It’s funny to hide in a box to fool a wilfully stupid AI guard. But pulling that trick on another human—when that’s the fun begins. Konami made the ultimate multiplayer shame murder possible in 2005 with Metal Gear Solid 3’s multiplayer add-on Metal Gear Online. Purchasing a network adaptor to connect online on the PlayStation 2 was time-consuming, thus MGO didn’t survive long: servers were decommissioned by 2007. Metal Gear Online 2 was a different story. It debuted alongside Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PlayStation 3, and fans adored it. I still read posts about MGO2 being ahead of its time, and when the servers were shut down in 2012, supporters definitely gave it a fitting send-off. Did they, or did they not?
They did, after all. Konami turned it off. MGO2 had been dormant for a long time. But nothing has to stay dead forever in PC gaming, as a brave team of developers has brought the game back to life with a customized version of the PS3 emulator RPCS3. It’s been resurrected as MGO2PC, as shown in the trailer above.
PS3 emulation, as explained on the MGO2PC website, necessitates a significant amount of CPU power. To run the game at maximum speed, you’ll need an 8-core, 16-thread CPU, such as a recent Ryzen 3700X or i7-10700K. But what they’ve managed to put back online here is just remarkable. It isn’t just a trimmed-down version of the multiplayer. It includes all of the game’s cosmetic goods as well as stat monitoring.
The incredible part is that you can even play on a PS3 with modified firmware to avoid PSN. Sony charges publishers additional money to facilitate crossplay in PlayStation titles, but the fan creators of MGO2PC have enabled crossplay between PCs and a 15-year-old system purely for fun.
I’m sure MGO2 has its awkward parts now—and probably did even a decade ago—but I believe it’s safe to say there’s no other multiplayer you can play on PC today that compares. In an age when most console games were all-in on matchmaking, MGO2 included certain features that we now expect from multiplayer games that were uncommon in 2008. These included player-hosted and dedicated servers, a cosmetic shop based on in-game cash, and a server browser.
While MGO2PC’s player base appears to be modest at the moment, the Discord is active, and there are clearly people looking for matches. If you want to give it a go, a fresh copy of MGS4 may be had for around $25.
