Metal Gear Solid 4 Finally Getting a Remaster Highlights How the Series Did What Few Franchises Ever Could

Video game characters rarely get the chance to die — for real, at least. While plenty of potential grim fates await the characters mid-action, the long-running nature of some of the industry’s most iconic franchises means plenty of notable characters simply don’t get to have their plots resolved once and for all. Sometimes, these returns can be engaging in their approaches to characters who should be done with their adventures, such as the aged Kratos of God of War being forced to reckon with his actions in the earlier games.

For the most part, though, characters don’t necessarily get conclusive endings. One major exception to that trend is Solid Snake, the lead hero of the Metal Gear Solid series. After multiple decades of headlining games, the character got a proper send-off in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which still stands out as a great ending for the character. With that game set for the first major re-release since it debuted on the PS3, fans will get a chance to revisit one of gaming’s best character endings.

Metal Gear Solid 4 Is Finally Getting A Modern Re-Release

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was a terrific game and a perfect finale for Solid Snake’s story, something the series has thankfully never gone back on. Debuting in 2008, Guns of the Patriots was intended as something of a concluding chapter in the franchise. Players were once again in the role of Solid Snake, this time embarking on a mission through a war-torn landscape while trying to prevent his villainous twin brother Liquidus (now possessing the body of Ocelot) from gaining control of the AI system known as the “Sons of the Patriots” and using it to cause chaos in the world.

The game was incredibly well-received when it launched, earning rave reviews, award nominations, and impressive sales. Notably, while the series has continued, it hasn’t directly followed the events of MSG4 outside of the Raiden-driven Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which largely followed a separate plot. This means Guns of the Patriots effectively serves as the final chapter of the mainline storyline — which is why it was so frustrating that the game had remained only on the PS3 in the years since. It has now been announced that the game will receive a remaster as part of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, meaning players can finally revisit Solid Snake’s final mission.

Metal Gear Solid’s Ending For Solid Snake Was Great, And It Shouldn’t Be Messed With

Solid Snake was the main character for much of the mainline Metal Gear Solid series, which made his advanced age and failing health in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots all the more surprising. Artificially conceived as part of the “Les Enfants Terribles” super soldier project, Solid Snake is revealed to have had his life span shortened in the process. Much of the game’s narrative focuses on Snake confronting not only ghosts from his past but also his own morality. Portrayed as an increasingly tired soldier who isn’t sure of his place in the world anymore, Snake’s arc in Guns of the Patriot was the rare video game narrative that allowed its main character to genuinely grow old and find some resolution for their overarching narrative. Paying off not just his own reflections on the necessity of war but the tragic backstory for Big Boss that was revealed in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the game was able to give Snake a genuinely affecting ending, where he finally gets to lay down his weapons and live out the rest of his days “not as a snake, but as a man.”

It’s also notably the last we’ve seen of Snake in the series chronologically, with subsequent games in the franchise either shifting focus to Big Boss or to Raiden. It was a meaningful and emotionally effective finale, as well as one of the only times a video game’s iconic lead was more or less allowed to have an ending. The nature of the gaming industry and franchise-driven development means that many big-name characters don’t get to have their plots resolved once and for all, even if their story has reached a natural conclusion. While overarching franchises like Grand Theft Auto or Mafia are able to tell self-contained stories with good thematic throughlines, multigame leads like Master Chief, Kratos, or Samus don’t get to see their story actually end. That’s what makes Solid Snake’s ending in Guns of the Patriots so important in retrospect, as it proves a series can survive and thrive even while still giving the fan-favorite characters a proper send-off. Konami finally bringing back Solid Snake’s final adventure for a new generation of consoles should be a good chance for players to revisit Snake’s ending and witness how a video game hero should go out.