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Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater’s Fresh Coat of Paint Could Work Wonders For This Boss

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After years spent letting its best franchises languish, Konami seems to be picking up steam concerning releasing games again, including one of the most anticipated video game remakes in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Despite the lack of involvement of series creator Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid Delta appears to be an incredibly faithful reimagining of the original Metal Gear Solid 3 on PS2, albeit with fresh new visuals that make the most of modern technology. That visual facelift affords the team at Virtuous the opportunity to add more emotional depth to some of the game’s climactic moments, and it’s hard to think of a better candidate for an update than the boss fight with The Sorrow.




One of the more interesting and enigmatic villains in Metal Gear Solid 3‘s now-legendary rogues gallery, The Sorrow was the “Spirit Medium Soldier” of the Cobra Unit, communicating with dead soldiers to glean information on potential threats while also gaining the abilities of the fallen soldiers with whom he spoke. Naked Snake’s fight against The Sorrow is one of the more notorious and memorable moments from what’s arguably the masterpiece of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, and there’s plenty of potential for Metal Gear Solid Delta to pull out all the stops in its reimagining of the iconic encounter.

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Improved Visual Fidelity Should Add a Whole New Dimension to The Sorrow’s Boss Fight


In the 20 years since the release of the original Metal Gear Solid 3, few boss fights in the series have carried the same emotional weight and thematic significance as the battle against The Sorrow, especially in a series that forces the player to question the futility of war. After making a near-fatal leap off of a waterfall, Naked Snake awakens in a strange limbo that exists between the spiritual realm and the physical world, confronting the literal ghosts of his past as he trudges through a river without any of his equipment. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability for a character who is supposed to be this battle-hardened operative, and the encounter’s outcome depending on the player’s actions only adds to its impact.


The fight’s variance depending on how many enemies the player has killed is one of the series’ greatest “gotcha” moments, and it has the potential to be one of the more harrowing experiences in Metal Gear Solid Delta. Fighting against The Sorrow in the original with several enemy ghosts hindering the player was more an annoyance than anything else, but in the remake, it has the potential to be truly horrific through greater visual fidelity and facial animation, with Naked Snake (and, by proxy, the player) being forced to confront the realities of killing indiscriminately as part of the mission and come face-to-face with the violence they’ve inflicted.

Metal Gear Solid Delta Could Toy With Players’ Expectations for The Sorrow Fight

A remake that stays faithful to the original still has some wiggle room to surprise players, especially where the idea of enriching an already profound experience is concerned. Metal Gear Solid Delta could use its fresh coat of paint to simultaneously capitalize on players’ nostalgia and fool them into a false sense of security. It’s a trick that players have already experienced in another recent Konami remake, with Bloober Team’s impressive reimagining of Silent Hill 2 showing how subtle facial animations and body language can go a long way in communicating important story details where exposition was previously necessary.


Even if players spend most of their time in MGS Delta‘s jungle avoiding combat at all costs and make it to The Sorrow fight without eliminating a single enemy, there’s still the opportunity for the fight to stand out as one of the more frightening moments in the game through environmental and sound design. Ultimately, Metal Gear Solid 3 is still considered a gaming masterpiece for a reason, and that it holds up as well as it does two decades after its initial release is a testament to its timeless quality. MGS Delta doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, but presenting the original experience in a new light has the opportunity to build on an already incredibly strong foundation.

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