Does the story hold together or is it like watching The Phantom Menace before A New Hope?

I want to play Snake Eater along with Drew's current playthrough and then go through Peace Walker and Phantom Pain(when it's out) before playing MGS4.

MGS3 was the first one I spent significant time with and beat. They do throw some story bits in there that won't make sense, or at least won't seem important without knowing what happens in the other two games, but I don't remember ever feeling like I was lost in the story. For the most part it works fine as a standalone story.

If you'd have said you want to do MGS3 > MGS1 > MGS2 > MGS4 then I'd have said no but if you're going MGS3 > Peace Walker > Phantom Pain then sure.

There are several story beats that would mean a lot more to you if you have played the first two. It works fine as a stand-alone experience, though. I would say it actually makes the most sense of any game in the series. It will probably be super tough to go back and play the first two after playing it, though, just because it improved the gameplay so dramatically. I don't think it would be a bad choice, but I would personally play them in order of release.

Ive been playing through the series a second time after getting the Legacy Collection and I decided just to play them in order of release.

I just beat Snake Eater this week and I think it makes more sense within the context of the previous two games.

@zeik: Thanks!

I already know one reference to MGS2 in Snake Eater which is the mission code phrase the Major gives you.

@jedted: The problem with playing them chronologically is that the gameplay doesn't make any sense chronologically. But if you want to, by all means go ahead.

@jedted:

I'd really recommend release order. For one, it will be frustrating going backwards in gameplay styles. Also, 3 is better played between 2 and 4 for a variety of reasons. Having information from 3 fresh in your brain will make 4 easier, and to fully appreciate 3 it is almost required to have 1 + 2 in your head.

More importantly, though they are not linear in a chronological sense, the games evolve off each-other thematically. They are all about what controls us in our lives, with each presenting a different thesis. GENE>MEME>SCENE>SENSE>PEACE.

It's totally do-able, I doubt you will be completely lost or anything, but in my opinion you'll have a better experience going through in release order.

Play them in release order. It makes sense that way gameplay and story wise to see the evolution

Yeah, it's almost like watching The Phantom Menace before A New Hope, because the first one chronologically is the worst one. The amount of mechanics they pile on to that one title and never revisit in the other games makes it an incredibly deep, but decidedly un-fun game.

I would say that the ideal playthrough would be MG1, MG2, MGS, MGS2, Snake Eater, MGS4. The rest I consider filler.

Chronological order almost never makes sense in any medium if it doesn't follow release-order because if you're going out of order, then even if you're starting at the "beginning" of the timeline, there will be things that it expects you to know from the previous games or movies or books or what have you. There will be callbacks and concepts that cannot be appreciated unless you went through them in release-order.

Games exacerbate this issue because gameplay improvements don't make sense if you're not following release order. It's going to be super rough to go from Snake Eater to Peace Walker to Phantom Pain to MGS1, MGS2, and MGS4.

So go in order of release. They were put out in that order for a reason, the gameplay improvements make sense that way as well.

Play them in release order.

Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes seem like they are really important to 5's story. All of which should be played after 4.

@captain_felafel: I still consider MGS1 one of the best in the series even though I played it after 3, and several times since. (I certainly liked it a hell of a lot more than 4.)

At this point basically all the games feel relatively dated in terms of gameplay and graphics. If you're not going into the series with the right mindset any of them can disappoint from a gameplay perspective. That being said, I didn't think the gameplay in MGS1 was actually bad, even by comparison to MGS3. It's simpler, but it still has its merits. And in some ways that simplicity is nice, as the later games can sometimes feel overly and unnecessarily complex.

I always recommend order of release, not just for story but for evolution of the gameplay.

But I guess chronological won't destroy your world.

Thanks for all the feedback. I've only played MGS1 myself and watched Drew play MGS2 so i got a good grasp on the story from those games. I guess i'll just play in release order since that's what Drew has been doing.

@bigmess: I bit the bullet and bought the Legacy Collection to so is it worth going through MG1 and 2? How much do you learn about Big Boss which helps understand him in Snake Eater?

@jedted: MGS 1 and 2 are absolutely worth going through. You don't learn much about Big Boss himself in those two but they just frame everything in Snake Eater much better if you've played them. I feel like there's more to the context than just a wink and a nod here (e.g. the Raiden mask, Ocelot in general, etc.). Plus once you've played Snake Eater, I think it can be a bit hard to go back to the first two from a gameplay perspective.

Also, I wasn't sure if you meant MGS or old-ass MSX Metal Gear 1 and 2, since they're included in Snake Eater. Those games are cool to look at but I tried to playthrough them and boy, it's rough.

MGS3 Works perfectly well as a standalone game. But if you intend to play through all of them anyways, do it 1>2>3>4.

I'm playing through the series in chronological order (MGS3, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes, Phantom Pain, Metal Gear 1, MGS, MGS2, MGS4) and I'm enjoying it immensely!

I'd already played through the series in order of release some years ago, so I'm not missing a lot of the story beats.

Also it's lead me to realise that Peace Walker was probably my favourite Metal Gear Solid title so far. I hope Phantom Pain expands on the base building / squad training aspects of Peace Walker!

If you've never played them before I'd recommend playing them in release order because you'll get visual/story references and beats that you might miss otherwise. I might make the exception that you can play either Peace Walker or MGS4 after MGS3 without any huge issues.

play them in the order they were released. I personally find watching the development of the gameplay almost as entertaining as the story itself. It is cool to watch the series evolve. If you start with 3>peacewalker>phantompain then when you get to MGS1 it might be a harder to deal with how primitive some of it is

Play them in the order they were released. To play them in the order the fictional events happen is wrong on so many levels. D:

"I personally find watching the development of the gameplay almost as entertaining as the story itself." This is an understatement. Not only will a series have a clear timeline in how it evolves and how the graphics gradually become more advanced, but each game will have little details and elements from other games that came before it. Some MGS games even have references or inside jokes. (When Snake meets Huey in Peace Walker, he calls it deja vu)

I never understood the playing in Chronological order, if you want to that's great and more power to you. But they were released in a certain order and can be best enjoyed and appreciated in that order. Going from Ground Zeroes to Metal Gear or Metal Gear Solid would just be so jarring in controls alone. Each game progressed and built upon the experience of the last one even if it was set in a different time, to play in a different sequence you might be missing something.

I'm saying this for someone experiencing it for the first time or is just newish to the series. If you are and old timer like me who has been playing since 1998, you can just pick any game and playing them in any order you want and that might prove and more enriching experience or highlight some subtlety you missed out on before.