Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally being freed of its PlayStation 3 prison

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"I'm no hero. Never was. Just an old killer hired to do some wetwork."

MGS4
(Image credit: Konami)

It's been a big day for stealth fans. Konami spilled the beans on the full contents of the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection and, surprise surprise, it's going to include the non-canon game that series creator Hideo Kojima hates. At the same time, however, Konami accidentally spilled some extra beans in an update to the game's official website: And PC players are finally going back to Shadow Moses.

First spotted by Twitter user Nitroid (thanks IGN), the official website features a Metal Gear Solid timeline page (necessary because the games jump around chronologically) with the games in Master Collection Volume 1 but, oopsie, inspect the page's elements and you'll see placeholder buttons for Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, Metal Gear Solid V, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. PC Gamer can confirm the accuracy of this.

Sure sounds like the Master Collection Vol. 2 lineup to me, and expect a few bonus titles (possibly the PSP's Portable Ops and Acid spinoffs, though Kojima Productions also made a range of mobile games and there's an excellent Game Boy Color title) on top of that. The big, huge, absolute megaton news, though, is that Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally going to be freed from its shackles: the first time the modern classic will be officially playable outside the PS3. 

That's a sign of the times in which it was made, with Sony ponying up huge amounts of dough for what it told everyone would be the best-looking and best exclusive on the planet. MGS4 really does look the part, with visual effects like Octocamo still capable of taking your breath away, and is stuffed with fantastic sequences. For me it doesn't quite stick the landing, with a rushed-feeling second half, too much cutscene nonsense, and a few too many on-rails sequences. Mind you, some think it's the highlight of the whole series.

While this news has yet to be officially confirmed by Konami, this really is a milestone and single-handedly justifies the Master Collection's existence. The Metal Gear Solid series is for my money the best and most important big-budget series games has had, and every entry is rich with imagination, humour, and an increasingly complex view of geopolitics and history. One of its key entries being locked away on an old console always felt wrong (cough Bloodborne), and I suspect that whenever it releases this will blow away a lot of folk who've never had the chance to play it before.

Of the other games mentioned, Ground Zeroes is the superb prequel to V and a must-have, while Peace Walker will perhaps raise a few questions but shouldn't. Hideo Kojima originally intended for this to be the fifth game in the series before Konami apparently got cold feet, and it tells the story of Big Boss raising his own army in Costa Rica and building mechs along the way (why not, eh). It is a portable game and that shows, but still a great experience and narratively a core part of the mainline games.

Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol. 1 launches October 24, and will include Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (its first appearance on PC), Metal Gear (both the MSX and NES versions), Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and Snake's Revenge. There's also a bunch of bonus material for each game and a soundtrack.

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."