Metal Gear Solid 4 won’t be out until later this year, but Konami isn’t letting its last anthology of older Metal Gear Solid games languish in the meantime. The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 just got its final big update and it adds improved HD resolutions for some of the games, as well as a performance upgrade to finally let the more demanding games run at 60fps on Switch 2.
The big improvements are coming to Metal Gear Solid 1 and Snake Eater. As shown off in this week’s PlayStation State of Play, they have expanded resolution settings. You can now play with “original,” “high,” or “max” resolution, though at least for the original Metal Gear there are reports that the improved HD textures lead to some weird jaggies on the screen.
The new patch also makes it possible to finally swap the confirm and cancel buttons in the settings menu, and adds key binding options for mouse and keyboard on PC. On Metal Gear Solid 3, meanwhile, the texture pack apparently has a massive 60GB install size for the new upscaled resolutions, letting you boost the game to a bastard version of 4K.
But the most important takeaway from the update is what it does for the game on Nintendo’s platform. While the Switch 1 version is what it is (not great!), the Switch 2 version can now reportedly run Metal Gear Solid 2 and Snake Eater at roughly 60fps instead of being locked at 30fps. The upgrade adds a range of new options for customizing the internal resolution and upscaling outputs across the main game and the cinematics, letting fans find what they feel is the optimal compromise between the original look and feel of these games and modern expectations for crisp and smooth performance.
The original release of the the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 was fairly disappointing given the stature and significance of the games involved. But Konami has slowly made things right over the course of two years and several updates. The Switch 2 upgrade is the final make-good and brings performance in-line with the other console versions on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Now every time it goes on sale on Switch I don’t have to shy away from recommending it to people, including right now. It’s currently 30 percent off on all platforms.
