10 Best 4th Wall Breaks In Metal Gear Solid Games

Script written by Aaron Brown

"Metal Gear Solid" is known for many things, including some insane 4th wall breaks. Hideo Kojima is a master of messing with gamers and these are some of our favorite times he broke from the script to address the player directly. Our list includes Psycho Mantis' antics in "Metal Gear Solid" (1998), the time paradox from "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater" (2004), Snake's mention of a previous death in "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" (2008), and more! What was the biggest fourth wall break in gaming you’ve ever experienced? Let us know in the comments below.

Disc Swap

“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots” (2008)

Technology marches ever forward and the Metal Gear series is certainly a strong believer in its advancements. The original Metal Gear Solid was such an ambitious game it couldn’t be contained on a single PS1 disc and towards the end of the game players would have to swap to disc number 2. For many PlayStation owners, this was nothing new as many games of the time required multiple discs to play. Kojima decided to have a little fun with this fact in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots during Snake’s return to Shadow Moses. Otacon will call Snake and advise him that he needs to switch to Disc 2 before realizing the game is now on a Blu-Ray disc that can hold far more data and even goes on a small tangent praising the new technological advancements of Blu-Rays.

Meryl’s Codec

“Metal Gear Solid” (1998)

One of Kojima’s earliest fourth wall breaks to take the game into the real world; players first meet Meryl after the DARPA Chief’s death, and a heated gun battle ensues. Shortly after, players were instructed to contact Meryl to meet up with her to retrieve a PAL card to advance further into the facility. Colonel Campbell instructed players to find Meryl’s CODEC number on the back of the CD case. Now bear in mind, this was before the internet was readily available so these instructions made little sense to many gamers. What the game was instructing players to do was to literally pick up the game case, and find the screenshot on the back in which Snake is talking to Meryl over CODEC. For those who rented the game, like me, and didn’t have access to the case, this was where the game stalled for a lot of players.

The Good Old Days

“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots” (2008)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a love letter to the series and features a myriad of callbacks and direct references to previous entries in the series. One of the more amusing ones comes late in the game when players return to Shadow Moses. Players are dropped into the opening area of the first Metal Gear Solid game and numerous flashbacks and ghostly voices from that first Shadow Moses mission are sure to stir up fond memories for longtime fans. If players move the camera to an overhead view mimicking the perspective of the first Metal Gear Solid and run around for a bit, Snake will comment, “Overhead view, just like old times.” It’s a clever nod to the series’ earliest roots and players are even given a trophy for their nostalgia.

Upset Stomach

“Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater” (2004)

We’ve already established how much Kojima loves to break the fourth wall but in some cases it’s not always easily noticeable. One of the main gameplay mechanics of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the camouflage system in which Snake needs to routinely change his camo gear to blend in with his surroundings. Couple this with the need to eat much of the wildlife and fauna you come across during your playthrough and some gamers discovered that if you feed Snake and then go into the camo menu and spin Snake around for a bit and then immediately exit back to the game, Snake will puke his guts out. Not only that but this detail can be used during gameplay as patrolling soldiers will actually slip and fall on Snake’s vomit. Only a madman could think of something like this, and we love him all the more for it.

Beyond Death

“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots” (2008)

Death is inevitable in any video game and the Metal Gear Solid series is no different. Whether it was a careless mistake, the choice to run in guns blazing, or you simply mistimed an enemy patrol, Snake has certainly had his fair share of deaths throughout the many entries in the beloved series. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots makes those deaths carry a bit more weight however, in that after Snake perishes at the hands of an enemy and then immediately calls Rose upon reloading the game, sometimes Snake will comment about how he had a weird dream in which he died by whatever weapon did him in before the game reset. It’s a wonderful little detail even if it does make us wonder if our mistakes are leading to Snake having a severe case of PTSD every time we reload the last checkpoint.

I’ll Know

“Metal Gear Solid” (1998)

By the time Snake is captured by Sniper Wolf and then handed, (get it?) over to Revolver Ocelot for interrogation, it’s safe to say the Ocelot has a score to settle. Before attempting to torture Snake, Ocelot will not only criticize Snake that its been a while since he’s saved his game, how about that, a fourth wall break before a fourth wall break, he’ll warn Snake that if he tries to use Auto-Fire during his attempts to resist the shock treatments, he’ll know. If the player does attempt to use Auto-Fire, Ocelot will simply up the voltage and kill Snake leaving Liquid cursing Ocelot for his carelessness. Players are given even more incentive to resist the torture because if they don’t submit, then Meryl’s life is spared and the player unlocks the true canonical ending to the game.

Hideo Recruitment

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker” (2010)

The Metal Gear series is Hideo Kojima’s baby, his life’s work up until his split with Konami and he genuinely loves making video games, so it was only a matter of time before he ended up in them as well. In Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, one of the most interesting new mechanics, at the time, was the recruitment of enemy soldiers to work on your Motherbase while you’re on mission. One of these soldiers you’re able to recruit is Hideo himself, labeled as “Game Designer” in his profile. Kojima would take this cameo a step further in Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes in which Snake must actually rescue Hideo from the prison camp and upon reaching the chopper, chastise the player by stating “What took you so long?”

Time Paradox

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater” (2004)

Time travel is a tricky business. Make one wrong decision and the ramifications can be catastrophic. Making a game that takes place in the earliest point of an established timeline can be even more difficult given player agency over many of the game’s scenarios. Kojima and his team found a clever workaround for this eventuality, however. If the player were to accidentally, or purposely, we don’t judge, kill a character or ancestor of a character that is still around in the modern entries, they would create a “Time Paradox” and an instant Game Over. This was used to great effect in both Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in which both games would give players the opportunity to “accidentally” kill Revolver Ocelot who is very much alive and pivotal to the plot of later entries in the series.

Psycho Goes Psycho

“Metal Gear Solid” (1998)

The fourth wall break that started it all. Gamers in 1998 were fully unprepared for what Kojima had in store for them. There had been numerous moments where the characters were aware they were in a game, see our earlier entries, but this one took things a step further. Showcasing his psychic abilities, Psycho Mantis would vibrate gamer’s controllers with his mind or even freakier still, read their memory card and call them out for other Konami games they had played. Shattering the fourth wall completely, the easiest way to beat Psycho Mantis was to swap controller ports to prevent Mantis from predicting Snake’s attacks. Kojima would revisit this fourth wall break by reviving Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid 4, in which he gets frustrated by the fact he can’t read the player’s memory card due to games now being saved to the console hard drive.

Simulation Within A Simulation

“Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty” (2001)

The mother of all fourth wall breaks broke not only gamer’s minds but poor Raiden’s as well. As if running around completely naked and afraid wasn’t bad enough but the two people who have been with you throughout your entire mission begin acting strangely. And strangely doesn’t even begin to describe it. Kojima really wanted to nail home the fact that Raiden’s mission was a simulated recreation of the Shadow Moses incident and there was no better way than to create a simulation within a simulation. Colonel Campbell and Rose begin saying things that don’t make any sense before the game actively begins fighting against the player, making them believe their file is corrupted and instructing the player to “Turn off the console right now.” Even today it’s a mind trip especially for those unprepared.