A retcon is an often occurrence for a franchise that has existed for quite some time. When it comes to the Metal Gear series, there are plenty of retcons to go around. This is because Metal Gear has existed for well over 30 years, in both prequels and sequels that can easily contradict each other whenever a new character or piece of dialogue is introduced.
As for what a retcon is, it’s when a fictional piece of work provides audiences with new information that alters previously described or established events. Metal Gear Solid has a few of these, since the franchise shifted from an overhead military action-adventure in 1987, to the open-world stealth game that concluded in 2015.
9 The “Fox” Title
In the original Metal Gear series, Gray Fox received the title of “Fox” for his great service. This title was given by Big Boss’ command, with many other characters receiving the title of “Fox” due to their status and experience that would benefit Big Boss. As revealed in the Metal Gear 2 radio, Roy Campbell was previously known as Chicken Fox, meaning that Gray Fox was not the only “Fox”.
When Metal Gear leaped 3D, Metal Gear Solid stated that Gray Fox was the only member of FOXHOUND that obtained the title of “Fox”. This retcon places extra importance on Gray Fox, and how powerful of a combatant he is, but at the sacrifice of established lore in Metal Gear 2.
8 Big Boss’ Eye
One of the most iconic looks in video games is Big Boss and his eyepatch. The look is a direct reference to Snake Plissken from the Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. films. It was revealed in the Metal Gear 2 manual that Big Boss lost his eye in the late 1980s and that due to this, was forced to retire from active combat with a lack of depth perception.
With the release of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, fans experienced the first prequel in the Metal Gear series. The game featured many retcons, but one of the more crucial ones was how Big Boss lost his eye. As Naked Snake, Big Boss had his eye shot out accidentally by Ocelot in 1964.
7 Venom Snake And Liquid Snake
A crucial character in the entire Metal Gear Solid series, Liquid Snake was the leader of FOXHOUND during the Shadow Moses Incident, and one of the clones of Big Boss from the Les Enfants Terribles project. Liquid resented his brothers, and Big Boss, claiming that Big Boss would berate him as the “inferior” clone, which fueled his hatred and desire for revenge.
In the later prequel game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, Liquid Snake is shown as a child known as Eli and is defeated during many confrontations with Venom Snake, who is believed to be Big Boss. Their relationship is almost non-existent, with Venom’s superiority in combat fuelling Eli’s revenge scheme.
6 Sunny Is Female
Olga Gurlukovich was a Russian operative working alongside a private army that she commanded. She was soon forced into joining the Patriots after they kidnapped Olga’s child, Sunny. Olga houses an important role in the Big Shell Incident, and Solid Snake refers to Olga’s child with male pronouns in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
When it came to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, audiences saw Sunny, and she was a girl. Sunny was being looked after by Old Snake and Hal Emmerich, and she tended to cook rather foul eggs. Sunny’s gender was a retcon, perhaps due to mistranslation.
5 Huey Emmerich’s Nuclear Legacy
When Hal Emmerich begins to get sentimental about his family’s “curse” in Metal Gear Solid, he mentions that his father was born on the day Hiroshima was bombed. Hal "Otacon", believes this to be part of the curse his family has endured, but what that curse entails, had not been explored at this point in the timeline.
When the prequel game was released, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, fans discovered who Hal’s father was. Huey Emmerich was a mechanical engineer, responsible for the development of the bipedal locomotion technology for the Peace Walker Project. He also developed a mobile nuclear missile platform, contributing to the legacy of the Emmerichs’ involvement in nuclear weapons.
4 Accelerated Aging
With Liquid Snake possessing the arm of Revolver Ocelot, he informs in Metal Gear Solid 2 that the advanced aging experienced by the clones of Big Boss is a result of cloning the man from his DNA in his later years in life, when he is past his prime, thus making them older.
It isn’t until Metal Gear Solid 4 that audiences discover a retcon, and that the accelerated aging that the clones experience, is due to the Les Enfants Terribles project. Accelerated aging is a fail-safe, written into their genes.
3 Solid Snake, American
When Solid Snake made his debut in 3D, his polygons were not the only thing that changed. Solid Snake was now American, of Japanese descent. This was a retcon from Metal Gear 2, in which the manual stated that Solid Snake was of Japanese-British descent.
The decision to make Solid Snake an American may have been a decision from Hideo Kojima, or the heads at Konami to make Solid Snake somehow seem more appealing to Western audiences.
2 The Boss And The Bay Of Pigs
Metal Gear Solid 3 saw the mentor to Naked Snake, The Boss, claim participation in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Bay of Pigs occurred in 1961, in which Cuban exiles launched a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. These exiles opposed Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution and were covertly financed by the U.S. government.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker saw reports that The Boss was in fact at the Bay of Pigs, but the truth is that The Boss was in a coma during this invasion, meaning her involvement was later retconned in a future game.
1 The Mammal Pod Lives
No character holds quite the ripple effect in the Metal Gear series than The Boss. The character has a legacy that changed the course of Naked Snake and turned him into Big Boss. In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, The Boss had an AI personality that was placed into The Mammal Pod. In yet another sacrifice, The AI drowned itself to be destroyed to stop nuclear devastation.
When it came to Metal Gear Solid 5, the Mammal Pod, along with The Boss’ AI, was functioning and intact after being recovered from Lake Nicaragua, and found a good home at Outer Heaven. It’s a pretty big retcon, considering the AI was malfunctioning and destroyed, but seems to be just fine in the later games.