Metal Gear Solid is a complicated franchise. As somebody who’s by no means performed an entry all through—aside from the excellent Revengeance, which isn’t actually a Metal Gear Solid sport—I’m aware of the sequence however all the time discovered myself perplexed by its intricate narrative threads that span many years. Thankfully, David Hayter, the voice of the legendary spy Solid Snake, has considerably remedied my confusion with a quick clarification of MGS’ affect in a brand new YouTube advert.
To promote the primary quantity of the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection, which launched in October 2023 to fan frustration, Hayter appeared in a March 15 YouTube video on Konami’s channel. In it, he grabs our hand and shortly takes us by the sport’s storied historical past, discussing the signature qualities of the primary three entries of Metal Gear Solid. (Yes, he additionally briefly acknowledges that Metal Gear extra broadly started with the 1987 launch of Snake’s first journey on the MSX.)
He doesn’t fairly do an in depth story breakdown in the best way that somebody like myself, who’s heard of however by no means actually understood the sport’s narrative, would recognize. However, he does humorously nod to the sequence’ twisting plots, admitting that newcomers could also be daunted by all of the “shadow organizations, secret agents, double agents, triple agents, nonlinear timelines, giant nuclear weapons, clones, and multiple characters named Snake.” But, he says, this assortment will set new gamers on the best path to make sense of all of it.
He then briefly charts how the sequence garnered the clout it has, highlighting “a handful of elements that Metal Gear uniquely Metal Gear.”
Hayter—who’s in all probability finest identified for his work because the gruff voice of MGS’ protagonist Solid Snake—touches on the “innovative and iconic gameplay” discovered within the sequence, together with how boss Psycho Mantis can ”learn your thoughts” by accessing your reminiscence card. It’s cool listening to all this historical past, nonetheless temporary, particularly since that is simply half one in all what’s going to grow to be a multi-part sequence. According to Hayter, the second episode will likely be about the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake, which doesn’t have a launch date but however seems to be rattling good.
Anyway, I don’t know in the event you’ve seen, however having actors pop up in gaming advertisements appears to be changing into a development. At first, it was Succession star Brian Cox giving us the rundown of Tekken 8‘s lore. Then, Ian McShane, from Deadwood and the John Wick movies, defined Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s story. And now, now we have David Hayter doing the identical. Hayter, in fact, has a longtime connection to the sequence he’s speaking about right here, so it’s not fairly the identical, however it’s yet one more instance of an actor with a well-known voice explaining a sport or sequence to us at size. I’m not mad about it. It’s only a bizarre coincidence.
