For the first time since 2015, Konami has brought back Solid Snake, aka David Hayter, to explain what the hell is going on in the Metal Gear Solid series.
It's been a long time since Konami and Hayter have worked together. The long-time Solid Snake and Big Boss actor was pretty unceremoniously replaced by Hideo Kojima for 2014's Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and 2015's follow-up, The Phantom Pain. Nearly a decade later, Hayter is once again part of the Metal Gear Solid series thanks to the history lesson video just below.
In short, Hayter is attempting to recap the entire history of all the games featured in the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1, which launched late last year. That includes Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and finally Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. That's a lot of history for just one man to work through.
"This could go on for days," Hayter says, almost as a warning, and he's not exactly wrong. The history lesson begins at 1987, with the release of Metal Gear on the MSX, and stretches on until the release of Metal Gear Solid 3 in 2004. That's 17 years of history to cover in under 6 minutes, and as anyone familiar with the Konami series knows, it's infamously complicated.
The video isn't just a look at the story of the five games, though - it actually serves as a look at the cultural impact of the Metal Gear Solid series. Hayter fully acknowledges that it wasn't until Metal Gear Solid in 1998 that the series properly took off around the world, but also claims that it was the Konami series that pioneered the stealth genre at large.
"Remember when I said this could go on for days? Well, a few of those days could be spent discussing the Snakes alone," Hayter adds, just before introducing Big Boss. The actor breaks the Snakes down to the "simple version," beginning with the birth of Big Boss in 1935, and how the birth of Naked Snake set the stage of the "wild events" of the Konami collection.
This isn't the only video that Hayter's going to be working with Konami on. The actor ends the video above by revealing that a second video, coming soon, will be delving into what "many consider to be the best game in the series." Hayter doesn't explicitly say which game this is, but with the accompanying footage of Metal Gear Solid 3, you can be pretty sure we'll be exploring the history of Snake Eater.
Elsewhere, Metal Gear Solid 3's remake will launch this year, although it's unclear if Hayter is actually reprising his role for the remake.
