Play Order (Release)Recommended
0 / 12 playedThe mainline games in the order they were released. Handheld oddities like Portable Ops and Acid are left out.
- 1 Metal Gear MSX2 original, included in Master Collection Vol. 1.
- 2 Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake MSX2; completes the pre-Solid Snake story.
- 3 Metal Gear Solid PlayStation; The Twin Snakes is the GameCube remake.
- 4 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- 5 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Delta: Snake Eater (2025) is the full remake of this one.
- 6 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 only until Master Collection Vol. 2 arrived August 27, 2026.
- 7 Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP original, in HD in Master Collection Vol. 2.
- 8 Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Raiden's spin-off, set after Metal Gear Solid 4.
- 9 Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Short prologue to The Phantom Pain.
- 10 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Kojima's last mainline entry.
- 11 Metal Gear Survive Non-canon survival spin-off; skip it freely.
- 12 Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Remake of the 2004 game, listed last because it is a retelling, not a new story.
Chronological Order
0 / 11 playedThe story timeline, which puts the Big Boss prequels first and the MSX2 originals in the middle. Different sequence, same games.
Big Boss era
- 1 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 1964. Play Delta (2025) instead if you want the remake.
- 2 Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker 1974.
- 3 Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes 1975, days after Peace Walker.
- 4 Metal Gear Survive Also 1975, but non-canon: optional and widely skipped.
- 5 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 1984.
Solid Snake era
- 6 Metal Gear 1995.
- 7 Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake 1999.
- 8 Metal Gear Solid 2005.
- 9 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 2007.
- 10 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots 2014; the end of Solid Snake's story.
- 11 Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance 2018, after Metal Gear Solid 4.
About Metal Gear
Metal Gear tells one story across four decades, just not in the order the games arrived. The Big Boss prequels were released after the games they lead into, so playing strictly by story chronology means starting with Snake Eater in 1964 and working forward to Metal Gear Solid 4, while release order starts with the 1987 MSX2 original and lets the timeline piece itself together gradually.
Most players are better served by release order, which is also how the twists were engineered: the games keep nudging you into believing one thing about the timeline before pulling it apart. The chronological list is here for the curious.
Good to know
Two things complicate both lists. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a full remake of the 2004 game, so treat it as an alternative rather than an extra chapter. Metal Gear Survive is a non-canon side story fans still argue over, listed where its 1975 setting puts it. MGS4 is playable again as of Master Collection Vol. 2, released August 27, 2026.
