Playing Metal Gear Solid Games in Story Order

The Metal Gear franchise stands as one of gaming's most celebrated stealth series, yet its complex timeline—filled with prequels, sequels, and narrative twists—can confuse even longtime players. While playing the games in their original release sequence preserves the intended experience and avoids spoilers, understanding the chronological story order helps clarify the overarching narrative and character arcs that span five decades.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (1964) begins the timeline during the Cold War, following operative Naked Snake as he undertakes a mission to rescue a Soviet scientist and eliminate his defected mentor. This entry establishes the origins of organizations like Fox and the Philosophers, while revealing how Solid Snake's predecessor transforms into the legendary Big Boss. The game serves as the emotional and narrative foundation for everything that follows.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (1970) takes place five years later, depicting Big Boss's departure from Fox to investigate a rogue military uprising. During this mission, he begins recruiting soldiers to form his own mercenary force, setting the stage for his future as the leader of Outer Heaven and marking his philosophical shift away from his mentor's teachings.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker (1974) expands Big Boss's private military operation in Costa Rica while he contends with Cold War tensions and prototype Metal Gear units. Working alongside Kazuhira Miller, Big Boss establishes Mother Base as headquarters for his growing forces. The game introduces key characters like Paz and Chico while concluding the emotional arc begun in Snake Eater.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (1975) serves as a prologue rather than a full game, confining the action to Camp Omega, a secret U.S. prison facility in Cuba. Big Boss attempts to rescue Paz and Chico, but the mission culminates in a devastating attack on Mother Base that leaves him critically wounded and sets up the next chapter.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (1984) resumes the story nine years later, following Big Boss—now called Venom Snake—as he rebuilds his shattered military force and seeks revenge against those responsible for the Mother Base attack. Alongside Ocelot and Miller, he reconstructs his organization while introducing parasite weapons as a significant plot element, ultimately leading to the establishment of Outer Heaven.

The original Metal Gear (1995) shifts focus to Solid Snake, a newly recruited operative for Foxhound, who infiltrates the military base Outer Heaven to rescue a captured agent and destroy a nuclear-capable Metal Gear unit. Despite being the first game released, it occurs roughly halfway through the timeline.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1999) brings the aging operative out of retirement to assault Zanzibar Land, a heavily fortified military base in Central Asia. Tasked with rescuing a kidnapped scientist and destroying an advanced Metal Gear, Snake uncovers the political conspiracies funding the operation and confronts Big Boss in their final encounter.

Metal Gear Solid (2005) reunites Snake with his espionage work when a renegade Foxhound unit seizes control of Shadow Moses, a nuclear weapons facility. Facing genetically enhanced soldiers and his own genetic twin, Liquid Snake, the aging operative must prevent a nuclear strike within a 24-hour window. He encounters allies including Otacon and Meryl during the operation.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2007-2009) begins with Solid Snake's failed attempt to intercept evidence of a new Metal Gear aboard a ship, an operation that ends in disaster and leaves him branded a terrorist. Two years later, rookie Foxhound agent Raiden takes center stage when the Sons of Liberty terrorist group seizes the Big Shell facility near New York. Raiden must rescue the president and confront Solidus Snake, a clone of Big Boss, while uncovering a vast governmental conspiracy orchestrated by the shadowy Patriots organization.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2014) concludes Solid Snake's story years after Sons of Liberty. Now drastically aged and facing accelerated biological decline, Snake confronts Revolver Ocelot, whose body appears controlled by remnants of Liquid Snake. With only a year to live, Snake works with returning allies and new technology to stop Ocelot's terrorist faction from destroying the Patriots organization, though their plan threatens to collapse all technological civilization in the process.