Metal Gear Solid
Four decades of one plot told out of sequence, in games that assume you played the previous one and are lying to you about at least one thing.
Recommended first play
What to play first, and in what order, if you are starting cold.
A curator’s claim about what to play first, not a fact about the series. It moves 2 entries out of release order, and each one says why.
This is the series the chronology trap was invented for: the in-world order opens with a 1964 prequel that shipped ninth. Release order is still the recommendation, because these games are built out of callbacks — several late reveals are only reveals if you met the thing being revealed in an earlier game, in the order it was written.
- 1Metal Gear Solid
1998 · not in the catalogue
Not in our catalogue. The one everything after it quotes, and the reason the release order is the recommended order.
Entry pointNo page here - 2Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
2001 · not in the catalogue
Not in our catalogue. A direct sequel that spends its running time undermining the first game on purpose.
No page here - 3Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater
2004 · Konami
First in the story by forty years, third out of the shops, and the most self-contained of the lot — the only entry you can genuinely start with. Our catalogue holds the 2025 remake of it.
Entry point - 4Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
2008 · not in the catalogue
Not in our catalogue. Written as an ending, and almost entirely composed of answers to questions the earlier games asked.
No page here - 5Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
2010 · not in the catalogue
Not in our catalogue. Follows the 1964 game in the story and sets up the base-building the fifth game runs on.
No page here - 6Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
2015 · Kojima Productions
An open-world stealth sandbox, and the best of them to play and the worst to start on: it is the last chapter of the 1964 thread and assumes you have the other two.
1 place earlier than release - 7Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
2013 · PlatinumGames
A spin-off by a different studio: a pure action game about parrying, latest in the chronology and last in the recommendation. It is beside the series rather than in it, and nothing else here depends on it.
1 place later than release
