Metal Gear Solid (video game)

Metal Gear Solid is a 1998 action-adventurestealth game developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation. Directed, produced, and written by Hideo Kojima, the game is the third mainline installment in the Metal Gear series, the seventh chronologically, and serves as a sequel to the MSX2 game Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990). The game's story follows Solid Snake, a former Special Forces operative who is pulled out of retirement by the U.S. government to infiltrate Shadow Moses, a nuclear weapons facility that has been taken over by rogue unit FOXHOUND, led by Liquid Snake. Solid Snake must liberate hostages and prevent FOXHOUND from using Metal Gear REX, a mecha capable of delivering a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world, while confronting his own origins.

The game is played from a top-down perspective from where Solid Snake must navigate the environment. Stealth is optional but highly encouraged, with a cover system and radar utilized to avoid sight from guards. Getting detected triggers an "Alert" mode where enemies will attempt to kill the player, and is usually deactivated if they evade guards for long enough. The player obtains various items and weapons through the game, including key cards which are used to unlock different areas of the base, typically obtained from defeating bosses.

Conceived by Kojima during the development of Policenauts (1994), Metal Gear Solid was initially developed for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1995 but was soon moved to the PlayStation. With a small team of 20 people, Kojima emphasized extreme detail, utilizing real-life demonstrations of weapons, individually-designed set pieces, and mocking environments using Lego building blocks. Artist Yoji Shinkawa designed the majority of characters, including Solid Snake, who was physically based on Jean-Claude Van Damme and Christopher Walken. Cinematic cutscenes were rendered using the in-engine graphics, and voice acting was used throughout. Metal Gear Solid was unveiled at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show and demonstrated at trade shows including the 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo, to largely positive reception.

Upon release, Metal Gear Solid received unanimous acclaim, with critics lauding the cinematic presentation of the game, narrative, gameplay, and stealth mechanics. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential video games ever made, it is often considered the founding father of the stealth game genre, one of the best PlayStation games, and credited with popularizing cinematic style in video games. Despite low expectations, Metal Gear Solid was also commercially successful, selling more than seven million copies worldwide and establishing the Metal Gear series as a cultural icon. An expanded version, Metal Gear Solid: Integral, was released in 1999 and 2000 for the PlayStation and Windows. Both the game and its Integral and VR Missions expansions were re-released digitally on the PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, as well as included in the compilations Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection (2013) and Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 (2023) for various platforms. A direct sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001. A remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, was released for GameCube in 2004.