Almost a decade after his acrimonious departure from Konami, the shadow of Hideo Kojima still looms over Metal Gear Solid. He’s there, barely camouflaged, in the undergrowth of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater – a remake of the fifth MGS game, originally released in 2004, which tells the tale of a lone US special operator hunting superweapons and old mentors in the jungles of the southern Soviet Union.
I say “remake” but this feels more like a re-release, in spirit. True, it now runs on Unreal Engine, with the option of a manual, third-person perspective and cover-shooter controls in addition to the old top-down viewpoints. Yes, it boasts new flourishes, such as wounds now leaving scars, and clothes picking up stray leaves. Yes, there’s a new interface with floating in-world menus, which makes shuffling between the layers a bit less awkward. It’s the product of much labour, with development split between Konami and external support partner Virtuos. But where Konami’s other big restoration project, Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 remake, is a creative dialogue with the original game, Delta seems consumed by faithfulness to Kojima’s original design.