Honestly, trying to explain the metal gear game timeline to someone who hasn't played it is like trying to explain a fever dream while you’re still in the middle of it. You’ve got clones, nanomachines, 100-year-old snipers who photosynthesize, and a guy who barks like a dog because he was raised by one. It’s a lot. But here’s the thing: most people think it’s just a messy jumble of Hideo Kojima’s random ideas. It isn't. Underneath the cardboard boxes and the over-the-top melodrama, there is a surprisingly rigid, decades-spanning chronological structure.
The story is basically a massive tragedy about a family that can’t stop trying to fix the world and breaking it instead. You’ve got the Big Boss era, which is the "prequel" stuff from the 60s and 80s, and then the Solid Snake era, which carries us into the "future" of the 2010s. If you play them as they came out, you’re jumping back and forth through time like a broken VCR.
The Cold War Origins: Where It Actually Starts
If we’re talking strictly about the metal gear game timeline, you have to start in 1964. Forget the pixels of the 80s for a second. We begin with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. This is the "Big Bang" for the entire franchise. You play as Naked Snake, a guy sent into the Soviet jungle to rescue a scientist and, eventually, kill his mentor, The Boss.
It’s messy.
The Boss "defects" to the USSR, but it turns out she was actually on a triple-agent mission for the US to secure the "Philosophers' Legacy," a massive pile of cash. Snake has to kill her to keep the peace between superpowers. He gets the title "Big Boss" for it, but he hates it. He feels betrayed by his country. This single moment of disillusionment is the reason every single other war in the series happens.
The Missing Links of the 70s
After 1964, things get a bit murky. In 1970, we have Portable Ops. A lot of fans argue about whether this is "canon" because Kojima didn't direct it, but the broad strokes—Snake forming the foundations of his own mercenary unit—usually stick.
Then comes 1974: Peace Walker. This is arguably more important than most people realize. Big Boss is in Costa Rica, building "Militaires Sans Frontières" (Soldiers Without Borders). He gets his own nuclear-equipped walking tank, Metal Gear ZEKE, and meets a young Kazuhira Miller. This is where the idea of a "nation for soldiers" really takes root.
- 1964: Snake Eater (The betrayal)
- 1970: Portable Ops (The first recruits)
- 1974: Peace Walker (The first Mother Base)
- 1975: Ground Zeroes (The fall)
Ground Zeroes is just a prologue, really. It’s short. Brutal. It ends with Mother Base being blown to bits and Big Boss falling into a nine-year coma.
The 1980s and the Great Retcon
By the time 1984 rolls around in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the timeline gets weird. You wake up as "Venom Snake." Without spoiling the big twist for the three people who haven't seen it, let’s just say things aren't what they seem.
This game fills the gap between the legendary hero of the 60s and the "villain" we meet in the original 1987 NES/MSX games. It’s about building Diamond Dogs and dealing with Skull Face, a guy who wants to wipe out the English language with vocal cord parasites. Typical Tuesday for this series.
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The Solid Snake Era: 1995 to 2014
Now we hit the "classic" games. In 1995, a rookie named Solid Snake is sent into a fortress called Outer Heaven. This is the original Metal Gear. He thinks he’s working for Big Boss, but—surprise!—Big Boss is the one running the enemy fortress.
Snake "kills" him, but in 1999 (Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake), the old man is back in Zanzibar Land. Snake kills him again. This time, he uses a lighter and an aerosol can because he’s out of ammo. It’s very 80s action movie.
The Shadow Moses Incident (2005)
This is the one most people remember. Metal Gear Solid on the PS1. It’s 2005. Solid Snake is retired, living in Alaska with some huskies, and they drag him back out to deal with a terrorist group led by his "brother," Liquid Snake.
We find out about Les Enfants Terribles, a 1972 project where they cloned Big Boss to make the perfect soldiers. Solid Snake is the "inferior" clone, or so Liquid thinks. They fight on top of a giant robot. Snake wins.
The Digital Chaos of the late 2000s
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty splits the metal gear game timeline into two parts:
- 2007: The Tanker Incident (Snake returns, but gets framed).
- 2009: The Big Shell (You play as Raiden, a rookie who everyone hated in 2001 but loves now).
This game was basically a meta-commentary on sequels and digital misinformation. It ends with the revelation that a shadowy AI group called The Patriots is actually running the United States. It was way ahead of its time.
The Finale: 2014 and Beyond
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots takes place in 2014. Solid Snake is now "Old Snake" because of accelerated aging. The world is a "war economy" run by nanomachines. He has to stop Liquid Ocelot (don’t ask, it involves an arm transplant and hypnosis) from hijacking the AI network.
It’s the end. Big Boss actually comes back for a final goodbye in a graveyard. It’s a 70-minute cutscene that somehow makes sense of 40 years of lore.
Finally, in 2018, we have Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It’s a spin-off, but it’s the furthest point in the timeline. Raiden is a full-blown cyborg ninja slicing up politicians who want to restart the war economy. It’s ridiculous, but it fits the theme: the cycle of violence never really stops.
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Actionable Insights for the Timeline Curious
If you're actually looking to dive into this mess, don't just follow the dates. The metal gear game timeline is best experienced in the order the games were released.
Why? Because the prequels rely on you knowing the future. When you see a young Ocelot in 1964, it only matters because you know what a jerk he becomes in 2005.
How to actually play it today:
- Get the Master Collection Vol. 1. It has the original 8-bit games and the first three "Solid" games. It's the easiest way to start.
- Don't skip the MSX games. You can read the "Previous Operations" summaries in the MGS1 menu, but actually playing them gives you a better sense of why Snake is so tired of everyone's nonsense.
- Watch for the retcons. Kojima changed his mind a lot. If something in 1984 contradicts something said in 1998, the newer game usually takes priority.
- Pay attention to the dates. The games often use real-world history (The Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the USSR) to anchor the weird sci-fi stuff. It makes the world feel surprisingly lived-in.
The beauty of the Metal Gear saga isn't that it's a perfect, seamless clock. It's that it's a living, breathing piece of art that grew alongside the technology of the consoles it lived on. From 8-bit sprites to 4K photogrammetry, the timeline is a journey through gaming history itself.