Metal Gear Solid: Delta review – Often uglier than the original

I offer you two choices: play the groundbreaking original at a fluid framerate affording fast, snappy action, with the ever-excellent stylised visuals intact, or the exact same game, but with worse performance, some Unreal Engine 5 woes and a graphical presentation that is at odds with its old bones.

The context surrounding how and when a game was made is very important. When I play Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, I understand that it is a game that is over two decades old. Everything about that game is in step with the technology of the time, with the exaggerated animations helping bring the lower-fidelity character models alive. It is more akin to character animation found in cartoons.

With this in mind, fast-forward to 2025, and the context of the Snake Eater is lost in Delta, causing a strange disconnect between the graphical fidelity of the remake and the original game’s animation work and (charmingly) dated gameplay. It just never feels quite right.

As graphics move ever closer to photorealism, human characters need to be better grounded in reality, lest they fall into the uncanny valley. But using those exact same animations, instead of coming across as charming and kitsch, just feel awkward and off, giving Metal Gear Solid: Delta a stilted feel.

To me, it’s a bit like sitting down to watch a shot-for-shot remake of an episode of The Thunderbirds, with real actors moving exactly as the puppets did.

The interpretation of character models is a mixed bag. Big Boss and Ocelot are big offenders for me, looking outright strange at times. Other character models, such as the rest of the Cobra Unit, hold up well.

Some changes have been made too to simple things, such as how the Codec works with a strange dial, and it feels far more fiddly than just hitting the Select button and choosing who you want to call. The old method is there, but it takes an extra step to get it and faffing around with options.

But the thing that bothered me the most about Delta is more philosophical than anything.

The gaming world recently marked the 11th anniversary of the still influential and celebrated PT, and I can’t help but lament what we lost: a world where Konami continued to deliver groundbreaking games that pushed the medium further, rather than the Pachinko cash-grab drudgery of the last decade.

The ripples of PT are still felt to this day. Metal Gear Solid 3 already exists; Silent Hills does not.

Further twisting the knife, the Bloober Team Silent Hill 2 remake and the litany of Resident Evil remakes from Capcom aptly demonstrate that remakes are at their best when they do their own thing, rather than never daring to stray from the past.

MGS creator Hideo Kojima, after unceremoniously breaking ties with Konami, has found immense success with Death Stranding, which endearingly wears its strangeness on its sleeve.

Sadly, Metal Gear Solid: Delta serves as a sad reminder that Konami really dropped the ball, and it's hard to forget this.

But Metal Gear Solid Delta’s existence in a vacuum is inoffensive, which is why I have opted to award Metal Gear Solid: Delta three stars out of five after playing it on PC. The team behind the project are not to blame for the management above.

I don't believe that Delta has come at the expense of games like Silent Hills. Over a decade separates the two, and it's clear that there has been a course correction internally at the company.

Ultimately, Delta's biggest letdown is a lack of bravery on Konami’s part, the kind afforded to Bloober Team.

With many of the same assets, but a remixed version of Metal Gear Solid: 3, Konami could have had a real winner on its hands. Instead, by being so dogmatic, it doesn't.

And all this is not to say I didn’t enjoy myself at all. It is Metal Gear Solid 3, at the end of the day, but I had to constantly question if I was enjoying that or the remake.

The answer lies in a murky, uncomfortable place in the middle.

When reviewing side-by-side footage of Snake Eater and Delta cutscenes, I found myself warming up to Delta a little more, but I was essentially watching a movie at that point. As soon as I went back to play it, I started to fall out of love with it once more, as the gameplay feels unresponsive and sluggish.

Perhaps in a few years, when we all have RTX 5090s, it will be a different story. But in the here and now, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater on PC with mods to fix up some of the issues with that version is my preferred way to play.

Delta is at its best when used as a very expensive photo mode. It can be fun to stop to ogle at details, and perhaps that is fine.

Metal Gear Solid: Delta doesn’t replace Metal Gear Solid 3, but it doesn’t do enough for me to ever choose it over Snake Eater.

Metal Gear Solid: Delta launches 28th August for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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