Metal Gear Solid Delta to use the original MGS3 voices according to Konami

Konami Digital Entertainment has announced that the story and character voices in Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will remain as they were in the original game.

Announced during the PlayStation Showcase 2023, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a remake of Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater, which was first released for the PS2. According to Konami’s press release, “The remake will star the original voice characters,” but it is unclear whether this means that the game will use the voice recordings from the original or if the dialogue is being newly recorded by the original voice actors.

However, a post from the official Japanese Metal Gear Twitter account has revealed that voices from the original version will be used in the remake. The English official Twitter account later made a similar tweet as well.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is one of the games in Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series. Set during the Cold War, the game follows protagonist Naked Snake on a mission to destroy a new nuclear-armed weapon and assassinate The Boss, leader of the Cobra Unit. The game was notable for its stealth-action gameplay that predominately takes place in jungle environments and its stamina system, which requires Snake to find and consume native flora and fauna to survive. The game’s epic story also left a lasting impression on many players.

In the Japanese version, Naked Snake is voiced by Akio Otsuka, who also voices other characters in the series who go by the name Snake. (Naked Snake is voiced by David Hayter in the English version.) The rest of the cast is also first-rate, but several of these voice actors have since passed away, including Kenji Utsumi (voice of Volgin), Kazumi Tanaka (voice of The Fear), and Keiji Fujiwara (voice of Sigint). This led to concerns among the fanbase as to how the voices of these characters would be handled in the remake.

The main point to take away from Konami’s tweet is that rather than say the “cast” will remain unchanged, it says the “voices” will remain unchanged. This can be interpreted to mean that the original voice recordings will be reused. This tweet might be an indication that Konami is aware of the fans’ sentiments toward the remake.

This is noteworthy considering the uproar that had occurred due to the company’s prior treatment of Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima. Kojima worked on the series as an employee of Konami and lead the in-house development team Kojima Productions. However, after the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in 2015, he parted ways with Konami.

There were many rumors surrounding the circumstances behind his resignation from the company. We don’t know anything about the current state of the relationship between Kojima, the MGS3 voice cast, and the Konami of today, but for fans who know of the events from that time, how the voice acting would be handled in the remake was a matter of great concern. This is readily apparent based on the countless Twitter posts that touched on the issue. It’s possible that the tweet from Konami was a response to these passionate fans.

As mentioned previously, a number of Japanese voice actors from the original MGS3 have passed away, so the decision to reuse the original voice recordings for the remake can be considered a natural one when thinking about how to preserve the performances of these actors.

With the exception of a spin-off, no new title in the Metal Gear series has been released since Kojima departed Konami. It has also been difficult to play past games in the series, as they have not been available on the latest generation of consoles. That is soon to change, however, as alongside Metal Gear Solid Delta, Konami announced Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, bringing the series to the latest platforms. While many fans are overjoyed by this news, there are still those who continue to harbor conflicted feelings about the series due to the messy breakup between Kojima and Konami that we described above. It will be interesting to see how Metal Gear Solid Delta will be received by both new players and long-time fans of the series. 

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-05-25 17:59 JST)