8 mainline entries1987 — today
Metal Gear Solid
The stealth series that made video games take themselves seriously.
The story of the series
Metal Gear Solid began as a humble MSX2 game in 1987 about avoiding fights instead of starting them, and grew into the most cinematically ambitious stealth series ever made. Under Hideo Kojima, it became famous for breaking the fourth wall, hiding secrets in the game case, and treating war, nukes, and identity as serious subjects long before the medium thought it was allowed to. Across four decades the series evolved from 2D sneaking to Hollywood-grade cutscenes to open-world infiltration, always orbiting one soldier — Solid Snake, and his many doubles — and one question: what does a weapon become when it can think?
Every release
The release timeline
From the first cartridge to the latest entry — every mainline game in the Metal Gear Solid series, in the order it reached players.
- 1987 · MSX2
Metal Gear
The original stealth game. Sneak past guards, avoid combat, and destroy a walking nuclear tank — a radical inversion of the action genre.
- 1990 · MSX2
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Refines the formula with radar, crawling, and a richer story. The blueprint for everything Solid would become.
- 1998 · PlayStation
Metal Gear Solid
The breakout. Voice acting, cinematic direction, codec calls, and a boss who read your memory card. Stealth arrived in the mainstream.
- 2001 · PS2
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
A bait-and-switch protagonist and a story about digital censorship that felt prophetic. The most controversial, and maybe the smartest, entry.
- 2004 · PS2
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
A Cold War prequel in the jungle. Camouflage, survival, and a heartbreaking finale — widely considered the series’ high point.
- 2008 · PS3
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Snake, now old, ties off every thread. Hours of cutscenes, a war-economy story, and a solemn farewell to the series.
- 2010 · PSP
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
A base-building mission structure that quietly set up the open-world future. Big Boss’s moral turn, in co-op.
- 2015 · PS4 / Xbox One / PC
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Open-world infiltration, fulton extraction, and a quiet, devastating twist. The most playable Metal Gear, and the last under Kojima.
How it changed
What changed across releases
The Metal Gear Solid series never stood still. Here is how it reinvented itself, era by era.
The 2D sneaking origin (1987–1990)
Metal Gear and its sequel established stealth as a genre — avoiding enemies rather than fighting them — with a top-down grid and a growing story.
The cinematic 3D breakthrough (1998–2001)
MGS brought voice acting, directed cutscenes, and fourth-wall-breaking tricks to the PlayStation; MGS2 pushed the storytelling into provocative, postmodern territory.
The survival prequel (2004)
Snake Eater stripped the radar away and moved to the jungle, adding camouflage, hunger, and healing — a mechanical reset that deepened the stealth.
The grand finale and the open world (2008–2015)
MGS4 closed the series with maximalist cinema, while Peace Walker and V pivoted to base management and open-world infiltration, trading story density for player freedom.
