The Definitive Guide to playing Metal Gear Solid on PC
Want to play MGS? Don't have a PS3? Read this!
Last July, the very first Metal Gear title turned thirty-five years old and the franchises’ 35th anniversary was met with unsurprisingly very little fanfare. No new announcements, no franchise sale, but there were a few tweets at least. Currently the Metal Gear franchise is for all intents and purposes, dead. Series creator Hideo Kojima departed from Konami after the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in 2015 and since then they’ve shifted their focus from Triple-A video game development to gambling and mobile games. However last year they announced multiple new Silent Hill titles (a series that had been dormant since 2014) and have been re-releasing old Castlevania titles on to newer platforms it seems they may be slowly moving back towards becoming a Triple-A game developer again. Despite Metal Gear being one of their most popular IP’s the majority of the games are not available on PC (legally or otherwise) and the ones that are vary in quality. Below I’ve tried my best to compile a guide on how to play every mainline Metal Gear title in release order on PC. As you might expect it will involve a lot of emulation, though I’ll suggest alternatives wherever possible.
Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Both of these games were at first only released in Japan on the MSX computer system. I know I said to play these games in release order however the best way to play the first two Metal Gears is via Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Subsistence where it has both games included and was where they were released for the first time in the west. MGS3 can be played on the PCSX2 emulator (PS2) and the HD version on RPCS3 (PS3). Fanmade patches for the original MSX versions exist and can be emulated however I’ve never played them and can’t comment on their quality.
Metal Gear Solid
While MGS does have a PC port which was released in 2000 as Metal Gear Solid: Integral (and recently re-released on GOG.com) I can’t in good faith recommend it as it’s extremely buggy and very difficult to get working on modern versions of windows on top of being generally inferior the PlayStation version. For example, the music used in MGS on PC doesn’t loop properly, missing FMV’s, and the readable mission logs that were available in the original after loading a save file. If you must play this version because your hardware isn’t good enough for emulation, at least use the MGSI Launcher by w00ty which attempts to fix the issues that were introduced in the PC port.
Or better yet, use the PS1 emulator DuckStation to play the original (read: best) version of the game.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Similar to MGS1, Sons of Liberty also has a PC port that’s terrible. If you have no other choice then use the V's Fix patch that fixes most (not all) of the problems that version has. As for emulation, your choices are the PS2 version on PCSX2 and the HD PS3 version on RPCS3. If you want the most accurate experience of the original hardware, play the PS2 version. Make sure you use the latest development versions of PCSX2 and in the graphics settings set Blending Accuracy to High or Full as the older ones had strange glitches that would result in certain characters’ skin colors changing.
The advantage of playing the PS3 version is the game is now playable in widescreen and runs at 60fps at all times but requires the most hardware power of all the options previously mentioned. For the most part the HD version is true to the original but is also lacking features such as the skateboarding minigame and minor details such as bloodstains appearing on enemies when they’re shot at. My personal recommendation with regard to emulation is the PS2 version.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Your only choices to play MGS3 on PC is via emulation and again your choices are PCSX2 or RPCS3. I personally would recommend the PS2 version as the PS3 version is again missing features such as the Snake vs Monkey minigame and the Guy Savage Easter Egg. Everything I said regarding the specific emulators in the above section applies to Snake Eater as well.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
MGS4 has only ever been released on the PlayStation 3 meaning RPCS3 is your only option here and by far the most demanding one. The game’s playability status is ranked only as “Intro” meaning it can boot but there’s no guarantee the game is able to be completed or bearable to play. Thankfully if your hardware is strong enough you can reasonably play the game similarly to how it was on console and possibly even with higher framerates and resolutions. In my experience it crashes frequently, mostly during cutscenes of which there are many so make sure to save OFTEN. Here is my personal configuration that worked best for me but your results may vary.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Peace Walker was initially released on the PSP and can be played on the PPSSPP emulator and the HD version on PS3 can be played on RPCS3 as you would expect. While the two versions are more or less the same I can strongly recommend the HD version here. Peace Walker on the PSP runs at 20FPS most of the time and since the PSP only had one analog stick, aiming is and camera control is done with the face buttons. HD on the other hand runs at a constant 60FPS and aiming with the second analog stick. For those on weaker systems, cheat codes intended for PPSSPP were made for Peace Walker that allow for higher framerates and analog aiming however they tend to introduce other issues with them (the increased FPS one in particular). If you have the ability to do so, stick with the Peace Walker HD.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain
As a (mainline) series first. Both chapters of MGSV have PC ports available on Steam that are actually playable out of the box! If you’re an insane person however, I guess you could emulate the PS3 version. Don’t do that though.
Spinoffs and Non-canon titles
Both Metal Gear AC!D games and Portable Ops (and plus) on PPSSPP, Ghost Babel on any Gameboy color emulator, The Twin Snakes (a remake of MGS1 that I don’t recommend) on Dolphin, and Metal Gear Rising and Survive have native PC versions. I hope this guide helped. La Li Lu Le Lo!
Master Collection Addendum
Since the publishing of this article Konami has announced and released a collection of every Metal Gear up to MGS3 on every new console and PC. I didn’t have high hopes for them given their recent track record with porting their classic games and I was right to believe that because so far it’s been a mess. While they did fix some issues the HD collection introduced they’re plagued with poorly compressed audio and bad emulation. MGS1 in the master collection is an emulated version that has a texture filter that makes everything look blurry, and no analog controls (which makes no sense since the PS1 version supported and made great use of the DualShock). Sorry Konami, but I am NOT fighting Mantis without analog controls.
On PC, MGS 2 and 3 are locked to 720p despite being advertised to support 1080 and there’s no settings to change it all without mods, impossible to rebind controls and no mouse support either. Until all these problems get fixed the Master Collection simply isn’t worth buying. For MGS1 and 2, just emulate or play the old PC versions with their respective patches. MGS3, having never been ported before is the only one worth playing in this collection and you’d be better off pirating it.