If Hideo Kojima is remembered for one thing, it's the Metal Gear Solid, or just Metal Gear, series, which spans almost thirty years when you take into account the last entry with his name attached, Phantom Pain, was released in 2015. With Metal Gear Solid V being one of the best stealth games in recent gaming history, many are perhaps disheartened that Kojima is no longer associated with them. But fans can still relive the memories of some of the more classic games, as this one person did when they decided to recreate the opening of the second installment.
According to a recent report from Games Radar, art director Erasmus Brosdau has been working on a reimagining of the opening cinematic to 2001's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty using Unreal Engine 5. A short clip was uploaded to their Twitter account a couple of days ago, showing the current progress. Although it's only six seconds long, viewers can see the resemblance to this version and the original.
It shows Solid Snake played by David Hayter in the original game as he drops onto the USS Discovery in the gloomy cut scene at the start of the game. This UE5 version is currently a "work in progress" according to Brosdau's tweet, so it's safe to say that more will be coming, but even in this very brief glimpse, it looks pretty spectacular, using the modern engine to really create a more realistic rendition of this memorable cinematic.
Unreal 5 is one of the most popular gaming engines in the world, used in the creation of not just AAA titles, but also smaller, more independent games. The fact that Brosdau is an art director who, according to his Twitter profile, has worked on the likes of Crysis, Rise, and Star Citizen, shows that he has the talent to pull off a full reworking of the Metal Gear Solid 2 intro. It should be pointed out that this does not necessarily mean a full remake of the entire game is in the progress. It just appears to be this cutscene so far.
Metal Gear Solid has been a beloved franchise since the early PlayStation era, with the second installment being one of the best on the PS2 back in the early 2000s. Although Kojima is no longer making the games, and the latest release from 2018 was met with generally negative response, at least there are numerous already in the series that fans can return to, and, in this case, perhaps even improve on visually.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released for PlayStation 2, original Xbox and Windows back in 2001.
Source: Games Radar
