First In-Engine Look at Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater Gets Mixed Reaction From Fans

The first in-engine trailer for Konami’s Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater remake has been met with a mixed reaction on social media following its debut during Xbox’s Partner Preview event earlier this week.

Upon revealing the existence of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater in May earlier this year, Konami was keen to reassure fans that the remake would be faithful to the PS2 original, retaining the original story and dialogue while providing “unprecedented graphics and immersive sound.”

Yesterday’s Xbox event gave us our first look at a pre-alpha slice of the game captured in Unreal Engine 5, which showcased a number of faithfully realized environments from Hideo Kojima’s beloved 2004 title. David Hayter, whose original 2004 Snake Eater dialogue is set to be used in the upcoming remake, was among the fans impressed with the visual upgrade. Others were seemingly overjoyed with Konami’s move to modernise MGS3’s gameplay with the addition of crouch walking, and were impressed with the developers’ attention to detail in terms of the wildlife, and mud splattering present in the trailer.

Holy Shagohod.

That’s beautiful…#MetalGearSolid #MGSDelta@Konami https://t.co/3YJbIYvJ6d

— David Hayter (@DavidBHayter) October 25, 2023

Looks great and love how the gameplay has changed for modern games

— Danger (@Haydenbarton_39) October 25, 2023

Adding the Crouch Walk , small adjustments to aiming to make it more in line with V, nice to see the gameplay team not lost their touch

— ‘V’i has come too (@IV_Aoratos) October 25, 2023

animations look similar to mgsv, which is a good thing. hope this release satisfies us all!

— Ashley 🏳️‍⚧️ (@aDyspraxicEnby) October 25, 2023

Sneaky gameplay is looking gorgeous and refined! So excited to play it.

— AaronShack64TV (@aaronshack64TV) October 26, 2023

Even if it’s prealpha and there’s details that need to be tuned, it looks so good man, I’m so excited for this

— Ihyll0310 (@Ihyll0310) October 25, 2023

“Damn near all my concerns are gone tbh,” commented Reddit user DijonMustard432 on a post discussing the teaser. “They’re clearly putting some real effort into making this great and they know they can’t afford to mess it up.”

Others found the graphical presentation lacking when compared to the visual style of its predecessor, or against modern day games.

Don’t want to sound disrespectful but doesn’t look good, I mean graphically yes it looks impressive but the environment looks exactly like PS2 version but with way better graphics, I was expecting a total redesign of the terrain, not one of those “OoT on Unreal” kind of videos.

— NSGP – へラ (@nonspecificgen1) October 25, 2023

You better add the soul back into the lighting of this game photo realism doesn’t work when your frame of reference looks more visually appealing and moody

— Matt (@Matt3ZOH) October 25, 2023

“Yes, it has better graphics than MGS3 on PS2, but it doesn’t look all that impressive. Very unbalanced,” wrote IGN user FortyZombies in response to the article detailing the trailer. “Some of the textures look bad. Ya’ll just flip out over everything. It’s sad. Compare it to a modern game and it’s way behind in tech.”

Some took aim at Konami’s re-imagining of MGS3 Snake’s character model, and the character animation showcased in the brief trailer. “Snake looks kinda generic and too pretty, not nearly grizzled enough,” commented Pingaheimer. “What they do to his face?” agreed Shoegaze_BaddieEXP.

“Snake Eater looks ok, but something looks off about it,” said user HiRes. “Very stiff looking. It’s doesn’t look like a full on Remake like Resident Evil 4 or Demon’s Soul. But its still early I guess.”

Other fans seemingly lamented Konami’s decision to move away from its proprietary Fox Engine that had powered the development of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, in favor of Unreal Engine 5, which is being used for the creation of Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater.

I’m really disappointed to see the end of the fox engine

— PerseusCW (@Perseus_CW) October 25, 2023

I’m loving the 1:1 remake approach so far. Hopefully the story will be 1:1 also.

I’m not against UE5 but it seems to me that Konami wasted the Fox Engine.

— 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕕𝕠𝕨🪐▬▬ι═══════ﺤ (@UltimusShadow) October 25, 2023

>Using Unreal Engine 5
>When Fox Engine exists and on top of being an engine tailored for Metal Gear it’s a very well optimized engine

I don’t understand. pic.twitter.com/nXAAgB1ZLN

— Balthier 🇦🇷 ✯ ✯ ✯ (@balthier95) October 25, 2023

Why use UE5 and not FOX?

— Dev (@JxstDev0) October 25, 2023

This week also saw the release of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The highly anticipated collection has come under fire from fans for not including all of the titles on the cartridge of the Switch physical edition, and for running at 720p on PC, despite being advertised as running at 1080p resolution by Konami prior to release. Konami has announced plans to address a number of issues with the collection in post launch updates.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer