Released in late 2023, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 was a promising but ultimately frustrating, buggy, and visually lacklustre effort from Konami. However, the good news is that improvements have been made, with version 2.0 taking aim at several key issues on console and PC. It’s a relief to see, because it’s a project worth salvaging – being an all-in-one package containing seven core games in the series, with some beautifully presented extras. Today, I’m focusing on the Metal Gear Solid trilogy – the more demanding full 3D entries that first released on PlayStation 1 and 2 – since that’s really where the bulk of the problems arose in this collection. So just what has changed, and is the Master Collection now the definitive way to play?
Let’s jump straight to the most pressing issue: Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3’s image quality. The Master Collection uses the same codebase as the HD Collection, as released by Bluepoint for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2011. While an excellent port for its time, the gripe is that the Master Collection continued to run these games at the same native 720p resolution, even on PS5, Series X and S. The result was rough scaled to 4K displays, with heavy aliasing on show. Worse still, the PC version also ran at 720p with no graphics menu to tweak either of these games’ visual settings.
Update 2.0 addresses this issue to a certain extent. MGS2 and 3 each now offer settings in their front end launchers, letting us push the internal resolution up to 1080p. This is followed by a separate upscaling option, where AMD’s FSR is understood to be at work scaling that base image to a 1080p, 1440p or 4K target. And finally, there’s a movie setting for both MGS2 and 3, letting us access a ‘High Resolution’ mode. This mode affects every pre-rendered cutscene in both games, where AI upscaling is applied to the original encode for a crisper, cleaner result.
With all three settings boosted – the native 1080p rendering, 4K upscaling and high resolution movies – Konami calls this the ‘adjusted’ mode, while all the original settings are still here if you wish to use them. All told, it’s a messy solution, but the adjusted mode does have a positive impact. On PS5 and Series X, the new adjusted preset minimises stair-stepping – the pixel crawl – across any hard geometric lines. Visual noise is far from eradicated, though: you’ll still easily catch aliasing on bright, overhanging lamps or door outlines – but at least the jump from 720p to 1080p creates a finer gradient to those steps. Just as importantly, patch 2.0’s superior 4K upscale results in greater clarity across a scene. The distant signs and the metal railings of MGS2’s oil rig are more cleanly defined, and likewise, it resolves Metal Gear Solid 3’s dense forest areas with a sharper image. Again, visual noise is still evident, especially using the free camera to look directly ahead in MGS3, but it is an improvement overall.
The situation on PS5 is a net positive, but the obvious gripe is that we should be getting a native 4K from what’s essentially a 2001 PlayStation 2 title. Modern consoles – and certainly PC – have more than enough GPU horsepower to make a true 4K a reality, and indeed, it’s been possible since the collection’s launch on PC thanks to mods. Also frustrating is that the PC, Xbox Series X and S versions all continue to run with blurry, low quality texture filtering, resulting in a visible smearing to floor detail viewed at a tight angle. It’s especially glaring in Snake Eater, which uses more complex texture maps across the ground. No progress has been made here on Xbox since launch, well over 16 months later. It means that the original Xbox 360 HD Collection version still has the advantage of using 16x anisotropic filtering when played via back compat on a Series X console – though obviously it misses out on the higher native 1080p resolution of the Master Collection. Again, this isn’t a problem with PS5, which filters all textures at a much higher setting.
The new movie setting is also curious, affecting the pre-rendered cut-scenes alone (which are a rarity given MGS2 and 3’s typical focus on in-engine cinematics). Still, the boost is clear to see in both games’ main menu attract sequences, or any old archival footage that might pop up. The clarity of text is sharper, macroblocking is minimised, and there’s a crisper resolve to fine patterns all round. It may not be to everyone’s tastes, but Konami is clearly working from a low resolution source meant for the PS2 era. In that respect, I’m glad we now have an option to clean them up and it’s good progress from the Master Collection at launch.
Keeping the focus on MGS2 and 3, the Nintendo Switch version is improved as well. Alas, we do not get the upscaling options seen on other platforms, and Switch still runs at a native 720p resolution. It also appears to operate with practically no anti-aliasing, and lacks texture filtering altogether – which creates an all-round noisier, flicker-prone image while docked to a larger display. The main change though is in frame-rate performance. Konami promised that it would address the lurches in Switch’s frame-rate in MGS2 especially, and patch 2.0 does help matters. Compared to the launch build, in-engine cut-scenes featuring a long view of the Big Shell gets a boost by 2-5fps on the new update. Sub-30fps drops sadly remain, even on the latest patch, but it is progress – plus we’re seeing a reduction in the frame-time fluctuations of the launch build. It’s worth noting that some cut-scenes use an intentional 15fps caps for effect, which is true on all platforms, and these stay exactly the same on the new patch on Switch regardless.
It’s good news for Switch, and yet it is a massive disappointment overall. We’re still struggling to always lock at 30 frames per second in MGS2, which is a surprise given that it ran at 60fps on PlayStation 2 (and Vita!). Bizarrely, this is still with the exception of opening and closing doors – like lockers – at which point the frame-rate suddenly rises to 60 on Switch. It’s a huge shame, and for 60fps gameplay you’ll need to look at the PlayStation, Xbox or PC versions. Switch performance in MGS3 also remains at 30fps of course – which is at least in line with the PS2 original (but not Bluepoint’s PS3/360 remasters) and it does so with fewer drops than MGS2. The only remaining issue on update 2.0 is the occasional hitch whenever a guard is alerted and the countdown kicks in on the HUD.
Turning to the PC edition next, this remains a no-frills release with a barebones graphics menu. It’s without doubt better on patch 2.0 but not to the standard you’d expect of a modern PC release. In terms of official options, there’s now a native resolution setting that goes to 1080p at best, mirroring the options on PS5 and Series X, along with the very same upscaling setting to 4K. MGS2 and 3 benefit from added keyboard and mouse controls but this is really all we get for graphics controls. There’s no native 4K resolution mode, still no ultrawide support, and texture filtering is woefully low quality out of the box on PC – though this is fixable via your GPU’s control panel overrides. And yet, despite the huge disappointment, the PC version still has the greatest potential to deliver the best experience for MGS2 and 3 thanks to user mods.
Attribution
Mods transform the Master Collection in myriad ways, getting us closer to the definitive MGS2 and 3 experience we’d hoped to see on PC. Compared to the Konami’s default patch 2.0 experience, the boost in clarity easily justifies the legwork to get it all set up and running. The first port of call is the MGSHDFix mod – by author, Afevis – adding the ability to render natively at any custom resolution, with ultrawide support and bundling in a string of bug fixes for good measure. Achieving a boost to a true native 4K is transformative on its own, especially across MGS3’s busy jungles. I also recommend the AI upscaled textures mod, courtesy of author liqMix. This boosts asset resolution by 4x and I ended up much preferring the look of Snake Eater’s environments with the resolution pushed to 4K. All combined, this is the best Metal Gear Solid 3 experience in my eyes, though the catalogue of mods available beyond this is huge and still growing. It puts the PC release in pole position as the version to go for with the Master Collection, with PS5 in second place, if mainly for avoiding the texture filtering issue on console.
Going back to M2’s port of the original 1998 Metal Gear Solid, this currently sits on patch 1.5. It remains a PS1 emulation effort, running at the original 240p resolution and 30fps target – or 25 on the PAL releases – but we now have more video options. The bilinear blur filter is now available as a ‘smoothing’ toggle, and disabling it produces a much crisper picture. There are three scaling options: full screen, pixel perfect and 16:9, plus a new scanline filter, which helps blend the low resolution image and dithering present in many 3D PS1 games of the era. It suits Metal Gear Solid’s dark aesthetic, but also – inevitably – darkens the image, though the option is a welcome one. My final point relates to the game’s controls. Previously M2 only allowed for movement in cardinal directions: up, down, left and right. As of the latest patch, full 360 degree analogue movement is reinstated, allowing for finer control of Snake’s run through Shadow Moses, albeit with a noticeable hint of input lag. It’s mostly a move in the right direction for MGS1, but by being anchored to the PS1’s technical limits in frame-rate it’s playing it very safe.
The Master Collection is in a much better place with patch 2.0 installed, but the fundamental shortcomings are still frustrating. The texture filtering issue on Xbox consoles is not solved for MGS2 or 3 at all, while console users – and PC – only get a resolution boost to a native 1080p at best. This is baffling bearing in mind how PC mods demonstrate that full 4K resolution clearly works and can look great. And in fact, the modded PC version remains the best version to play. With all that being said, Konami’s stock settings still provide one of the better ways to enjoy the series. The PS5 version avoids the texture filtering issue at least, and it’s the best console version of the game on those grounds. As a celebration of Konami’s flagship series, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection clearly still needs a lot of work – but it remains the best take on these games available on modern systems.