Metal Gear Solid 4 Finally Escapes the PS3: Master Collection Vol. 2 Is Out Today

For eighteen years, playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots meant digging a PlayStation 3 out of a closet. That era ends today. Konami has released Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 worldwide on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam, and MGS4 is the headliner, ported off Sony's 2006 hardware for the first time since its 2008 debut.

The 49.99 dollar package pairs it with the HD Collection version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the 2010 PSP entry that still supports online co-op for up to six players, though there is no crossplay between platforms. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, the excellent and long stranded Game Boy Color spinoff, rides along as bonus content. If you only want one game, Konami also sells MGS4 and Peace Walker as standalone digital titles.

Video: Konami on YouTube

What you actually get for fifty dollars

Beyond the games themselves, the collection carries the same museum treatment as the first volume: a screenplay book with the in-game text of both main titles, a master book covering the story and characters, a digital soundtrack, and a database for the series lore, which MGS4 in particular has always needed. Anyone with save data from Master Collection Vol. 1 gets bonus in-game items, and preordering added cardboard themed uniforms for both games, a very Metal Gear kind of reward. On Steam, Konami is also selling a bundle that packages Vol. 1 with last year's Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater remake.

Early reviews have been broadly positive, and the consensus is easy to summarize. MGS4 runs well on modern hardware and remains one of the strangest, most ambitious blockbusters ever made, while the criticisms center on Peace Walker being the recycled 2011 HD port rather than a fresh remaster, and on the absence of Metal Gear Online, which was part of MGS4's original identity.

Our take

Preservation news this good is rare. MGS4 was the single biggest hole in the series' availability, a game trapped on one console for nearly two decades, and it is now playable on everything from a Switch to a Steam Deck. The Switch 2 in particular keeps collecting heavyweight ports, just days after Elden Ring arrived on the console. It is a strange feeling to see Konami, a publisher whose live output these days revolves around football and card games like Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel, quietly become one of the better custodians of its own history. If you have never seen how Solid Snake's story ends, this is the easiest it has ever been, and at fifty dollars for two mainline games and a bonus classic, we think it is priced fairly.