True 3rd-person view has been hidden in a single Metal Gear Solid 2 variable for 15 years—now we're finally getting it

Solid Snake and Raiden, ready for combat. — (Image credit: Konami)

The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1 got its final big patch earlier this year, bringing 61 GB of textures to MGS3 and finally letting you switch the accept and cancel buttons on gamepad in MGS1. It was the end of a long arc for the first Master Collection, which released in a lamentable state back in 2023, and which Konami had to hammer into shape over the course of the next three years. It's pretty good now!

But it can always be better, right? Which is why fan projects like MGSHDFix—which smooths out remaining bugs and sprinkles a little extra visual pixie dust on the game—continue to operate. And thank god they do, because MGSHDFix's current maintainer has uncovered a neat little secret in his latest adventure in Metal Gear Solid 2's guts: a proper third-person camera mode that's been hidden by a single variable for the past 15 years, and yes, it's coming to the mod.

"Accidentally found third-person view in [Metal Gear Solid 2, Master Collection version], guess that'll go into MGSHDFix too," wrote Afevis Solmunko on X, alongside a video of Raiden strolling around the Big Shell with a very manipulable camera. "It locks the camera to [the] overhead view when in super-tight corridors so you don't clip through walls, but otherwise... yeah, it's been there for 15 years. Will do some small fixes to it lol.

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Metal Gear Solid 2, across its many releases, has had a fixed-perspective camera, usually giving the player a roughly top-down view of the (tactical espionage) action. It was only in the re-release of Metal Gear Solid 3—Subsistence—that players got used to a more traditional, third-person perspective on Snake's sneaking.

oh... accidentally found third person view in MGS2MC, guess that'll go into MGSHDFix too.it locks the camera to overhead view when in super-tight corridors so you don't clip through walls, but otherwise... yeah, it been there for 15 years. will do some small fixes to it lol pic.twitter.com/vnk3GpQU5dMay 13, 2026

Spare a thought for the one modder who, a few years, took the time to patch the same camera into MGS2's original 2003 PC release. It wasn't completely redundant work, at least: that was a pre-Bluepoint version of the game and, as such, didn't have any of this code in it.

But as noted in Solmunko's replies, Bluepoint did discuss experiments it had made in adding a true third-person camera to MGS2 for its HD Collection release back in 2011. The studio ended up not putting it in the final version, but the code was left in there for Solmunko to find in 2026: "Everything related to it is labeled BP/Bluepoint," says of the relevant code.

Of course, since it was eventually shelved by Bluepoint, the camera is a little glitchy in this new (well, kind of new) mode, though it sounds like our hero won't have to expend too much elbow grease to mitigate the bugs. "It'll be part of MGSHDFix once I've fixed up a few glitches I noticed. Hopefully out by the weekend if nothing comes up."

Will it work like MGS3's camera—freely switchable between the old and new perspective at will mid-game—when it hits? Could be. "Since it's driven by a [variable], if it does play nicely with being changed in realtime, I'll set it to work off R3 and a user-set keyboard shortcut just like MGSHDFix's other settings—MGS3 style," says Solmunko.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.