Summary
In a move that does little to dissuade the cynicism surrounding how parent company Konami treats its legacy IP, theMetal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1has officially released to a slew of problems and performance issues, with the largest offenders being the Nintendo Switch and PC versions. Aside from the fact thatMetal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1is less of an actual “collection” and more of a key for accessing the separate downloads for each of the games contained therein, the games themselves don’t stack up to the initial performance specs advertised by Konami. The Nintendo Switch version might unfortunately be stuck as-is, but the modding community has collectively come to the rescue of the PC version.
In a very short time since theMetal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1released, PC users have quickly come together to pour through the title and datamine important information regarding the game’s runtime files. In addition to discovering the names ofgames potentially included in aMaster Collection Vol. 2, users have also discovered some of the issues causing the lackluster performance of the games on PC and have been able to quickly figure out workarounds to address these issues independently through modding. This ingenuity of individual users to “fix” the game begs the question of why Konami didn’t put the resources into properly preserving one of its most important franchises.
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Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 Issues Fixed by Modders
In the lead-up to the release ofMetal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, even Konami itself couldn’t seem to iron out a consistent message regarding how each game in the collection would perform on its various release platforms. After bouncing back and forth regarding the expected frame rates and resolutions for each of the titles,Konami released a laundry listof known issues that the company intended to fix immediately following the collection’s launch through patches. One of these was the resolution of the PC versions being locked at 720p despite being initially advertised as running at 1080p.
Within just hours of the title’s release, though, a modder by the name of Sergeanur uploaded a patch to GitHub that successfully fixes the resolution issues for theMaster Collection’s versions ofMetal Gear Solid 2and3, bringing the games up to possible 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 resolutions. Still, there are some known UI issues that the upscaling causes, highlighting just how inefficiently each of the games were optimized before being re-released on modern hardware. Other mods include updating the menus and in-game text for the collections versions ofMGS 2and3to reflect them being part of theMaster Collectionrather than simply the same repackaged ports from theHD Collection.
Lessons Konami Should Take Into Future Master Collections
Between the lack of consistent messaging and inability of a major game publisher to sufficiently ensure that a collection of some of its most important games were arriving in a state befitting their legacy, it’s safe to say that theMetal Gear Solid: Master Collectionpresents a bit of a missed opportunity on Konami’s part. If independent users are capable of fixing the game’s textures and resolution issues merely hours after the title’s launch, it stands to reason that Konami could have put in the effort to address these issues itself. WithaVol. 2of theMaster Collectionpractically a certainty, it’s hopeful that Konami will useVol. 1’s shortcomings as a learning moment.
What’s especially disappointing is the fact that the versions of the games included in the collection have been unaltered from their same versions included in theHD Collection, giving the modding community even more incentive to go in and add HD textures and other quality-of-life features to the largely untouchedoriginalMetal Gear Solid. The games included in theMaster Collectionare some of the most important titles in the medium and still hold up incredibly well in today’s landscape. It’s unfortunate that Konami itself doesn’t seem to want to put forth the care these games deserve.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X/S.
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