Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 hit almost a year ago, and it did so in a, uh, pretty lacklustre state. Konami never promised full-blown remasters—just basic ports of the OG Metal Gears alongside MGS 1 through 3—but even so, the versions of those games we got on PC still left a lot to be desired. There were missing options, muddy textures, audio glitches, and some versions of MGS 1 were straight-up undownloadable. All in all, not quite what you want for a series as well-loved as MGS.
To be fair, Konami’s been banging away at those ports for a while now, and although they still aren’t quite where they should be, they’re doing much better than they were. For the second volume of the Master Collection (which I’m still betting will mark MGS 4’s PC debut), the company says it’d like to skip that step entirely.
“We’re also worried about how Vol 1 had a pretty rough launch,” said Konami’s current (and very amiable) MGS helmsman Noriaki Okamura in the second episode of the Metal Gear Production Hotline. “We’re going to do everything we can to not repeat that [with Volume 2].”
You and I are gonna be waiting a while to see if Okamura makes good on that promise, though. Currently, Konami is all hands on deck for Metal Gear Solid Delta—MGS3’s ultra-faithful remake currently slated for release some time this year. I’d imagine we’ll only start hearing more concrete things about Master Collection Volume 2 once that’s out the door.
Still, I (obviously) hope Konami learnt its lesson. I’m more excited about having the OG MGS games on PC than I am about any remake, and the sorry state that Volume 1 came out in was a bit of a shot through the heart. I hope that someone, somewhere, is still beavering away on patches for it at Konami HQ. Many issues are fixed, but there are still lingering irritants, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the noises Okamura made about a possible 4K update for Volume 1 in the previous Production Hotline come true. Those games look great at 800p on my Steam Deck. On my 1440p monitor? Less so.
As to what will be in the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2? It’s tough to say. MGS 4 is as close to a given as it gets, and then probably Peace Walker, but after that you’re out of mainline MGS games that didn’t get a wide release.
I suppose Konami could bundle up MGS 5 and Ground Zeroes in there and call it a day, but that’d be kind of underwhelming given how profoundly playable both of those games already are. Personally, I’m hoping for Konami to do something weird and surprise us with a Metal Gear Acid, Ghost Babel, or Portable Ops port. Either that or a 4K version of Revengeance.
How about all of the above? That’d be fine too.
