Out of all the IP Konami owns the rights to, you could make a strong argument that Metal Gear Solid is its most valuable. Which makes it all the more disheartening to see that the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 appears to be a bare-bones, minimalistic job to say the least.
Yes, you’ll be able to play Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 on your PS5, and there are plenty of extra behind-the-scenes goodies, but nothing has been done to these games to make the experience of playing them in 2023 any better.
No one’s asking for the moon, but these should arguably be the best versions of each of these games. Digital Foundry however unfortunately reports otherwise, as John Linneman calls the image “worse” than Bluepoint’s PS3 and Xbox 360-era remasters.
Linneman also points out that despite Konami saying otherwise, he’s directly confirmed the games all run at 720p, not 1080p across all platforms.
It’s incredibly disappointing to see such pinnacles of the games industry’s history be actively worse to play on modern devices, especially when there’s seemingly no reason for it beyond Konami not caring to put the effort in.
The real kicker is that this will likely not really effect game sales, as Konami can rely on the reality that if not for these new versions that Konami is charging modern prices for, these games would be inaccessible to players in the future, once the devices which could previously play them are entirely caput.
This also puts a dark cloud over the potential Vol. 2 of this collection, which is rumoured to include the PS3-isolated game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Sons Of The Patriots.
Source – [Digital Foundry]