What do you want from the rumored MGS1 remake?

[MGWSpike]

There's been an ongoing rumor about a new remake of MGS1. It would fit Konami's schedule too, alternating between remasters and remakes (Master Collection Vol. 1 - Delta - Master Collection Vol. 2 - ?).

Regardless, what do you want from such a remake?

Here's what I'd like to see:
- A gritty mood. Shadow Moses is an old Cold War military base. It should evoke films like Escape From New York (1981), The Terminator (1984) or Enki Bilal comic books as Kojima said it himself.
- A reenvisioned Shadow Moses that keeps the memorable rooms (Heliport, Otacon's lab, Commander Room, Snowfield, Blast Furnace, Rex's lair, ...), but expands and changes stuff to keep the game challenging. More guards, cameras, spotlights, traps, ...
- No open world. The point of the game is being stuck inside the base during a snowstorm without being able to escape from the location. Being able to go fishing outside for example would defeat this purpose.
- Incorporating gameplay from the later installments. Boss fights like Sniper Wolf and Liquid could really benefit from these additions.
- Cutscenes that feel cinematic. No slavish recreations of the PS1 cutscenes but no extravaganza like those in The Twin Snakes.
- Possibly reusing the voice track from the original MGS1.
- Lots of VR Missions as the Cyborg Ninja (Gray Fox), developed by PlatinumGames

[starschwar]

I don't know if there's really a right way to do it. Even a game as 'recent' as Snake Eater became easier thanks to the few new gameplay mechanics they ported over in Delta. Twin Snakes proved that slapping more features into the same level design just screws up the challenge of MGS1. And if they really want to modernize the experience, they'd need to do more than just beef up the guards' AI and health bars. The level design would have to be significantly expanded and altered. And at that point, it may as well be a new game.

Of course, there are phenomenal examples of this type of remake. Resident Evil 2002 is an absolute masterpiece that stayed true to the basic concept of the original, while taking all sorts of creative liberties in the process. But that was a painstakingly crafted experience that cut deep into the primordial notion of "explore a scary mansion filled with zombies". Metal Gear Solid is a much more defined identity.

Maybe the safest bet is to just update the graphics while leaving the PS1 gameplay entirely untouched? Sure, it'd feel limited, but a fresh coat of paint wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It'd play right, look better. As for the voice acting - we've heard Shadow Moses re-recorded twice thanks to Twin Snakes and DGN. I see no point in making the cast go through the same lines yet again. Sure, the original has some low fidelity, but those performances are legendary for a reason. While some (Liquid!) did benefit from a do-over, others regressed (Campbell sounds more robotic than when he was an AI). And there's oddities like the way Otacon says "The elevator... OF COURSE!" in TTS.

They got it right the first time. I know there's concerns about some of the accents, but ultimately I don't believe there was an ounce of hatred in the creative decisions. Camp, to be sure, but not bigotry. Just port over the "it was made in 1998, okay?!" warning screen from Master Collection.

And the original soundtrack needs to stay intact. Maybe a high quality symphonic re-recording, but not one note changed. That was one of Twin Snakes's biggest mistakes. And the cutscene direction... it was cute as a "Star Wars Special Edition" deal at the time, but they need to be more faithful to what was originally presented this time around. They can get artsy with the camera angles, but no more gratuitous backflips.


All that said and done, there's no way Peace Walker isn't next. All those DLC items in Delta can't be a coincidence.

[Roger]

Based on what we saw with MGS Delta and how it was basically a 1 to 1. I'm not exactly sure how they'll handle a MGS1 remake. Kojima holds a lot of the vision, and personally I don't want MGS1 to be another MGSV at all. I think what they should do, is remake MG 1 and 2 and combined them into a combo game. It doesn't really have much limitations for what they could do. They could go all out. But I digress.

What I would want is that Shadow Moses is fully fleshed out with animals in the background. it felt kinda empty to me that thisis supposed to be an island and the only animals we see are in cutscenes or specific in one area.

[NateDog]

If it is ever to happen, it can't be like Delta. I suppose that's a given as translating a high-quality PS2 title to a modern remaster/remake is an entirely different prospect to doing the same for a PS1 title. But the 1:1 remake style isn't going to work regardless. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, probably on the scale of FFVII Remake. I think if this is ever to happen then we'll need to see a remake of MG2: Solid Snake (probably with a brief prelude of the events of MG1) first to see if the team is up to the task, which I'm not really convinced of as of yet.

One thing to consider as well is MGS4's Act 4. I've been replaying it again (multiple times) of late, but while Act 4 only really shows us a very barebones Shadow Moses, it can give Konami an idea of what they'd want to do with any future remake. Are they happy with the scale, does it need to be smaller, or bigger? Going through the heliport, hangar, canyon, nuclear warhead storage building, comms tower + snowfield areas, it all feels quite abridged, although I'm speedrunning those areas so I'm going to feel that way. But the scale needs to be much bigger than that I think regardless, yet MGS4 can still give them a lot of pointers, and working on that in MGS Master Collection Vol 2. should help with that if they are actually planning this. I think Ground Zeroes' design could also help in finding the key to balancing that out.

[Departed]

Personally, I'd hope for a remake of the MSX games, but if they were to remake MGS1 instead, then here's what I would hope for:

1. A full on ground up remake. I love Delta but the reason Delta worked was because MGS3 was fine as is. MGS1 is a stealth action game where you only do any sneaking in eight rooms. Expand it. Make Shadow Moses substantially larger, make the distance from objective to objective cover more ground with more guards to have to get past.

2. Redo the story completely. The core themes of MGS1 are fantastic because at its core, it's a game about fate. Liquid willfully allows himself to be controlled by his fate, Naomi does until the end as well, and Snake is the one who says "Screw my genes (fate), I'll live on my terms." That's all great stuff. The rest of the story is complete nonsense, especially the whole PAL card thing and all the things Snake has to not question for it to work (like why does he keep doing the PAL sequence after Raven tells him point blank that the guy who sent him on that task to begin with was a secret terrorist all along?). It also doesn't make sense why everyone keeps trying to kill him if the whole scheme Mantis came up with was tricking Snake into figuring out how PAL works. The story of MGS1 is carried by its great characters and the themes driving the plot, but the actual plotline itself is really bad. So cut all the stuff that doesn't work, or revamp it so it does. Personally, I'd cut the FOXDIE story completely and have Fox be Naomi's revenge instead. Like she's the one steering him throughout the journey and how he keeps finding Snake or killing people on both sides of the conflict until he comes back to himself in the end.

3. Speaking of Fox, an MGS1 remake needs way more of him. He's easily the most memorable character besides Snake, and there's not nearly enough screentime between him and Snake to make their emotional ties feel remotely earned. He also needs more than one encounter.

4. Revamp all of the boss fights and add a few more. I'd make Ocelot's arena bigger and with steam shooting out on both sides to obstruct vision. The canyon needs to be much larger so actually reaching the tank is a harder challenge, requiring you to use rock formations for cover and trying to stay out of its line of sight. Do away with the control gimmick of Mantis' fight and make it so you have to destroy the statues from the start instead, while Mantis himself is a much bigger deal. His controlling Meryl should be a kind of miniboss in and of itself, where she's much quicker to fire her Desert Eagle and you have to find a way to get around her covertly. Giving Mantis a much larger boss arena or a psychological sequence like in DGN1 where he gets inside of Snake's head as well would make his fight feel like the bigger deal it should since Mantis has become such a larger presence after MGS1. Wolf's first fight should involve trying to reach her covertly, not backtracking all the way to the armory. So using an entirely revamped corridor to sneak your way to Wolf instead of having a lousy sniper duel where you both stay in one position the whole time. And her rematch should involve the entire snowfield, not just one yard of it, while making the field itself the size it was in MGS4. Give Fox multiple boss encounters, where the first involves him keeping his sword and you having to stay out of his line of sight like you do Raven, planting traps with C4 or attacking him from his blindspots. His second could be a fist fight with better combat mechanics and his last one could be him with his plasma rifle, in a direct showdown spread across a much larger arena. Liquid himself could be revamped to feel like a proper CQC battle that involves a little more strategy, like ducking at the right time, grapple throwing and countering Liquid's attacks. Raven's and REX's fights are both fine as is, but I would also include more miniboss encounters against advanced Genome Soldiers, like the elevator ambushes or the sniper bridge, making them feel more advanced and giving them encounters akin to the Ocelot Unit. If you do away with FOXDIE completely, I'd even throw in the originally planned Decoy Octopus fight they had in mind before scrapping it. Completely overhaul the Hind fight because it's one of the worst fights in the series due to its limited attacks and excessively large healthbar. Give it more attack patterns, have the arena be larger and with more than one main cover spot, and give options to dish out extra damage if hitting the cockpit or shooting down its missiles preemptively.

5. Make Snake control the way he does in Delta but with a few extra bells and whistles. If the arenas are larger, then being able to properly sprint with a limited stamina capacity like in Survive would be a good middle ground instead of letting Snake bolt at mach 5 like in MGSV. Add some verticality like in Splinter Cell, where you can climb pipes and use them to bypass enemies, but also perform takedowns, either with a silenced pistol or dropping down on an enemy and knocking them out. Keep the grapple animations of Delta but give Snake actual melee combos, more akin to 007 First Light instead of just the same three hit combo over and over, with a heavy attack when you hold the melee button and an MGSV style running attack when you run and melee. Also give Snake a leg sweep attack if he's knocked down, because that was such a great equalizer in MGSV that felt missing when Delta removed it.

6. Overhaul the Genome soldiers completely. It makes no sense for them to all just have the exact same gear anymore. Give them a wider spectrum of weapons to be wary of and armored juggernaut Genome soldiers if you keep pounding through alert reinforcements.

7. Make the caves larger and have enemies in them, not just wolves who mostly leave you alone.

8. An entire catalogue of Gray Fox VR missions, including a final mission where you fight a VR rendition of Solid Snake, framing the whole thing as Naomi prepping Fox for his revenge mission, with accompanying dialogue from Naomi. Also way more VR missions with some unique mission variety akin to how MGS2 handled Alternative and Variety missions, as well as a boss rush mode with proper rewards attached for completing all of these missions.

9. Redo the entire soundtrack the way the REMakes do, with shades of the original themes in there, and individualized boss themes and combat arena themes, the way Twin Snakes had given the game.

10. Give the player multiple routes from A to B by the time you have highest level keycard access, so backtracking doesn't feel like backtracking.