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Metal Gear
alt title(s): Metal Gear Acid; Metal Gear Solid
From top to bottom: Big Boss, Liquid Snake, Solid Snake.

"Metal Gear!?"

The Metal Gear series was created by Hideo Kojima in 1987, and popularized the Stealth Based Game. The idea came when the creator realized that the hardware (the MSX) couldn't show more than a few enemies at a time without flashing epileptically and generally breaking - so why not make a game where avoiding your enemies is the theme? This concept received a lot of criticism - one famous quote from Kojima's boss is, "Hiding from your enemies? That's not a game!". But then they started playing it. And it became quite a hit, spawning a great many sequels (with countless ports and editions):

  • Metal Gear (1987)
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)
  • Metal Gear Solid (1998)
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

Plus a bunch of spin-offs:

  • Snake's Revenge (1990, an NES sequel to the first Metal Gear that was "decanonized" by Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake)
  • Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (released outside Japan as Metal Gear Solid for Game Boy Color, much to everybody's confusion) (2000)
  • Metal Gear Acid (2004)
  • Metal Gear Acid 2 (2005)
  • Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel (2006)
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (2006)
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinee (2008, Japan-only sequel to the Digital Graphic Novel)
  • Metal Gear Online (2008. Included with Metal Gear Solid 4)
  • Metal Gear Solid Mobile (2008)
  • Metal Gear Solid Touch (2008-2009)
  • Metal Gear Solid Rising (upcoming)
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (upcoming)

The chronological order of the series is:
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 1964
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops - 1970
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - 1974
  • Metal Gear - 1995
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - 1999
  • Metal Gear Solid - 2005
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - 2007/2009
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - 2014
  • Metal Gear Solid Rising - Speculated to be an interquel between MGS2 and MGS4.

The plot is far too complicated (and occasionally batshit crazy) to write here in any detail beyond the vaguest - besides, it would spoil it all - but the general plot centres around the main character, Solid Snake, his family and the titular Metal Gears - walking battle tanks capable of launching nuclear strikes from anywhere in the globe.

Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake were the first two games in the series, and quite openly pastiches of action movies and spy movies. Tropes were gleefully obeyed, and the action hero archetype was responsible for defining the iconic main character - Solid Snake.

Upon the advent of the PlayStation, the series took a brand new turn - it decided to take itself seriously, to startlingly good results. Metal Gear Solid became a huge hit for both its melodramatic and somehow incredibly juicy plot, and its wonderfully satisfying gameplay.

The third game, Metal Gear Solid is a Deconstruction of the Cloning Blues plot. The oddly philosophical Solid Snake, a legendary soldier, is called out of retirement to prevent a group of terrorists launching a nuclear missile. The demand, though, is for the dead body of Big Boss, the greatest soldier ever, who Snake killed. Worse yet, the terrorist's leader is a dead ringer for Snake. Enlisting the help of an inexperienced young Faux Action Girl who is well aware of her own limitations, and a very kind Otakuish scientist, he proceeds in an attempt to save the world and get some answers from his doppelganger...

Metal Gear Solid 2 was not quite as popular, but was hugely anticipated. While the storyline was despised by the general population for its controversial, extremely complicated plot-twists and debilitating main character switcheroo (Solid Snake had become a true meme by then, with his shamelessly badass personality and distinctive, growling voice), it sold extremely well and became a cult success amongst the sort of people who enjoyed the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion - and is even used to explain meme theory in some serious institutions. Despite the polarizing nature of the storyline, the game received critical acclaim for its groundbreaking gameplay and graphics which heavily utilized the then new Playstation 2's capabilities.

This one is a surreal No Fourth Wall postmodernist rampage through the relationship between game and player, which is, depending on who you ask, a landmark in gaming and hugely ahead of its time, or a self-absorbed rant which made no sense and cried for an editor. Perhaps both. On a more basic level, it centred around Raiden, a Deconstruction of the You Suck character type, as well as the Bishonen stereotype, and his attempt to prevent a group of terrorists from blowing up a cleaning plant on the ocean. But everything gets eerily similar to Raiden's VR training, based on Snake's previous missions, and increasingly surreal, until he's forced to question how much of what he's experiencing is real. And then it gets more complicated. Warning - it has such a doozy of a Gainax Ending, it needed its own page.

The third was considered a return to form - again, there was a main character switcheroo, but this time for Solid Snake's identical progenitor, Naked Snake, which helped ease the pain. Taking place in the defining years of the Cold War, it played out like a spy movie, and quite happily used every spy movie trope in the book - including a James Bond-esque musical intro sequence - without ending up feeling too campy or vapid, and had a gut-wrenchingly sad Twist Ending.

A prequel set in The Sixties, showing one of the most basic tropes, the Fake Defector, for the absolute maddening tragedy it would be in real life. Naked Snake, a very gifted soldier in the Cold War, is sent over the border to rescue a Soviet scientist who had attempted to defect to the West - but is prevented from doing so by his mentor, The Boss, who is quite easily the person he loves most in the world, and seems to be defecting to the Russians. With the help of a Bond Girl pastiche with a dark secret, and the (occasional) help of a young version of the most glorious villain of the Solid Snake timeline, he takes down her unit one by one, well aware of what he must do when he finally catches up to her...

The fourth features a new camera and aiming system along with a high-tech camouflage suit for Snake and the ability to pick up enemies' weapons. The story, which takes place Twenty Minutes Into The Future (or rather, the only one in the series that is still set Twenty Minutes Into The Future,) follows a prematurely aging Snake on his final mission- he is hired to kill Liqud Ocelot, the resident Chessmaster now possessed by Snake's "brother", who owns the prominent Private Military Companies and is trying to take over the Sons of the Patriots system (essentially a form of nanotech-induced low-grade mind control that happens to make soldiers vastly more effective on the battlefield and- theoretically at least- minimizes civilian casualties) that regulates all soldiers. On his mission, Old Snake encounters a few surviving characters from the previous games, and a few of the dead ones. In the process, it RetCons much of the confusing ending from MGS2, and has a Tear Jerker of an ending.

Unusually for a Metal Gear game, MGS4 doesn't introduce a "true" Metal Gear at any point; the Gekkos are explicitly not called Metal Gears, and there's no nuclear threat against the United States for Snake to avert. The nuclear threat is against the Patriots. Like the genetics of MGS1 and memetics of MGS2, a major theme of MGS4 is the unique sense a given human being has about the world around them and how it's lost forever when they die, such as with the Boss and her ideas being grossly misinterpreted by several different groups without her around to set them right.

MGS4 is either considered an epic landmark in gaming and storytelling and that nothing comes close to it in those regards, or it is considered a camp game with a story that has been going downwards since MGS2 because of Author Filibuster. Both sides, however, agree on one thing: MGS4 absolutely ended the saga.

The games love breaking the fourth wall and have a distinct quirky sense of humour - running jokes involve the iconic use of a cardboard box to sneak around a base (wait until he's not looking, run to a new location, and repeat). Hideo Kojima's irreverence is such that he's been trying to kill the series off since MGS2 made its protagonist switch, so he can get on with more interesting things, but a rabidly devoted fanbase simply won't let him.

One of the most engaging parts of the games is the huge focus on multiple uses for items, with the pictured pack of cigarettes a great example. While they seem like a pointless gag item, the player soon discovers that by equipping them they can see laser beams with the smoke, although they suffer a cost as the cigarettes sap your health little by little (they're bad for you, you know). They also calm the main character's nerves, making him aim straighter. And if that isn't enough, there's always at least one character who will give you a long lecture about the dangers of smoking if you contact them.

Each game is intended as a Deconstruction of action movies and video games, playing tropes so painfully straight they curve right back in on themselves. Very few tropes are invoked without logically following them through, especially those of spy movies - we see exactly what kind of mind and complete control of a situation would be needed to pull off the absurdly complex Xanatos Roulettes that happen once per game, exactly what happens to a Tykebomb forced to take up a normal life, and there's a female on male sexual abuse subplot which is not at all okay, to name just a handful.

They're hugely acclaimed for a lot of good reasons - stellar gameplay, very complex plots with pitch-perfect Deconstructions, excellent direction, intelligent character development and weird stylised dialogue. Just prepare for a lot of cutscenes. I mean, a lot of cutscenes. No, more than that. Honestly, you play the game for two-fifths of the time, watch a full-length movie the other three-fifths. If you like the plot, though, you'll probably love the cutscenes.

There is also The Last Days Of Foxhound, a webcomic based off Metal Gear Solid which parodies certain aspects of the games as well as discussing some questions that were unanswered before MGS4. As well as another webcomic titled The Cobra Days chronicling the World War II adventures of a similar Quirky Miniboss Squad from MGS3.

It is very awesome.

Oh, there's also Ho Yay. But no-one would play a game just for that, right?

...Right?
Come check the character sheet.

This franchise provides examples of:

  • Absolute Cleavage: (EVA, even as a much older woman). Naomi in the fourth game, where she leaves her labcoat unbuttoned and is obviously wearing no bra.
  • Action Girl: Meryl, EVA, Olga, The Boss, Sniper Wolf, The BNB Corps.
  • Afraid Of Needles: The explanation Johnny gives when revealing why he doesn't have any nanomachines in his body.
  • AI Is A Crapshoot: The reason why the Patriots are gunning for world domination
  • Air Vent Escape: Handy to escape guards. At least half-invented this trope, at least in the world of video game publishing.
  • All There In The Manual: Many of the characters' back-stories are only revealed in supplemental materials or in optional Codec within the game. The most notable is the true identity of The Boss and The Sorrow's son, who is only revealed if you trigger a radio call between Snake and EVA in Metal Gear Solid 3. It's Ocelot.
  • Almost Dead Guy
  • Alternate Continuity: Snake's Revenge and Ghost Babel are both alternate sequels to the original Metal Gear; the first AC!D game follows a different story (though Snake is still a legendary soldier) and the second goes further.
    • Substance included "Snake Tales", a series of five missions that featured Snake going through stages from Sons of Liberty, but with different plot point (there's no mention of the Patriots, and Snake's backstory is subject to changes). The first features Snake trying to save the President from Fatman, which turns out to be a plot by a third party. The second features Snake saving Emma Emmerich from Russian drug traffickers, while another third party is planning another plot. The third features Snake facing off against Sergei Gurlukovich and Meryl aboard the Tanker, and serves as a direct sequel to the first game. The fourth features Snake trying to save the Colonel Dolph from Vamp, with another conspiracy transpiring in the background. The final mission involves an alternate-universe Solidus planning on wrecking the multiverse by having Solid Snake destroy a fifty foot tall guard with death ray eyes.
  • Alternate Universe: Cloning was perfected extremely early, and apparently, so were exo-skeletons and mecha and gigantic Big Brother ships. Oh, and batshit AI.
    • The first game, made in 1987, takes place sometime in 1990's (later established o 1995 or 1996). The second game, made in 1990, takes place in 1999 and has the Soviet Union survive past 1991. Metal Gear Solid, made in 1998, takes place in 2005 and contains the line "The nuclear age ended with the turn of the millenium." Metal Gear Solid 2, released in 2001, took place in 2007 and 2009. So it takes place in the future, which is now the past, but the next game takes place in the future anyway, which won't happen because the past didn't happen because it was just a theory about what the future would be, This makes for one of the most confusing timelines in the history of fiction. Only the addition of time travel could it make it more confusing.
      • Zeerust Canon at its finest.
      • Not to mention their use of Ruritanian settings like Outer Heaven, Zanzibarland, and Snake Eater which takes place in "the jungles of the Soviet Union"
      • There's a potential fanfic-salvation for Zanzibarland's name, despite Zanzibar being a small partly-island country off the coast of East Africa, and Zanzibarland being a place basically located right where Tselinoyarsk apparently was/is: something interesting happened with Big Boss in Zanzibar in the late '70s~'80s that somehow directly led to Outer Heaven's creation, and thus the second one was named after it for whatever assumed, possibly to someday be explained, reasons. Any other explanation would not be possible to make the remotest sense of.
  • Amateur Photographer: Each Metal Gear Solid features a digital camera that allows the player to take screenshots of the game and save them to the memory card.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: Subverted in Portable Ops and further in MGS4. The actual conspiracy, The Patriots, were formed fairly recently, in the 1970s, and only use the ancient conspiracy, The Philosophers, as a disguise to hide behind. The only link between the two is that the Patriots were founded with the money that the Philosophers left behind when they split.
  • Anyone Can Die: In fact, 95% of the named all characters in any game, bar the Mission Control and the Player Character, WILL end up dead.
  • Arrow Cam: Nikita Remote Controlled Missiles - First Person Mode.
  • Arthur Dent: Sigint in Snake Eater. He even lampshades it at one point.
  • Audio Adaptation: There was a two-volume Metal Gear Solid Drama CD in Japan (titled Drama CD Metal Gear Solid) that basically served as a continuation to the PS game, while the fictional radio drama Idea Spy 2.5 in Metal Gear: Ghost Babel became an actual radio drama starring Hideo Kojima as the title character.
  • Ax Crazy: Half the freaking cast.
  • Badass: Well, yeah.
    • Back To Back Badasses: MGS4 Johnny and Meryl get one of these during their Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
    • Badass Bookworm: Otacon, eventually.
    • Badass Grandpa: Several. There's Big Boss, Revolver Ocelot, and The End. Solid Snake becomes one in Guns of the Patriots, and EVA is a Badass Grandma in 4 as well.
      • Snake's case is arguably that of a deconstruction, as Snake fighting in spite of his condition isn't solely treated as being heroic or inspiring. Rather, it's occasionally treated as being foolish and suicidal by the other characters at the minimum, and said characters aren't above patronizing and treating him like a burden.
    • Badass Longcoat: Ocelot
    • Badass Mustache: Old Snake
    • Badass Normal: Snake, at least when compared to the majority of his not so supernaturally-gifted or crazy-equipped foes. He does have enormous willpower and is Made Of Iron, but he can't carry an M61 vulcan cannon and doesn't usually have kickass battle armor to help him.
      • Oddly enough, Johnny qualifies for this trope. He's patently useless in the majority of appearances, but his actions at the end of MGS4 cement his status (considering he was justa normal completely unmodified human soldier).
  • Banana Republic: Outer Heaven and Zanzibarland in the original MSX2 games. Oddly enough, the MGS games mostly avert this, with the exception of "Army's Heaven" in MPO. The side-story installments also have Gindra in Metal Gear: Ghost Babel and the Moloni Republic in Metal Gear Acid.
  • Battle Couple: Johnny and Meryl by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4.
  • Beard Of Sorrow: Snake in the Briefing to Act 4, having had half his face toasted off.
  • Beat Them At Their Own Game: Sniper Wolf and then Crying Wolf... the matching second names are not a coincidence, right down to a similar location for the boss fight, both in a Snowfield and Communications Tower on Shadow Moses Island.
    • It's not impossible to take down Sniper Wolf with Nikita missiles at the final confrontation.
  • BFG: Lots and lots of them, especially in Metal Gear Solid 4. Remember the railgun Snake takes from Crying Wolf?
    • In Metal Gear Solid, Vulcan Raven uses a M61-A1 Vulcan 20mm gatling gun that he ripped out of an F-16.
    • Fortune used the same railgun as Crying Wolf.
  • Big Bad: One per game, and also one for the entire series. The Patriots.
  • Bishonen Line: With a twist, the person going through the line is Ocelot during the final battle on Outer Haven, and the changes are mental rather than physical due to Oceoet shifting personas.
  • The Blank: Decoy Octopus and Laughing Octopus.
    • And, by extension, Old Snake, after he gets Laughing Octopus's mask
  • Boss Rush: Very often a bonus mode, seen in MGS2 and individual boss battles of 3, and an extra treat in the AC!D series and Portable Ops Plus.
  • Book Ends: Saluting the Boss at her grave.
  • Bottled Heroic Resolve
  • Butt Monkey - Johnny Sasaki, who gets knocked out a lot and keeps getting bad diarhea problems, and is The Scrappy of Rat Patrol 01... up until he gets some badass points and steals Meryl from our lovable, crotchety old clone.
    • Raiden has it pretty rough as well. In MGS2 he is nagged by his girlfriend, is urinated on, he gets beaten up and used as bait for certain people, it is revealed that his parents were murdered by Solidus, and that's just his first appearance. In MGS3 he was parodied by Volgin's gay lover Raikov, a usable face mask that Major Zero and Sokolov both apparently dislike, and Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser where he travels back in time to kill Big Boss so that he could become the main character of MGS. To say he failed miserably there would be a understatement. In between MGS2 and MGS4 he is told by Rose that she suffered a miscarriage, don't worry Rose was lying after which he is tortured by the Patriots and used as a guinea pig for their experiments, his head is severed from his body at the jaw and transplanted to an entirely synthetic body, which is later upgraded to the exoskeleton we see him wearing in MGS4.
  • By The Power Of Greyskull - The Solar Gun in ''MGS4. "SUNLIGHT!!"
  • Canon Discontinuity - Snake's Revenge, a sequel to the original NES version of Metal Gear which Konami produced for the international market. Although Kojima claimed that he thought Snake's Revenge was "faithful to the Metal Gear concept", he still went ahead and produce the real sequel, Metal Gear 2 for the MSX, which ignores Snake's Revenge.
  • Captain Obvious - There are a whole lot of these. Some examples:
    Otacon: "Snake, this a war zone, so you have to be on your toes."
    Snake: "A surveillance camera?!"
  • Caramelldansen Vid
  • Cartwright Curse - Poor Otacon...
  • Charm Person - Gene's ability in Portable Ops. So much that he convinces all his soldiers to commit suicide by telling them about an Enemy Within, and does the same to the scientists over their conscience of abusing Null.
  • Child Soldiers - Null/Gray Fox, Raiden, Drebin.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - The name comes from The Last Days Of Foxhound, a webcomic based upon the game, which is used to describe Revolver Ocelot's habit of betraying anyone and everyone. Including his own soldiers.
  • Code Name - Speaks for itself.
  • Cold War - The background of MGS3, Peace Walker, and Portable Ops.
  • Comm Links - The codec.
  • Companion Cube - The cardboard fricking box. Both Solid and Naked Snake apparently have some sort of sexual fetish with it, and the latter believes that not only is his being in the box his destiny, but it is also the true key to happiness. The former finds it relaxing to sit in the box - or, y'know, barrel.
    • Solid Snake doesn't just find the box relaxing, to him, it's the most important thing he has on him. He even lectures Raiden about it, giving the famous "Take care of your cardboard box, and it'll take care of you" comment.
    • Sigh... okay, for those of you who aren't familiar with the series, it goes like this: Solid and Naked Snake are both professional soldiers. Due to the gameplay mechanics, being inside the box renders them invisible to people trying to find them and kill them. The box is therefore their equivalent of a security blanket. NOW do you get it?
  • Complete Monster - Col. Volgin and Vamp the child teen-murderer.
  • Conspicuously Selective Perception - AI can only see in front of them in the earlier games. Of course, an enemy spotting you right away would piss off many.
  • Continuity Nod - The entire fourth act of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots, including a playable flashback of an area from the first MGS game [with Playstation One graphics, no less] and too many callbacks to mention.
    • The final battle deserves a mention, as the entire battle consists of a battle atop a wrecked Metal Gear of sorts — Outer Haven being a nuke delivery platform, if not quite wrecked — complete with flashback segments, background music and health meters that change as the fight changes which game it's referencing, and Liquid Ocelot's final line as a callback to Metal Gear Solid 3.
      • "You're pretty good", which itself is a callback to Ocelot's immediate line to Solid Snake after their first boss battle in the original Metal Gear Solid.
  • Contrived Coincidence - The Raikov mask in MGS3. Radio conversations reveal that it would have been destroyed had it not been for SIGINT insisting they keep it, and it served no real purpose for Snake when he first got it (the Virtuous Mission). Conveniently, Raikov was Colonel Volgin's lover and the mask allowed Snake access to the high security wing of Groznyj Grad.
  • Copy Protection - Metal Gear Solid had an important character's Codec number on the back of the CD that you needed to call in order to advance. While it certainly stalled the game for anyone who didn't buy it new in its box, this probably wasn't intentional copy protection, more likely another example of what the series likes doing to the fourth wall.
    • Metal Gear 2 had a radio frequency on the box, and a table to decipher TAP codes in the manual.
  • Credits Gag - Hideo Kojima as Voice of God, Richard Doyle as Big Boss
    • Being a Metal Gear game, neither of those are really gags...
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome - So very many; in MGS4 Metal Gear REX vs. Metal Gear RAY. And it's PLAYABLE.
    • MGS4 actually had several, including the Raiden/Vamp battle, the aforementioned Humongous Mecha battle, and the final battle against Liquid, which devolves awesomely from two skilled and powerful fighters with incredibly fluid attacks to two old men slugging each other because that's all they have left. Oh, and the microwave hallway.
      • And one can't forget Raiden fighting off a legion of Liquid Ocelot's elite troopers after he lost both his arms.
      • And the one where Johnny and Meryl take turns proposing to each other and discuss their wedding plans. In the middle of a damn firefight.
    • From the first game, Fox's fight with Rex, Snake rappelling down a tower to escape the Hind, Vulcan Raven, etc. Seriously, the series has a roughly one-to-one ratio between CMO As and mindscrews.
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Big Boss's CQC hug with Snake towards the end of MGS 4. The rest of the scene qualifies as both this and a decent Tear Jerker.
  • Cuffs Off Rub Wrists - A minor gag in MGS2.
  • Cut Scene - Let's just say there are two types of people in the Metal Gear fandom: those who hate Metal Gear because of the cutscenes, and people who don't.
  • Cutscene Power To The Max - the remake of MGS1 is particularly bad at this, where Snake can Bullet Time.
  • Cyber Cyclops - The Ninja in MGS1 and Metal Gear Ray are both cyclopes.
    • Only the mass production models of Metal Gear RAY are Cyclopes. The prototype has two optical sensors.
    • Also, although Gray Fox's mask affects the appearance of a cyclops, if you look closely the eye holes are actually two slits immediately next to the giant red scanner. However, the aesthetic remains similar.
  • Dark Skinned Blond: Fortune, Drebin.
  • Deathbringer The Adorable: The chickens on the Nomad, who do little besides hang out in their cages and lay eggs for Sunny to try to cook, are named Solid, Liquid and Solidus. Possibly subverted; it's conceivable, maybe even likely, that Sunny named them after the states of matter, not after three of the most deadly men to ever walk the Earth.
  • Death By Disfigurement: Gray Fox
  • Death Glare: One word: Gene.
  • Deconstruction: Lots of it.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: Metal Gear Solid 2 is, amongst other things, one giant deconstruction of sequels and the expectations that fans (especially the Unpleasable Fanbase) will have of them.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Snake in MGS2.
  • Department Of Redundancy Department: This is just like one of my Japanese animes!
    • If I may be a prick and attempt to justify this, this is probably a context based translation error. In Japan, anime is shorthand for any type of animation; give Otacon's status as a foreigner, they probably felt the need to establish a context so the Japanese audience wouldn't think he's talking about western animation in the original script. The translation didn't realize that the context required for the Japanese audience was implicitly shown by the use of the word 'anime'. This is just me theorizing, of course.
      • Hey, it could have been French anime too, if they didn't explain it...
  • Depraved Bisexual: Both Volgin from MGS3 and Vamp from MGS2 & 4.
  • Did Not Get The Girl: Things don't work out for Snake and Meryl, what with Snake being an Ineffectual Loner and Meryl falling in love with, then marrying the series' "perennial loser." Although some would say it's for a very different reason altogether.
    • Also same for Raiden and Rose in Metal Gear Solid 2, although they end up together in number 4, and Big Boss and EVA in #3 - though technically subverted as she got pregnant with Big Boss' "child" clones.
      • And lest we forget that there were two full games before the Solid Series, Snake obviously does not end up with Ellen Madnar (MG1), nor does he end up with Holly White (MG2).
  • Disney Death: Big Boss.
  • Does This Remind You Of Anything:
    Ocelot: "There's nothing like the feeling of slamming a long, silver bullet into a well greased chamber."
  • Downer Ending: Subverted so hard in Metal Gear Solid 4. First, America and the world are freed for the first time in decades from the Patriots, and Sunny saved modern civilization at that. Second, the Mission Controller Campbell makes up with his estranged daughter Meryl and gives her away to her new husband, with a big wedding attended by all except Snake, Raiden, and Rosemary — who's reconciling with Raiden and introducing him to their young son. Finally, after we're told early on that Snake will have to kill himself to prevent a potentially world-ending epidemic, he returns to the graveyard seen at the beginning of the game, stops at The Boss and Big Boss' graves, then puts his 'signature' Operator handgun's muzzle to his mouth, trembles, and the camera pans up as a very loud gunshot is heard. Just after the credits begin to roll, however, we cut back to the graveyard, where Snake chickened out at the last second, and in a cutscene that defies words, he learns that he will not cause an epidemic after all, that he won't be a victim of that epidemic himself as he was originally fated to, and he is free to live the remainder of his albeit-shortened life... not as a soldier, but for the first time in his life as a man. As the last line of dialogue in Metal Gear Solid 4 puts it: "Sorta like the sun... It's rising again."
    • Though played heartbreakingly straight in the finale of Metal Gear Solid 3, the chronologically first game in the Metal Gear saga.
  • Down The Drain
  • Dye Or Die: Inverted in MGS2; played straight in the first game.
  • Dying As Yourself: Defeating the Beauty and Beast Corps members with nonlethal weapons allows them to overcome their madness, accept their sins, and die peacefully.
  • Dysfunction Junction: The games go to lengths to point out just how incredibly screwed up almost every single character is, and the tragic consequences of such.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: And how!
  • Easter Egg: Tons of 'em.
  • Edge Gravity
  • Elite Mooks: The Hi-Tech Soldiers, Arsenal Tengu in MGS2, the Rocket-men and FROG units in MGS4.
  • Enemy Chatter: Only during Alert, EV Asion, and Caution phases. However, there is some chatter to be found in most games, if you look hard enough.
  • Enemy Civil War: The first few chapters take place during an armed insurrection in unnamed countries, and you can use distractions to move unnoticed. However, PM Cs are hostile at all times, but helping the terrorists rebels nets you some items and ammo. And the original Patriots fighting among themselves is the real reason behind the events of the entire series.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Revolver Ocelot.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: The ranks of the various Quirky Miniboss Squads tend to be quite diverse. And then there're The Patriots.
  • Escort Mission: Raiden and Emma; Big Boss and EVA; Old Snake and Drebin's Stryker; Old Snake and the Van.
  • Even The Guys Want Him: Big Boss.
  • Everything Fades: Subverted - except for the first MGS, dead bodies don't go and need to be hidden.
    • However, enemies killed in alert mode or action sequences will disappear (flicker out more like it), and occasionally in normal status if one waits long enough.
    • As a possible reference to this, Liquid Ocelot's elite FROG units immolate themselves once they're dead, and if Snake touches the bodies, they crumble to dust.
  • Everythings Better With Monkeys: Drebin's pet, Little Gray.
  • Evil Brit: Two of the most influential villains in the entire series are British: Zero, founder of the Patriots, and Liquid Snake, one of the only men in the world who can face Solid Snake in equal combat.
  • Evil Is Dumb: Johnny Sasaki and, arguably, Fortune.
  • Exploding Barrels: In MGS4, on the streets of a European city — and not five minutes after a character claimed that "oil and fuel are as precious as diamonds."
    • The setting as it's been explored up to this point gives this a justification; it's not that oil and fuel have hit Hubbert's Peak, but that the world devolving into constant conflict in the name of the war economy has simply made it hard to get, along with anything else we take for granted. After all, there hardly seems to be an energy crisis, what with all the stuff requiring fuel working fine, and the PMCs holding down martial law in Prague the Eastern European town would surely need to cart some fuel around for themselves to keep their APCs running.
  • Exposition Break: Utterly infamous for these.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Naked Snake wants to taste everything that moves.
  • Eyepatch Of Power: Subverted slightly in that Big Boss' eyepatch really is an eyepatch, while Old Snake's Solid Eye simply provides optical enhancements... as well as 'radar,' of sorts. Well, then there's also Solidus.
  • Fallen Hero: Big Boss, along with Major Zero, Para-Medic, and Sigint.
  • Famous Last Words: see Final Speech below.
  • Fan Disservice: See trope entry.
  • A Father To His Men: (Big Boss, Gene.)
    • Arguably The Boss in reference to the Cobra Unit.
  • Feelies
  • Femme Fatale: Sniper Wolf, EVA, Naomi.
  • Final First Hug: Big Boss hugs Snake like a father before his death.
  • Final Speech: Every single character death includes one of these. No exceptions.
  • Fission Mailed: Trope Namer.
  • Fisticuffs Boss: At least twice.
  • Five Bad Band: Several.
  • A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Read: One of Psycho Mantis' many problems.

Metal Gear Solid 2's Sons Of Liberty:

Metal Gear Solid 4's B&B Corp A.K.A. Snakehound:
  • Foe Yay: "Adamska" and "John".
  • Flawed Prototype
  • Forgotten Superweapon: REX was more or less abandoned at Shadow Moses.
  • Foreshadowing: In Super Smash Bros Brawl. Yes, Hideo Kojima snuck in hints about MSG 4 on the Killer App of a competing company in an Intercontinuity Crossover. It's really not out of place.
  • Form Fitting Wardrobe: Especially Snake's suit in 4.
  • Freudian Excuse: Every one of the "beauties" in MGS4.
  • Frodo Moments: Snake in MGS4.
  • Future Badass: Raiden in MGS4, Null to Gray Fox. Additionally, Portable Ops can count - the remaining survivors of the San Herionymo incident later become part of Big Boss's mercenaries.
  • Gainax Ending: Probably the other reason why MGS2 isn't well liked.
  • Game Shark: Mentioned, but not actually used.
  • Gangsta Style: Justified - the model of gun it's used with is for a tactical purpose!
  • Gaussian Girl: In MGS3, Ocelot sees Naked Snake like this when Snake knocks him out and he's about to lose consciousness. Ever since then, Ocelot has become his Stalker With A Crush. Also, it is played with jokingly in the MGS3 Secret Theater, "He's Still Got It," where The End sees EVA like this.
  • Generation Xerox
  • Get On With It Already: Many cutscenes and conversations throughout the series. But none compare to all of MGS4. (Fortunately, almost all of the MGS4 cutscenes are skippable. Unfortunately, the exceptions include Big Boss' death, the awfully long credits, and the post-credits ending.)
  • Good Bad Translation: The NES Metal Gear. "The truck have started to move" and "I feel asleep", for instance.
  • Gone Horribly Right
  • Grand Finale: Metal Gear Solid 4 neatly wraps up 25 years of plot in an epic and conclusive manner.
  • Grandma What Massive Hotness You Have: EVA, Old Snake, Ocelot.
  • Groin Attack: In MGS2 and MGS3, shooting an enemy in the family jewels was a one hit kill. In MGS4, you can knock out a male enemy by crushing their balls. Performing it on a FROG-Trooper, however, turns it into a grope and a very angry FROG trooper.
  • Gun Twirling: Ocelot.
  • Has Two Daddies: Sunny, with Snake and "Uncle Hal".
  • He Knows About Timed Hits: Made into an art form.
  • Heal Thyself: Resting in hidden areas in MGS3 and MGS4 restores health, not to mention the fast-regenerating camouflage given to you by one of the bosses in MGS3. (In MGS4 there are at least two iPod songs that specifically increase Old Snake's recovery rate.)
  • Hey Its That Guy: David Hayter, the voice of Solid and Naked Snake, wrote (among other things) the first two X-Men movies.
  • Hey Its That Voice: Considering the size of the cast, it's not surprising.
  • Honor Before Reason: Bitterly commented on by Solid Snake.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: In MGS4, Vamp would be unless you use the Syringe to end his nanomachine-enhanced regeneration.
    • Fortune in MGS2 is truly a hopeless fight; all you can do is dodge her shots until events force her to leave.
  • Hospital Hottie: Rose.
    • Paramedic, too.
      • Elisa in Portable Ops.
    • Naomi
  • Hot Amazon: Meryl, Olga, The Boss, Sniper Wolf.
  • How Much More Can They Take: The final battle between Snake and Ocelot in Guns of the Patriots.
  • Ho Yay: People keep pairing Otacon and Solid Snake. Kojima keeps encouraging them. Not to mention the weird relationship between Revolver Ocelot and Big Boss. Not to mention Vamp, a canon bisexual, and Raiden, the bishonen. Not to mention - okay, let's put it like this: the Metal Gear Solid series is possibly the most subtext-laden video game series in existence, and must be witnessed to be understood.
    • I'm not sure witnessing it makes it any more comprehensible, but it sure is fun!
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Unabashedly. You can carry about fifty weapons in MGS4, but only five at a time that you can wield in your menu. You can also carry an oil drum.
  • I Cannot Self Terminate
  • Identical Grandson
  • I Didnt Mean To Turn You On: Big Boss probably didn't expect Ocelot to get turned on by his torture session.
  • I Just Want To Be Badass: Deconstructed with Solid Snake, and even more savagely deconstructed with Raiden.
  • I Knew It: Big boss is alive.
  • I Know That Gun: The Patriot, which is an M231 FPW with a Beta C-Mag. FPW stands for 'firing port weapon' and the gun was designed to be used in the hull gun ports of Bradley armoured personnel carriers. Lord only knows why The Boss has one a decade and a half before it was designed.
  • I Let You Win: Young Ocelot's excuse every time. Or maybe not an excuse, since he's your CIA contact.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Justified in the fact that A) the blades are meant to deflect bullets, and B) The suits they wear increase reflexes.
  • Indestructible Edible: CalorieMates(TM)
  • In A World: The Courage is Solid trailer.
  • In Love With Your Carnage: Ocelot's pseudo-romantic admiration for Big Boss when he hears about Big Boss managing to kill people so easily (and his firsthand experience watching Big Boss neutralize the Ocelot Unit).
  • In The Blood: Solid Snake is a designer baby made with the DNA of "the greatest soldier ever."
  • Instant AI Just Add Water
  • Instant Awesome Just Add Mecha: The Metal Gears themselves.
    • Seriously, though...piloting REX in MGS4 proves why Otacon's design was the most badass weapon ever developed in a semi-realistic setting.
  • Instant Home Delivery: Drebin offers Instant Battlefield Delivery in MGS4.
  • Instant Sedation: Subverted and played straight. Shooting a guard (with no vest) in the chest or heart does this; but it'll take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes, depending on the difficulty level, to knock out a guard in any other zone.
  • Intercontinuity Cross Over: Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • It Gets Easier: Snake gives this speech to Meryl.
  • It Was His Sled: Solid Snake is Liquid's twin brother.
  • Kikuko Inoue: Japanese voice of Rosemary, The Boss, and Sunny.
  • Kill It With Fire: Pyro Bison, Fire Trooper, The Fury, Incendiary Grenades and Molotovs in MGS 4, and flamethrower units in Metal Gear Acid 2.
  • Kudzu Plot: Starts off mild in the early games. Taken Up To Eleven with MGS2.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Taken to an art form.
  • Large Ham: Liquid Snake and his wacky arm gestures, Revolver Ocelot, and Death Seeker Fortune are guilty of this. And when Liquid's arm possesses Ocelot, the hamminess can barely be described.
  • Laser Hallway: Hell, Microwave Hallway.
  • Laser Sight: Useful. Since you don't use iron sights in MGS2, it's the only way to aim; and in MGS4, you'll need it if you use third person a lot.
  • Latex Perfection: Somewhat subverted; the mask's lips don't move, Snake's facial structure is roughly recognizable beneath the mask, and the FaceCamo used by Laughing Octopus and Snake is MUCH more advanced than current technology.
  • Load Bearing Boss: Golab in AC!D2, Fatman in MGS2.
  • Luke I Am Your Father: Snake, Liquid, and Big Boss; Raiden and Solidus.
  • Magic Bullets: Quite literally with some bosses.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Revolver Ocelot, Big Boss, The Boss, Solidus and Liquid, Hideo Kojima.
  • The Man Behind The Man: Like you wouldn't believe.
    • The Patriots could be more accurately described as the computer behind the man.
  • Manly Tears: In Snake Eater, after Naked Snake is promoted to the rank of Big Boss, having killed his mentor, The Boss, he visits her grave, and salutes her one last time as a single tear roll down his cheek.
  • Mask Power: Subverted with Johnny Sasaki.
  • Memetic Mutation: It deserves it's own page.
  • Memetic Number: "I hear its amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hari Kiri Rock. I need scissors! 61!" Said by fake Colonel.
  • Medal Of Dishonor: Awarded to Big Boss by the American government for murdering The Boss.
  • Mission Control
  • Mind Screw: The last few hours of MGS2.
    • Also anything involving Psycho Mantis and Screaming Mantis, who sometimes attacks the ''player''. Screaming Mantis even can fake the game resetting to the title screen.
  • Mind Screwdriver: MGS4, which makes sense out of pretty much everything in the second game.
  • Minovsky Particle (in the form of a rather blatant shout-out).
  • Mobile: Shrubbery Cardboard Box
  • Mr Exposition: Happens at the start of every game with the Colonel, Otacon, Major Zero, et cetera.
  • Mysterious Informant
  • Nanomachines: Everything that happens? It's caused by these buggers in one way or another (with the possible exceptions of The Sarrow, Psycho Mantis, and Vulcan Raven)!
  • New Game Plus: You start out with goodies in games before MGS4. MGS4, you get all your weapons and earned gear, plus goodies.
  • New Media Are Evil: The Patriot AIs in MGS2 plans to take control of world media in order to "purify" it. How good or bad this is depends on you. Oh, and in MGS4, they're also all for constant war.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Show a video of The Sorrow to a soft-hearted person.
  • Ninja Butterfly: Your support crew in each game.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The cover artwork of the original Metal Gear is blatantly traced from a well-known publicity still of Michael Biehn in Terminator, while the character designs in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2 are clearly modified photographs of actual celebrities such as Sean Connery, Mel Gibson, Tom Berenger, Richard Crenna, and Albert Einstein. In the cellphone and PS2 ports of Metal Gear 2, the character designs were rEVAmped to resemble Shinkawa's designs from the later MGS games.
  • No Communities Were Harmed - In MGS4, "Middle East" is somewhere in Maghreb (possibly Morocco, as seen in the credits), "Eastern Europe" is quite obviously Prague, Czech Republic and "South America" is somewhat less obviously Peru, but the countries are never named.
  • No Fourth Wall: One of the trademarks of the series. Characters explicitly describe the game's controls with a straight face; the Copy Protection involves a character asking you to look at the back of the game package; one of your Voices With An Internet Connection provides constant real-world advice on how to play your video game properly and healthily; a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique scene involves the resident Magnificent Bastard warning you not to try to use autofire to beat the Mini Game; and everything involving Psycho Mantis, who used your save game content to "read your mind," the rumble feature on your controller to move it with "telekinesis," had a special move that caused your screen to turn black, and could only be defeated by unplugging your controller and plugging it into the second port (or by already having a second controller in the second port, and picking it up). And that's only what the first game does; the second, which explicitly aims to break the fourth wall, was worse.
    • It got to the point of Lampshade Hanging: during Act 4 of MGS4, Otacon calls Snake and tells him to put in disc 2. Then he remembers that, because the game is on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc, there is no disc 2. (Snake tells Otacon to stop fooling around, while players freak out due to the exact location of this conversation.) Then, when Psycho Mantis shows up again, he tries to pull the same tricks. However, he can't read your memory since the PS 3 doesn't have a memory card, and he can only make the controller vibrate if the player is using the Dualshock 3. And again in the previous boss fight, where the Colonel recommends using the same tricks against a different psychic boss, only to have them all shot down. Oh, and in Metal Gear AC!D2, when General Wiseman explains bits of the COST and CARD system to Snake, "Agent" Dalton hears all of this and confusedly says, "That just went right over my head."
  • No Holds Barred Beatdown: Volgin to Snake in Snake Eater, and even worse, Ocelot to Snake in Guns of the Patriots.
  • Non Linear Sequel: Has one of the most messy chronologies known to man - Metal Gear Solid Mobile is a good example. It seems to clearly fit in to the main timeline between MGS and MGS2, but the game's ending apparently makes it Canon Discontinuity..)
  • No Plans No Prototype No Backup (subverted)
  • Nostalgia Level: The entire fourth act of MGS4, plus at least one Nostalgia Boss Fight in act 5.
  • Notice This
  • Novelization
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Avoided in every game.
  • Old Save Bonus: Almost!
  • Ominous Save Prompt: Two of them. In MGS2, immediately after being captured and brought onboard Arsenal Gear, and in MGS3, after taking a No Holds Barred Beatdown from the Big Bad.
    • MGS3 actually kind of inverts it. When fighting The End, Para-Medic says that she has a bad feeling about saving. If you save and reload the game, The End sneaks up behind you and tranqs you in the head.
  • One Bullet Clips: (subverted and played straight. Portable Ops does this, and so does the R2-tapping strategy.)
  • Only Sane Man: Sigint seems to think everyone else on Fox Unit are nuts. He may be right.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Vamp apparently only drinks blood due to a neurosis, and his running on water as well as straight up high walls is apparently due to wearing special footwear. Gets back into familiar territory with his Healing Factor; while nanomachines enhance it and allow him to revive from mortal wounds in seconds without a scratch, it's stated that he always had this trait to a lesser degree.
  • Pacifist Run: You receive a lower score at the end if you kill everything. Also, in MGS3 and MGS4, you get good bonus items from the bosses if you tranquilize them into submission instead of kill them. In MGS3, The Sorrow, a sub-boss that can't be killed, tries to kill you with guilt, sending the ghosts of your fallen (but not tranquilized) enemies stumbling towards you. The other bosses show up regardless of their ultimate demise, since even if you sedate them, they still use bombs to self-destruct. In MGS4 beating the Beast forms of the Beauty & the Beast Corps allows the player to acquire their statue (collect them and the FROG statue for the Solar Gun), and beating the Beauty forms allows the player to collect their Face Camo. As before, some of the Emblems (ranks) require a certain amount of kills (less than or more than) to acquire; the Pigeon and Big Boss Emblems for example require no kills.
  • Parrot Exposition: David Hayter has joked in interviews that most of the dialogue he has to record consists of repeating the last couple words the other person said, and adding a question mark to it.
    • Lampshaded in Metal Gear AC!D2, when Snake hears General Wiseman describe what Doctor Koppelthorn did hi-jack: Metal Gear.
      Snake: Metal Gear?!
      Dalton: Huh? You're familiar with it?
      Snake: No. Had to blurt it out...
  • Periphery Demographic: It's rather odd that women like this series so much, considering it's basically a crazy action movie in video game form. Yes, even the strong male bonding is verbatim action movie.
  • Pet The Dog: Pointed out by Otacon in Metal Gear Solid, when he believes Sniper Wolf isn't evil because she loves dogs. Snake doesn't like it.
  • Playing With Syringes: Les Enfants Terribles, the experiments that made Gray Fox.
    • Ironically in MGS4, used by Old Snake to restore Psyche until his body builds up a tolerance (in both gameplay and a cutscene near the end of the playable part of the game), as well as to make Vamp mortal and to free himself and Meryl from Screaming Mantis' nanomachine control.
  • Powerwalk
  • Player Punch: E.E, The Boss...the list goes on.
  • Psycho Electro: Volgin.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: And how.
  • Precision Guided Boomerang: Slasher Hawk from the Alternate Continuity game Ghost Babel carries a pair of six-foot long, bladed, metal boomerangs, one of which has a aerodynamically improbable zigzag trajectory.
  • Rare Guns: You have D-Eagles (and the long-barreled version, which is widely available), muskets, the Bizon, Chinese copies of Mausers, DSR-9s, and so on.
  • Recurring Boss: Vamp.
  • Recycled Script: Several plot elements and set pieces used in Metal Gear 2 reappear in Metal Gear Solid, with no comment from anybody. Metal Gear Solid 2 returns the favor and cribs off of Metal Gear Solid - but this time, the lead character is well aware of this and won't let the player forget as the storyline spirals inexorably towards its Mind Screw Gainax Ending. Part of this has to do with the low profile of Metal Gear 2 and the megahit status of Solid.
  • Redshirt Army: The SEALs sent in to deliver the Nuclear Football in MGS2 (to be fair, they're up against a vampire and an unkillable woman with a railgun), the US Army/Marine Corps task force in MGS4 (though they later fend off a horde of FROG units).
  • Replacement Scrappy: Raiden
  • Rescued From The Scrappy Heap: If Raiden's actions during the 4th game don't qualify him for this, then nothing will.
  • Ret Con: And how! It came in time and time again to patch up the increasing number of Plot Holes, and what was Big Boss up to again?
  • Reverse Mole: Ocelot is arguably the true hero.
  • Re Vision: The Mind Screw, Big Brother plot of MGS2 is successfully disarmed and explained in MGS4.
  • Ring Out Boss: Liquid Snake could only be defeated by being kicked off the Metal Gear in one of the games.
  • Rock Paper Scissors: Spoofed in one of MGS3's Secret Theater segments
  • Ruritania: The settings of the first two games are countries which don't exist.
  • Say My Name: Every single Metal Gear Solid has this, with both enemies and allies screaming "SNAAAAAAAAKKKEEEE!!!"
    • The series' use of it is inverted near the end of Guns of the Patriots when the Scarabs start piling on Snake: "OOOTACOOOOOOON!" Inverted both for Snake being the one to use it, and it being a genuinely tense and dramatic moment instead of meme-fuel.
    • Snake screamed Otacon's name again earlier in Guns of the Patriots when he got half of his face burned very badly.
    • This almost qualifies as a CMOA during the final duel when after Snake takes an absolutely brutal beating at the hands of Liquid Ocelot he turns the fight around by breaking his enemy's fingers. As Snake rises he screams his rival's name with a cry of rage and frustration, to be answered in kind as the camera spins. And they they really start beating the hell out of each other.
  • Scare Chord: !
  • The Scrappy: Raiden, before his cyborgification. Even in Japan, where the pretty boys are liked a lot, they hated him.
  • See The Sailboat: The codec in 3.
  • Sequential Boss
  • Shirtless Scene: At least one per game.
    • Metal Gear Solid had both Snakes shirtless when they fight: Liquid takes your shirt off before the fight for absolutely no reason.
    • Metal Gear Solid 2 had Raiden completely naked at one point.
    • Metal Gear Solid 3 allows you take off all your clothes (except your pants, to Naked Snake's disappointment and SIGINT's anger/bemusement).
    • Metal Gear Solid 4 had Liquid Ocelot take his shirt off before his climactic duel with Snake.
  • Shocking Swerve: Liquid never came back from the dead and that Ocelot was using a combination of nanomachines and hypnotherapy to make himself think he was Liquid.
  • Shout Out: Vietnam War-era jungle setting of the game aside, Snake of Metal Gear Solid 3 is a shout-out to James Bond AND John Rambo. The former is paid tribute to in the music of the alert phases, whereas the latter happens when Snake roars Sylvester Stallone's trademark battle-cry when firing an M60 machine gun. Solid 'Old' Snake also roars like this when firing the M 60 E 4 in Guns of the Patriots, signifying how much he has become like his father.
    • There's many others as well. For example, Raiden's real name is Jack, and his girlfriend is named Rose.
    • Drebin and his "naked guns" is a shout out to a rather unexpected franchise.
    • Of course, Hideo Kojima has shoutouts to his own work as well, with Policenaut posters and Snake can actually use the Gun De Sol from Boktai as a bonus weapon, the Solar Gun, by acquiring the FROG statue and the B&B Corps statues, by defeating them (for the B&B Corps their Beast forms) all nonlethally.
      • Metal Gear Mk. 2 originally appeared in Kojima's Snatcher. Except that one was a reference to the original Metal Gear. A reference is even made to the "Metal Gear Menace" of the late 20th century.
    • The freight El EV Ator in MGS is a near exact duplicate of the one in Akira,and even leads down to a sub-zero area.
    • Solid Snake's name is a shoutout to Snake Plissken from Escape From New York. The film is one of Kojima's favourites, and was a large influence on the series (particularly notable is the theme of an uncaring government sacrificing heroes for minor or personal gain).
  • Shrouded In Myth: It seems like everyone who meets Snake for the first time has some sort of Memetic Badass picture of him.
  • Sign Language: The Sorrow helps you out a couple times with this - at one point even holding up a digital countdown of when the C3 you've just planted is going to detonate. That's some impressive signage right there.
  • Significant Birth Date: Otacon's father was born on the day of the Hiroshima bombing.
  • Sinister Silhouettes: Fox Hound in the first MGS game is first seen as this.
  • Sinister Surveillance: Part of the Patriots' plans.
  • Skippable Boss: MGS3's The End - using two methods! Either set the clock ahead so that he dies of old age, or snipe him when he appears in his wheelchair — albeit the latter will lead to the boss fight areas being instead patrolled by 20 enemy soldiers. In MGS4 there are no truly skippable bosses, but any damage to her Life or Psyche that Raging Raven takes during the motorcycle chase sequence will carry over to the 'true' boss fight, so go fire on her with whichever bar of hers you wish to damage later.
  • The Slow Walk: Gray Fox in the remake of MGS.
  • Sniping Mission: Raiden must protect Emma this way in Metal Gear Solid 2. The battle with Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid, The End in Metal Gear Solid 3, and Crying Wolf in Metal Gear Solid 4
  • So Bad Its Good: The dialog.
  • Soul Brotha: Drebin, the gun dealer in MGS4. SIGINT can also be considered one, but he's more nerdy...
  • Spell My Name With A The: The entire Cobra Unit from MGS3.
  • Spider Limbs: Laughing Octopus and Solidus Snake.
  • Spotting The Thread: The fact that the DARPA Chief refers to the terroist act as a revolution is a major hint that he might not be who he claims to be. Yet no one picks up on this, despite the fact that they know for a fact a master of disguise is among the Fox Hound renegades.
  • Spy Catsuit: Ssubverted - only the MEN get them. And look damn Fan Servicey in them, too.
    • Don't forget the FROG ladies.
    • The Beauties get some very form fitting suits. When facing off against Raging Raven, after she sheds her suit and turns away, still quite insane, Snake stares at her butt.
  • Stand Back Hello: Who's there?! In addition, the Alert/EV Asion calls to HQ.
  • Start Of Darkness: Metal Gear Solid 3 and its sequel Portable Ops detail the events behind Big Boss' transformation from a young, patriotic soldier into a war hero disillusioned with the modern world's treatment of soldiers.
  • Stealth Based Game: Trope Maker.
  • Superlative Dubbing: David Hayter as Snake. That's saying something when you are competing with Akio Ohtsuka.
  • Supervillain Lair: Shadow Moses, Gronzyj Grad, Arsenal Gear, Outer Haven (and its later incarnation), you name it...
  • Sympathy For The Devil: Most villains in the series can be sympathized with to a certain extent. Volgin averts this with extreme prejudice.
  • Tank Goodness: Vulcan Raven uses a tank during his first boss fight.
  • Tear Jerker: The ending to the third game. The fourth game as well, but to a lesser extent. There are probably no games that made more grown men cry so much.
  • Temporal Paradox: The game over screens for MGS3, a prequel, showed the words 'TIME PARADOX' if the player waited at the game over screen too long.
  • The Only One Allowed To Defeat You - Ocelot from Metal Gear Solid 3 felt this way about Naked Snake.
  • Thirty Xanatos Pileup
  • Timed Mission: Parodied in MGS2, when the Colonel doesn't end his speech when he's supposed to. Played straight with the bomb on the submarine in the Plant Chapter.
  • Title Drop: The terrorists in 2 are the Sons of Liberty, Snake's second mission in 3 is Operation Snake Eater, and Ocelot calls his master plan Guns of the Patriots. Metal Gear is first introduced this way in the first game.
  • Took A Level In Badass: Raiden in the fourth game, and Johnny at the very end.
  • Transplant: Very few people knew that Meryl Silverberg was originally from the Japan-only Policenauts (her fake tattoo is the logo from the team in that game), and a verison of Metal Gear Mk. II from Snatcher appears in the 4th game. However, they are very different verisons of those characters.
  • Translation Convention: "Your Russian is excellent."
    • Though reversed almost immediately when Snake doesn't know what 'Shagohod' means and hears it in Russian, and accepts Sokolov's rather flowery translation of 'the treading behemoth' when it's more literally something along the lines of 'great step' or 'step-walker.' Which is ironic considering the Shagohod doesn't have legs like Metal Gear.
    • It's also used to hand-wave the less than synchronized dubbing.
  • Treacherous Advisor: Liquid disguised as Master Miller in Metal Gear Solid, The Colonel/AI in Metal Gear Solid 2, The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3, General Wiseman in Metal Gear AC!D2.
  • Trigger Happy: Revolver Ocelot. "There's nothing like the feeling of slamming a long, silver bullet into a well greased chamber" indeed.
  • Try Everything: The codec frequency, if you miss the hint.
  • Unexpected Genre Change: The Shagohod chase in MGS3 is an on-rails shooter, escaping from South America in Metal Gear Solid 4 mixes Zombie Apocalypse and turret gunplay, there's more on-rails shooter stuff with EVA again in Eastern Europe (albeit you're limited to one-handed firearms), and finally, mecha combat in Shadow Moses - REX versus RAY. 'Nuff said.
    • And as if that wasn't enough, the final battle with Ocelot in MGS4 is an arcade-style fighting game.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: Though MGS2 managed to partially subvert this by having one CODEC conversation that explained that the weapons had an ID system that recognized a specific person...it's odd though how they didn't explain this more directly. Also FINALLY averted in MGS4 by Snake getting a "hack" into the system... as a result, weapon pickups are a notable part of gameplay, and in Screaming Mantis's case it's necessary to pick up her Mantis Doll to defeat her.
  • Utsuge: A rare non-Bishoujo, non-dating-sim example. Anyone who does not cry at least once playing this series is not a human being.
  • Vader Breath: Psycho Mantis from MGS.
  • Variable Mix: Quite stunningly good in this instance.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: It's entirely possible (And encouraged) to beat Twin Snakes, 2 and 4 without killing a single enemy. 3 also falls into this, as you are only required to kill a single enemy: The Boss. In fact, the fewer enemies you kill in 3, the easier time you will have with one of the miniboss fights.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Lots of awful things you can do to guards... although in MGS4, touch a FROG the wrong way, and she will fight back.
    • It gets worse in Metal Gear AC!D2. Setting them on fire, throwing them off trains or into the path of trains, dropping things on them,
  • Video Game Remake: The Twin Snakes
  • Viewers Are Geniuses
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Meta example. The teaser site before E3 09 showed this image, and many fans wondered who the hot chick in Raiden's armour was. Turns out it was Raiden.
    • A lot of people believed it was Sunny, due to the eyes and hair. Then again...
  • Voice Of The Legion: The Beauty and Beast unit all speak with two voices overlapped, one female, one male - but only when they're in their suits.
  • Voice With An Internet Connection
  • The War Sequence: Raiden fights up to twenty mass-produced Metal Gears in MGS2.
  • Warrior Heaven: Big Boss and Liquid Snake try to make this ideal on Earth by making the world into "Outer Heaven," a world where warriors will always be needed, honored and respected, although in MGS4, it appears that Big Boss' motive may have been to create a world free from the Patriots... that was certainly why Liquid Ocelot claimed to have had Outer Haven, at least.
  • What The Hell, Player?
  • Where I Was Born And Razed (Psycho Mantis, and all of the B&B Corps)
  • Why Were Bummed Communism Fell: Kicks off the Solid games (save for the 3rd game)
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: In MSG 3 (Naked) Snake is given the order to meet with his contacts Adam and Eva. Eva goes so far to ask him if he has come to seduce her.
    • In MSG 4 an apple falls from (Old) Snakes pocket and rolls towards Eva, who picks it up. Later she hands the same apple to Adam (aka Ocelot), who crushet it and throws it away.
  • With This Herring: Justified as weapons and equipment being OSP, On-Site Procured. In Metal Gear Solid 3, we learn that Big Boss' original codename, Naked Snake, is taken in part from this.
    • In a neat twist on previous games' weapons progression, the first weapon pickup in MGS4 is the AK-102 assault rifle found right next to Old Snake after one of the first cutscenes, and it's the Mk.II suppressed tranquilizer pistol and suppressable lethal Operator pistol which are received next, instead of the other way around as in the past. It's markedly inferior though to the M4 Custom which you pick up not long after the pistols.
  • Woobie: Nine tenths of the major characters in the series. Where do we start?
    • Big Boss
    • The Boss
    • Solid Snake
    • Raiden
    • The entire B&B Corps (try listening to their bios and tell me you aren't prepared to forgive them for being murdering psycho nutcases...)
    • Otacon
  • Xanatos Funeral: The Boss.
  • You Kill It You Bought It: Naked Snake gains the title of "Boss" (or rather, Big Boss), after killing The Boss (though this probably isn't the standard procedure for the promotion).
  • You Should Know This Already: Big Boss is the terrorist leader in the first game, Big Boss is still alive in the second game, Naked Snake is Big Boss, Solid Snake is his clone.
  • You Monster: EVA says this to Volgin during his torture of Sokolov.
  • Young Gun: Major Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: Worth mentioning because some of the WMG theories are less crazy than what's canon.
Lugaru
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