04-08-2026, 02:24 PM
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.
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.
