The 10 WORST Metal Gear Solid Characters

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

What the hell was going on with this villain in MGS2.A roller-skating, bomb-loving character with a cartoonish vibe, who heavily lacks the depth of other villains in the series, and I mean HEAVILY, haha fat joke, got him .. I have high blood pressure. Fatman is ridiculous, from his character design, to his character execution, he took the absurdity of the caricatured villains of the first entry, and ramped it up to 11, on the scales BOOM SECOND FAT JOKE. My doctor is worried about my weight, MOVING ON.

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

It’s not until right at this moment did I realise just how many entries on this list are from Metal Gear Solid 2, but unfortunately, Kojima was on something for sure. Fortune in Metal Gear Solid 2 is often criticized as a weak character due to her underdeveloped motivations and inconsistent writing, but it’s even deeper than that. She’s introduced with a unique gimmick: bullets always miss her, which sets up intrigue, but her storyline never fully delivers, and kinda cops out at the end. Her motivations revolve around revenge and loss, yet these emotions are told rather than shown, making her feel one-dimensional. The reveal that her powers were manufactured rather than supernatural also undermines her mystique. It’s just bad from beginning to end, and her boss fight is so annoying that she’s cemented in MGS history as a total t**t.

Skull Face
“Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” (2015)

Skull Face was used FAR too much in the promo of this game, he was kinda set up to be the next Vamp, the next Psycho Mantis, the next Colonel Volgen, instead, he was just some dude. Skull Face in Metal Gear Solid V has crazy minimal screen time and a huge lack of meaningful development. Just like Fortune, his motivations are mostly explained through monologues rather than explored through action. Despite his intimidating presence, he rarely interacts with the protagonist, making his impact feel hollow. His backstory is largely relegated to optional audio tapes, distancing players from his a step further. Underutilised is the best way to sum up his status, and he suffers from the Kojima curse of exposition dumping through dialogue .. VERY boring.

Strangelove
“Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker” (2010)

Strangelove in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is often criticized for being a poorly written and inconsistent character, and the game sometimes forces us to try and empathise with her, which is difficult with her scene with Paz when applying sunscreen, and her when she tried applying miracle cure to her chest. While introduced as a brilliant AI expert, her motivations are muddled, especially her obsession with recreating The Boss’s personality in an AI. Her interactions with Big Boss feel forced, with some dialogue bordering on awkward or unnatural. Her whole character is just there to force the narrative in particular directions.

Nastasha Romanenko
“Metal Gear Solid” (1998)

Who? Exactly. You know a character is bad when you can go through the entire experience of a game without knowing they exist. Memorable characters you can interact with in Metal Gear Solid include The Colonel (obviously), Naomi, Miller (kinda), and Mei Ling, but much like Sigint in MGS3, Nastasha does not interject in any codec call in the main story, meaning you can play the entire experience without ever so much as hearing her voice. When you do call her, her character is dry, her explanations are dry, her vibe is dry, Nastasha is dry.

Drebin 893
“Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” (2008)

Metal Gear Solid 4, is NOT the Metal Gear Sold game to start with if you aren’t already a fan of the series. Without any context for the characters, or pre-investment, you might spend a lot of the game saying “CAN I JUST PLAY THE GAME!?”, as it holds records in video game cutscenes, the most notable of which being the longest cutscene of all time coming in at an hour and 10 minutes. The worst offender for non-stop-goddamn-exposition-babbling is Drebin 893, whose slow way of speaking, and the dense information he has to feed the character about the world, the new landscape of war, and of course gun laundering, makes for a mind numbing collection of interactions. His saving grace is telling the backstories of the B&B girls, yet even this is shoe-horned in.

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

It’s a bit of a misogynistic trope to get annoyed at a talkative partner, roll your eyes when they go on and on about something, breathe heavily out of your nose when they start an argument for seemingly no reason .. BUT ROSEMARY MAKES IT SO HARD TO BE A DECENT MODERN MAN! First off, she works the system to get herself on the team to support Raiden, which is a wild invasion of privacy, especially when this is probably one of those occasions where Raiden MIGHT need to focus, and THEN she constantly interjects in the story to have deep heart to heart chats with Jack, reminiscing and giggling about their first date while he huddles in a corner with his gun drawn, and the blood of his enemies still dripping from his boots. Admittedly, there is conjecture about when Rose is Rose, and when she’s AI Rose, but either version of her shows serious signs of being THE WORST.

Johnny Sasaki
“Metal Gear Solid” Series (1998-)

This is gonna be a tough one for some folks, because Johnny is one of those characters that you either love to death, or hate to death, either way, somebody wants him to death. While meant to provide comic relief, Johnny's repeated appearances grow stale over time, thanks to his one-note personality and the overuse of the same jokes throughout the series. What’s the joke you ask? He’s always got diarrhea .. Yeah, most of the time, he’s actually got poop dripping from the back of his pants. Well done Kojima, you really nailed the comedy on this guy. AND this is coming from a guy who LOVES poop jokes.

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

Probably our last controversial entry comes in the form of Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2, and I KNOW this is controversial, because I hated him, and my brother loved him, and it caused quite the riff in our relationship. The most community backlash upon release, and at the introduction of Raiden, came because players expected to control Solid Snake, as the publicity material had implied. Instead, after a brief prologue, they were handed a new, unknown character with a very different demeanor. Raiden’s youthful appearance, emotional vulnerability, and lack of battlefield experience clashed with Snake’s hardened persona, frustrating fans. Even if you do love him, you have to admit, he WAS very very whiny. And if he wasn’t fundamentally unlikable, why did they completely rebuild his character in Metal Gear Solid 4 to match Snake’s hardened character?

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

Don’t give me an annoying character, and combine it with annoying gameplay, at LEAST Raiden was fun to play as. Emma Emmerich in (that’s right) Metal Gear Solid 2 was disliked by many players due to her slow, escort-style gameplay segment and emotionally awkward presence. Her section of the game forced players to protect and guide her through a dangerous area, which many found tedious and frustrating. Additionally, her voice acting and overly sentimental interactions, particularly with Otacon, her stepbrother, came across as melodramatic, and SUPER uncomfortable. Her backstory was tragic, but her limited screen time and sudden importance to the plot felt crazy unearned, and by the time she died (spoiler alert), I couldn’t have given 2 f**ks.