Solid Snake

Solid Snake
Metal Gear series character
File:MGS1 Solid Snake.jpg Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid, drawn by Yoji Shinkawa. Shinkawa's design would mark the beginning of consistency and continuity in Snake's design, and similar designs would appear in all later games.
First game	Metal Gear (1987)
Created by	Hideo Kojima

Solid Snake (ソリッド・スネーク, Soriddo Sunēku) is and the predominant protagonist of the Metal Gear franchise by Konami. Introduced in the 1987 video game Metal Gear and created by series creator Hideo Kojima, Solid Snake is a combination spy, special operations agent, and mercenary who works for FOXHOUND, a fictional black ops and espionage unit, and Philanthropy in later games. He is repeatedly tasked with disarming and destroying the latest incarnation of Metal Gear, a bipedal, nuclear-weapon-armed mecha. He is voiced in the Japanese and English language releases of the games by seiyū Akio Ōtsuka and actor/screenwriter David Hayter, respectively.

In each game of which he is the protagonist, Solid Snake must act alone, supported via radio by commanding officers and specialists. He enters armed only with his wits, his two-way radio (the "codec" in later games), binoculars, and a pack of cigarettes, and must acquire all additional equipment (such as weapons, rations, or his signature cardboard box disguise) on site.

Early Metal Gear games

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Left:Solid Snake on the boxart for Metal Gear. Right: Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese in The Terminator.

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Solid Snake's character portrait in MG2 (upper left) was based on actor Mel Gibson.

Much as Metal Gear began as a pastiche of action movies of the time, Solid Snake began as a pastiche of contemporary action movie heroes. For example, on the cover artwork of the original Metal Gear, he resembles Michael Biehn in The Terminator, and the in-game portrait of Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake resembles Mel Gibson (who was then starring in the Lethal Weapon movies). Solid Snake was even named after an action movie hero: Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's character in Escape from New York. Due to Kojima's admission that Escape from New York is one of his favorite films, later revisions of Solid Snake would be based on the Plissken character. Kojima describes Snake's role in the original Metal Gear as the "player's presence", explaining the paradoxical codename of Solid Snake to suit both, the player's personality and the character's toughness, contrasting the defined personality Solid Snake acquired in Metal Gear Solid.

Metal Gear, initially released in 1987 on the MSX2 home computer, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned in Gray Fox's last transmission is. After rescuing a member of the resistance, Snake discovers that he has been set up; the leader of Outer Heaven is actually Big Boss, who intends to use Metal Gear—an experimental, nuclear-armed mecha—to establish Outer Heaven as a nuclear power. After destroying the Metal Gear itself, he then confronts Big Boss and defeats him.

The NES port of Metal Gear was an unexpected million-seller when it was released in North America. Konami commissioned the production of an NES sequel for the North American market titled Snake's Revenge, which was developed without the involvement of the first game's director, Hideo Kojima. Kojima has told a story in several interviews about riding the train home and running into one of the staffers working on Snake's Revenge, and being asked to rejoin them and help make an authentic sequel to Metal Gear. Upon agreeing to this, the game they produced was Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Metal Gear 2, initially released only in Japan for the MSX2, follows after the original Metal Gear rather than Snake's Revenge; indeed, all later games ignore the events of Snake's Revenge, relegating it to non-canon status.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake sees Solid Snake once again called up to infiltrate a heavily-fortified enemy base, this time in Zanzibar Land. Zanzibar Land has aggravated an international oil crisis and declared themselves a nuclear power by kidnapping Dr. Kio Marv, the creator of the formula to OILIX (a bio-engineered algae that produces an oil substitute), and Dr. Pettrovich Madnar, the developer of the original Metal Gear. Snake infiltrates the base and retrieves Dr. Marv's OILIX formula (albeit not Marv himself, who is tortured to death). However, he discovers that Pettrovich and his former comrade Gray Fox have defected to Zanzibar Land, and that Zanzibar Land is led by none other than Big Boss. Snake destroys the new Metal Gear D, confronts and kills Gray Fox in a fist fight in the middle of a mine field, then kills Big Boss with a makeshift flamethrower in a final confrontation between the two.

Metal Gear Solid series

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Solid Snake drawing a SOCOM pistol in Metal Gear Solid.

Following the release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Solid Snake did not appear in another game until 1998 (a full eight years later), when he re-emerged as the protagonist of the PlayStation game Metal Gear Solid. This game, which debuted at E3 1997 to great fanfare, soon became an international hit and garnered critical acclaim worldwide.

The opening of Metal Gear Solid sees Solid Snake pulled out of retirement by Colonel Campbell to deal with FOXHOUND. Under the leadership of Liquid Snake, FOXHOUND goes rogue, seizing Shadow Moses Island, the home of an American nuclear weapons disposal facility. Snake infiltrates the base and meets up with Meryl Silverburgh, a rookie soldier, and Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, the designer of Metal Gear REX. Snake defeats each member of FOXHOUND one by one, destroys Metal Gear REX, and confronts Liquid Snake. Liquid Snake reveals that he and Solid Snake both are clones of Big Boss, from the "Les Enfants Terribles" project. He then challenges his brother to show who is truly superior, a confrontation which ends in Liquid Snake's death.

In addition to expanding Solid Snake's backstory, as the first Metal Gear game to feature voice acting Metal Gear Solid established his characteristic voice and appearance. Yoji Shinkawa's Solid Snake design, characterized by his navy blue bandanna and "sneaking suit", would serve as the template for all future incarnations of Snake in later Metal Gear games. According to Shinkawa, his physique was based on that of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, while his facial appearance was originally inspired by actor Christopher Walken. Shinkawa described his rendition of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid as a "middle ground" between the younger Snake who graced the cover artwork of the first Metal Gear and the middle-aged Snake from the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2.

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Solid Snake in MGS2 was designed to look a decade older than his incarnation in the first MGS.

Solid Snake is the playable protagonist of the extensive prologue sequence of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, in which he is sent by the anti-proliferation organization Philanthropy to infiltrate a cargo tanker and photograph Metal Gear RAY, the latest Metal Gear model. During the operation, however, the Metal Gear RAY is hijacked and the tanker destroyed, with Snake presumed dead. Following the incident, "photographic evidence of Snake on the scene" taken by his archnemesis Revolver Ocelot is spread, leading the public into believing Snake sunk the tanker.

The remainder of the game follows the actions of the rookie FOXHOUND agent Raiden (the character now controlled by the player), who has been assigned to rescue the U.S. President and a number of other government officials being held hostage at a remote offshore facility. Solid Snake, who survived the explosion in the prologue, appears throughout the main portion of the game (initially adopting the pseudonym Iroquois Pliskin, taken from the name of the character Snake Plissken from Escape from New York) as a non-playable character who assists Raiden.

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An aged Solid Snake holding a SOPMOD M4 Carbine in MGS4, in which he closely resembles Big Boss, despite that Snake only being 42 years of age.

The PlayStation 3 game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features an aged Snake under the new codename Old Snake, closely resembling Big Boss. Advanced cellular degeneration caused by the cloning process used to create him has aged him prematurely. This new character design is based upon actor Lee Van Cleef. According to Ryan Payton of Konami, Guns of the Patriots is the final canonical Metal Gear game to feature Solid Snake as the main character, regardless of whether there'll be another Metal Gear Solid game after it or not.

In spinoffs

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Snake in Metal Gear Acid 2 wielding the G36C. Artwork by Tsubasa Masao.

Shinta Nojiri, who worked as an event planner in Metal Gear Solid, directed a trilogy of Metal Gear spinoffs which, are not canonical with respect to the main, Kojima-directed series, but side-stories set in a parallel universe. The first of these games is the Game Boy Color title Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (released outside Japan as Metal Gear Solid). Ghost Babel, which serves as alternate sequel to the original Metal Gear that ignores events of Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, sees Solid Snake infiltrating a rebuilt Outer Heaven (now called Galuade) to destroy a new Metal Gear prototype, Gander. He faces the Gindra Liberation Front, a separatist guerrilla group that has taken over the fortress, as well as a FOXHOUND-like team of special agents called Black Chamber, who have a vendetta against Snake. While the promotional art for the game were drawn by Yoji Shinkawa, the actual in-game character designs were done by Ikuya Nakamura, who would go on to direct the Kojima-produced Boktai series.

Metal Gear Acid, Solid Snake must infiltrate the Lobito Physics and Research Laboratory, in order to retrieve "Pythagoras", to satisfy hijackers who have kidnapped presidential candidate Viggo Hach. This mission is complicated by La Clown, an expert mimic who impersonates Teliko (Solid Snake's intended inside contact), and subtle brainwashing that nearly convinces him that he is Hans Davis, a ruthless scientist that worked at the Lobito facility. He overcomes both and contacts the real Teliko, then destroys the latest model of Metal Gear, Metal Gear KODOQUE. The character designs in Metal Gear Acid were done by Tsubasa Masao (character designer of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner). In Metal Gear Ac!d, the in-game models do not reflect Masao's anime-style designs, instead closely resembling the designs used in the Metal Gear Solid series. Masao's divergent style does appear in Acid-related promotional art.

Metal Gear Acid 2 forces upon Snake a different kind of identity crisis. An amnesiac Snake, framed for the death of the president of the Serena Republic, is coerced into teaming up with an agent named Venus to infiltrate SaintLogic Labs to investigate illegal military experiments rumored to be taking place there. The illegal experiments turn out to be a rebuilt Metal Gear KODOQUE and its successor, Metal Gear Chaioth Ha Qadesh, but their destruction is no end to Snake's troubles. It is revealed that he is not Solid Snake at all, but instead a clone based on tissue samples from Lobito Island. After this revelation and his separation from Venus, Snake commandeers the Chaioth Ha Qadesh to launch himself into the ocean, where he is rescued by his "CO" and reunited with his Serena Republic resistance comrades. The character designs in the sequel were once again done by Tsubasa and Masao, with the game's cel-shaded graphical style and more-stylized character designs adhering closely to his colourful, clearly-inked concept art.

Other appearances

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Snake fighting Mario in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with Metal Gear RAY in the background

Solid Snake has appeared in a number of other games, including other Konami games, and more unusually, under license in games developed and published by other companies, such as Sony and Nintendo.

Hideo Kojima makes a habit of referencing his previous work. In the MSX2 RPG SD Snatcher, Gillian Seed adopts the alias of Solid Snake to infiltrate a snatcher-worshiping cult. In the console versions of Policenauts, a bar named after Solid Snake can be seen in front of Jonathan Ingram's Detective Agency at Old LA during the opening credits. Moreover, the supplemental title Policenauts Pilot Disk for the 3DO (later ported to the PlayStation as Policenauts: Private Collection) features early conceptual artwork of Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh and members of FOXHOUND for the then-unreleased Metal Gear Solid when one looks for FOXHOUND in the interactive glossary. In the second and third games in the Kojima-produced, Konami-published Boktai series, Solid Snake makes cameos identified as "a man with no name" (maintaining the Spaghetti Western motif of the Boktai series, with character names such as Django and Sabata).

Solid Snake also appears in both halves of two different series crossovers. In Evolution Skateboarding, from Konami, Snake, along with Raiden, appears as hidden playable characters. The game includes two levels based on the Big Shell stage featured in Metal Gear Solid 2. (A demo of Evolution Skateboarding is, in turn, included in the PlayStation 2 version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance). Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, features a mini-game titled "Snake vs. Monkey, where Solid Snake (portrayed by the Naked Snake model from the main game) is sent by Campbell to capture monkeys at the wilderness. In Ape Escape 3, he appears in the corresponding mini-game Mesal Gear Solid, where he helps out Pipo Snake.

He has also appeared in a pair of cross-company fighting games. In DreamMix TV World Fighters, Solid Snake appears as a playable character alongside other third-party characters such as Bomberman and Convoy (Optimus Prime). Similarly, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a popular fighting game from Nintendo, Solid Snake appeared alongside Nintendo-owned characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Pikachu, making him one of the game's two playable third-party characters (the other being Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog).

Snake has been confirmed to be a playable character in the upcoming Nintendo DS game, New International Track & Field, alongside fellow Konami characters such as Sparkster and Simon Belmont, as well as new original characters.