Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater - A Faithful 2004 Classic Reborn in Unreal Engine 5

There’s something almost disorienting about me walking into Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater for the first time, because it’s not really the first time at all. For me, it’s déjà vu wrapped in an Unreal Engine 5 sheen. Every Codec line I remember, every melodramatic cutscene I once sat through, every strange Cold War villain with inexplicable powers is still exactly where it was in 2004, yet now it’s presented in such dense, modern fidelity that I find myself staring at Snake’s mud-stained fatigues or the light catching on Ocelot’s revolver and thinking, “This is how I remember it,” even though it never actually looked this good. Konami chose preservation over reinvention, and so what I’m left with is a one-to-one remake that feels carefully polished rather than creatively reshaped.

And it’s not just the broad strokes either. David Hayter’s gravelly delivery is here once more, repeating back Codec lines with the same strange charm, and every item box is exactly where it used to be, popping out of a guard the same way it did two decades ago. Even the layout of the environments is unchanged, still divided into small, distinct zones separated by brief loading screens, which is charming if you’re nostalgic but undeniably dated if you’ve been spoiled by sprawling open-world design. The thing is, Snake Eater was never really about scale; it was about tension, the sense of being dropped into a Cold War jungle where camouflage percentages and a growling stomach could be the difference between slipping by unseen or fumbling your way into an alert phase. Delta doesn’t adjust any of those systems, and that decision alone will probably split players.

Because yes, the camouflage mechanic is back in its full 2004 glory, still assigning numbers to your outfits and face paint depending on the terrain you’re crawling through, and the injury system still requires you to patch up broken bones and burns manually if you don’t want Snake to stumble around half-functional. The hunger meter is, thankfully, still here, forcing you to hunt frogs, snakes, or rations if you don’t want to hear his stomach complain loud enough to blow your cover. Back then, these systems were innovative, even radical, compared to the standard health bars and ammo counters of other action games. Today, they can feel more like flavor than necessity, but there’s something oddly grounding about having to bandage Snake’s wounds after a clumsy misstep, or swapping camouflage on the fly with the new D-pad shortcut instead of digging endlessly through menus.

The graphical overhaul, though, is where the nostalgia really flexes. The jungles, mountain ranges, and murky swamps feel like every blade of grass might betray your position. Snake picks up dirt, blood, and foliage on his body, scars appear when you botch your medical care, and the dynamic lighting changes everything about how an encounter feels. Sneaking in broad daylight under the watchful eye of a guard tower is nerve-racking, while crawling through the jungle at night with nothing but moonlight on your back makes old patrol patterns feel suddenly unpredictable. Cutscenes, of course, benefit the most. The iconic ladder climb set to the Snake Eater theme is back in all its surreal glory, only this time framed with the kind of cinematic fidelity that makes you forget you’re essentially watching Snake climb rungs for minutes on end.

But some of this high-fidelity camp doesn’t land as well as it used to. Ocelot howling to call for backup, or The Cobra Unit’s supernatural theatrics looked delightfully absurd in the grainy PS2 original, but in ultra-detailed 4K, they can tip over into the uncanny. It’s the tradeoff of preserving everything: you keep the charm, but you also inherit the quirks that age less gracefully. The same goes for boss fights. The Pain and The Fear remain drawn-out slogs where you’re mostly waiting for a window to attack, while The End is still a masterclass in patience and improvisation, and The Sorrow is still a meta mind game that few other series would dare to attempt. Konami hasn’t remixed or modernized these encounters, so whether you find that frustrating or faithful depends on what you expected.

Controls, however, have been modernized in ways I welcomed. Snake now moves with fluidity closer to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, crouch-to-crawl transitions are smoother, and close-quarters combat is less stiff. The New Style camera, an over-the-shoulder perspective, changes how I read encounters and makes aiming more precise, and the Legacy option remains for purists. Yet not every quirk is gone. The cover system still clings too eagerly to walls, and the bullet drop with the MK22 tranquilizer makes my old long-distance knockout routine much harder. Enemies are sharper too, spotting me from farther away or detecting me from angles that used to be safe, and I had to relearn patterns I once thought I knew perfectly.

Performance isn’t spotless either. For all the visual fidelity, there are small blemishes: hair strands on Eva or The Boss can pixelate against certain backgrounds, cutscenes occasionally stutter under heavy loads, and the re-recorded Snake Eater theme throws the rhythm of the iconic ladder sequence off just enough to make veterans bristle. It’s not broken, far from it, but these are the moments when the cracks in Konami’s otherwise reverent presentation show.

And reverence really is the word. Every classic trick still works, from skipping The End fight by sniping him early to watching guards drop goofy items if you surprise them. Extras like Snake vs. Monkey return, the long-missing Guy Savage minigame makes a comeback, and post-launch content like the Foxhunt multiplayer is planned. There’s a new model viewer, new camouflage borrowed from later entries, and even a “secret theater” addition. All these little touches signal a remake made not to reimagine, but to compile, preserve, and gently smooth over the edges of what was already there.

So where does that leave me? A remake that’s less about elevating Snake Eater into something new and more about reminding us why it was iconic in the first place. The political melodrama is still engrossing, the bond between Snake and The Boss still lands with force, Eva still steals every scene she’s in (despite a few dated missteps in how her character is handled), and Ocelot still builds the kind of quirky rivalry that makes him unforgettable. None of that needed changing, and none of it has been touched.