal Gear in 2025

Unfortunately, Metal Gear doesn’t hold up very well in 2025, and it’s not super consequential to the branching narrative of the series. As a result, many skip the first two games in the series and go straight to Metal Gear Solid. That said, it is easily accessible. Not only is it available on GOG, but it’s a part of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, which is available on all modern platforms.

It’s hard to recommend diving into a series that doesn’t look like it’s going to get any new games anytime soon, following the contentious divorce of Konami and Kojima. However, not only is it one of the great series in gaming history, and worth checking out for this fact alone, but it continues to be relevant in the present through remakes and re-releases. To this end, just this year, Konami released a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum. What do you think of Metal Gear?