The Full Metal Gear Timeline (and Games)

[Acid_Snake]

Due to the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid Delta, I've seen many people starting to replay the Metal Gear Saga, and this inspired me to create a full list of games, both in release order as well as chronological order, for both new comers as well as older fans alike.

I will separate all Metal Gear games in three categories:
- Canon: the game and its story is set within the main series timeline.
- Strange Canon: the game doesn't seem to fit within the main timeline but it has strange connections with it. It's hard to tell if they are canon or not.
- Alternate Timeline: the game's story exist in an alternate timeline and has no connection with the main series whatsoever.

Before anything, I'll get this out of the way: Portable Ops and Rising ARE canon. I'm not going to go into any discussion regarding this as it's futile. In the case of Portable Ops it's even worse since most people consider it non-canon yet it's an important game to understand the transition from MGS3's Naked Snake to Peace Walker's Big Boss as well as Big Boss' ideology going forward in MGS5.

Also there is no such thing as "Metal Gear Survive", it was just a fever dream we all had.

Other than that, I am open to discuss or explain any plot point within any of the canon games.

With that out of the way, lets go with the lists.


* Canon games in Chronological Order
- Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater
- Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops
- Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker
- Metal Gear Solid 5 - Ground Zeroes
- Metal Gear Solid 5 - The Phantom Pain
- Metal Gear
- Metal Gear 2 - Solid Snake
- Metal Gear Solid (The Twin Snakes)
- Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty
- Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Patriots
- Metal Gear Rising - Revengeance

* Canon games in Release Order
- Metal Gear
- Metal Gear 2 - Solid Snake
- Metal Gear Solid
- Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty
- Metal Gear Solid - The Twin Snakes (remake of the original Metal Gear Solid for GameCube)
- Metal Gear Solid 3 - Snake Eater
- Metal Gear Solid - Portable Ops
- Metal Gear Solid 4 - Guns of the Patriots
- Metal Gear Solid - Peace Walker
- Metal Gear Rising - Revengeance
- Metal Gear Solid 5 - Ground Zeroes
- Metal Gear Solid 5 - The Phantom Pain


* Strange Canon
- Metal Gear - Ghost Babel
- Metal Gear Solid - Mobile

These two games, released for the GameBoy Color and Nokia Ngage respectively, are theorized to take place within the main series timeline, but they are however fictional stories within this timeline.

In the case of Ghost Babel, there's a poster found in the computer room of Shell 1 Core in MGS2, while there's also references to Galuade by both the Coronel's AI at the end of MGS2 and in MGS4 when viewing information about the Five Seven pistol. Fans have theorized that this game is a VR simulation that Raiden went through as part of his training prior to the Big Shell Incident. This theory is supported by a brief conversation at the end of the VR missions in Ghost Babel where the main character is refered to as "Jack" instead of Snake (Jack being Raiden's real name). This theory has a hole however as in MGS2 it seems that Raiden has no idea what Outer Heaven is when he hears the name, which is a mayor plot element in Ghost Babel (where Snake does indeed know about Outer Heaven). I personally believe that Ghost Babel is probably a fictional story within the Metal Gear timeline, probably a book or a movie, loosely based on the exploits of Solid Snake, given the fact that MGS2 acknowleges that Snake became a hero in the public's eye after the publication of "In The Darkness of Shadow Moses" (another book that exists within the game's universe).

Metal Gear Solid Mobile is pretty straightforward, as it seems to have been confirmed that it is a VR training mission that Solid Snake goes through to prepare for the tanker infiltration in MGS2. I can't find the source of this though.



* Alternate Timelines
- Metal Gear (NES) and Snake's Revenge (NES)
- Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2

There are so far only two alternate timelines to the main timeline, one being the Metal Gear games for NES, which exist in their own timeline separated from the MSX games, and the other being the Acid games released for the PSP. None of these games have any connection whatsoever with the main timeline.


And that's it, this pretty much covers every Metal Gear game ever released.

For the time being there's no Master Collection Vol 2, so if you intend on playing the entire series I suggest obtaining a PS3, where you can play every game in the series except for Portable Ops, which is easy to emulate on any device nowadays, or you can play on the Vita. I don't recommend playing Portable Ops on a PSP though as it greatly suffers from the lack of a second analog stick and none of the button mappings are any good, on a Vita or emulator with second stick the gameplay is pretty much the same as MGS3.
Also on PS3 you will be playing a vastly inferior version of MGS5 in terms of framerate, though the experience should be the same overall.

 

[Robert Newbie]

Man, you went through a lot of work here. Nice job. I appreciate the single sentence to wrote off Survive.

I don't stress over the timeline too much because we know which ones take "priority," which are the Kojima-directed games. There's a nice fan theory that Twin Snakes is the "legend" of what happened. Like, how people in-universe tell the story. This works well, since it explains away the over-the-top stunts in some scenes.

MGS fans should check out Twin Snakes and Ghost Babel. They may not be canon, but they're fun entries in the series.

 

[Acid_Snake]

I don't stress over the timeline too much because we know which ones take "priority," which are the Kojima-directed games.

I don't really care about the Kojima-directed crap. He was great yeah but it's not really an indication. Some of my favorite Metal Gear games also happen to be the most hated ones cause Kojima didn't make them (Portable Ops and Rising) while some of the worst Metal Gear games are Kojima-made (Peace Walker's story, that scam called Ground Zeroes, and MGS4 to a certain degree).

There's a nice fan theory that Twin Snakes is the "legend" of what happened. Like, how people in-universe tell the story. This works well, since it explains away the over-the-top stunts in some scenes.

I didn't know this was a real theory lol, but I once said in the snake soup forums that Twin Snakes is "how Snake says it happend" while the original was "how it really happened". It was a joke though.
I did like Twin Snakes. The over the top cinematics have their charm even if you can't take them seriously.

MGS fans should check out Twin Snakes and Ghost Babel. They may not be canon, but they're fun entries in the series.

Well, in MGS4 the Shadow Moses you visit is based on the one from Twin Snakes, not the original game (most notably with the posters in Otacon's lab), also in MGS4 there's a reference to Ghost Babel when you view information of the Five Seven then you find a reference to Galuade (the setting of Ghost Babel).

 

[Robert Newbie]

some of the worst Metal Gear games are Kojima-made (Peace Walker's story, that scam called Ground Zeroes, and MGS4 to a certain degree).

I remember Ground Zeroes being called a "paid demo." Overall, everything after MGS3 felt like a fever dream. MGS4's stealth was a tad broken, and MGS5 was open world. Peace Walker had some semblance of MGS in it compared to the other two. I think we may agree on the quality of those games.

My favorite bit from MGS4 is when Colonel Campbell repeats his delivery of "off the Alaskan coast, in the Fox Archipelago." I felt so pandered to.

Well, in MGS4 the Shadow Moses you visit is based on the one from Twin Snakes, not the original game (most notably with the posters in Otacon's lab), also in MGS4 there's a reference to Ghost Babel when you view information of the Five Seven then you find a reference to Galuade (the setting of Ghost Babel).

Now, that's something. It adds legitimacy to Twin Snakes and even Ghost Babel. Since Kojima has some trolling tendencies, I can only be so analytical.