Let’s talk about eating tree frogs in the name of democracy.

When Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater released in 2004, it did something genuinely audacious for a video game franchise that had built its reputation on nanomachines, cyborg ninjas, and increasingly convoluted conspiracy theories about artificial intelligence. It went backwards. Not just chronologically, but technologically, stripping away all the high-tech gadgets and radar systems that defined the series and dropping us into the humid, unforgiving jungle of 1964 Soviet territory with nothing but camouflage paint and a knife.

I’ll admit, when I first heard about this premise, I was nervous. MGS2 had been my entire reason for buying a PlayStation 2 – seriously, I walked into the store, pointed at the console, and said “I need this for when Solid Snake comes back.” So when Kojima announced we’d be playing as Snake’s predecessor in the 1960s, crawling through mud without our precious soliton radar, I had my doubts. We’d gone from infiltrating bleeding-edge military installations to… what? Eating wildlife and hiding in grass?

But from the moment I pressed Start and heard that magnificent Bond-pastiche theme song (complete with a vocalist who sounds like she wandered in from a Sean Connery film), all doubts evaporated. This wasn’t just a prequel – it was a masterclass in how video games could tackle real-world politics while simultaneously featuring a man who controls bees with his mind.

The Series So Far (Or Later, Technically)

For those who haven’t spent countless hours hiding in cardboard boxes, here’s the quick version: The Metal Gear series began in 1987, but really found its voice with 1998’s Metal Gear Solid on the original PlayStation. That game introduced us to Solid Snake, a gruff special operative who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility in Alaska to stop terrorists from launching a walking nuclear tank called Metal Gear REX. It was a revelation – cinematic storytelling, complex themes about nuclear deterrence, and more plot twists than an M. Night Shyamalan marathon.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) took things in a decidedly meta direction, pulling a bait-and-switch by replacing Snake with rookie operative Raiden for most of the game, while diving deep into themes of information control, memetics, and the nature of reality itself. It was brilliant, divisive, and left players with more questions than answers – including “What was that entire ending about?” and “Why is this pretty boy doing naked cartwheels?”

So when MGS3 rolled around, positioning itself as a straightforward Cold War thriller set in 1964, it felt almost refreshing in its relative simplicity. Almost.

The Cold War Through Kojima’s Lens

Snake Eater drops us into the heart of the Cold War at its most precarious moment. The game explicitly references the Cuban Missile Crisis, positioning its story as happening in the immediate aftermath of that near-catastrophe. But this isn’t your typical Tom Clancy techno-thriller. This is Kojima, so naturally, the Cold War becomes a stage for exploring loyalty, betrayal, and the arbitrary nature of enemies and allies.

The game’s masterstroke is how it uses the historical setting to examine the psychology of the Cold War era. Our protagonist, Naked Snake (later to become Big Boss), begins as a true believer. He’s the perfect soldier – following orders, trusting his government, believing in the clear distinction between “us” and “them.” His mentor, The Boss, represents the same idealized vision of patriotic duty. She’s literally credited with winning World War II alongside her Cobra Unit, a collection of supernatural soldiers who sound like they escaped from a comic book but somehow work perfectly in this world.

Then comes the betrayal. Or is it?

The Boss’s defection to the Soviet Union sets everything in motion, but it also immediately establishes the game’s central theme: in the world of Cold War espionage, nothing is what it seems. When The Boss hands nuclear weapons to Colonel Volgin and he immediately uses one to destroy a Soviet research facility, we see the paranoia of the era made manifest. The Soviets blame the Americans because they detected our plane. The Americans know they didn’t do it but can’t prove it. Both sides are right and wrong simultaneously.

This is brilliant storytelling because it captures the essential insanity of Cold War politics – two superpowers, armed to the teeth with world-ending weapons, forced to trust each other just enough to not destroy civilization, while simultaneously undermining each other at every opportunity.

The Philosophers’ Legacy: Shadow Governments and Proxy Wars

Here’s where things get properly weird, in that special Metal Gear way. The game introduces the Philosophers, a secret organization of the most powerful figures from America, the Soviet Union, and China who originally united to win World War II. They amassed $100 billion (that’s roughly $900 billion in today’s money, for those keeping score) to fund their operations. But after the war, they fell apart, and now everyone’s scrambling for the money.

This is Kojima’s commentary on the military-industrial complex, and it’s surprisingly sophisticated. The Philosophers represent the idea that the Cold War isn’t really about ideology – it’s about power and resources. The game suggests that behind all the rhetoric about democracy versus communism, there’s just a bunch of old men fighting over money and influence.

Sound familiar? It should. This was 2004, remember, right in the middle of the War on Terror, when questions about shadow governments and the real motivations behind international conflicts were very much in the cultural consciousness. Kojima wasn’t just making a period piece; he was using the past to comment on the present.

The Psychology of Loyalty and Betrayal

Let’s put on our psychology hats for a moment and examine the relationship between Snake and The Boss, because it’s the emotional core that elevates this from a simple spy thriller to something more profound.

The Boss represents the ultimate parental figure – mentor, teacher, and in many ways, mother to Snake. Her betrayal isn’t just political; it’s deeply personal. Snake’s journey through the game is as much about processing this emotional trauma as it is about stopping nuclear war. He can’t understand why she would defect, and neither can we, which keeps us invested in uncovering the truth.

When the final revelation comes – that The Boss never betrayed anyone, that she was ordered to infiltrate Volgin’s ranks and die as a traitor to prevent nuclear war – it reframes everything. She sacrificed not just her life but her legacy, accepting that history would remember her as a monster. This is the cruelest aspect of Cold War espionage: sometimes being a hero means letting everyone think you’re the villain.

Snake’s transformation into Big Boss at the game’s end isn’t a triumph; it’s a tragedy. He’s received the highest honors his country can bestow, but he knows they’re built on a lie. The government that asked for his absolute loyalty showed none in return, using both him and The Boss as disposable pawns. Is it any wonder he eventually becomes the series’ primary antagonist?

Nuclear Deterrence and the Shagohod

Of course, this is Metal Gear, so we need a nuclear-equipped walking tank. Enter the Shagohod, which isn’t technically a Metal Gear but might as well be. It’s a nuclear-equipped tank that can launch ICBMs from anywhere, making the entire concept of nuclear deterrence obsolete.

The game uses the Shagohod to explore the terrifying logic of Mutually Assured Destruction. The whole Cold War balance depends on both sides knowing they can destroy each other. But what happens when one side gets a weapon that breaks that balance? Suddenly, first-strike capability becomes not just possible but necessary. Use it or lose it.

This isn’t just theoretical political science – it’s the lived reality of the Cold War. The constant technological arms race, each advancement making the world simultaneously safer and more dangerous. The Shagohod represents every military innovation that promised to end war forever but instead just raised the stakes.

The Cobra Unit: Supernatural Soldiers and Cold War Mythology

Here’s where things get wonderfully absurd. The Cobra Unit – The Boss’s supernatural squadron from World War II – includes a century-old sniper who photosynthesizes like a plant (The End), a man who controls hornets (The Pain), a cosmonaut with a flamethrower and severe anger issues (The Fury), and a contortionist who might be part spider (The Fear). Oh, and a ghost who makes you walk through a river of everyone you’ve killed (The Sorrow).

These boss battles could feel out of place in a serious political thriller, but they work because they represent the mythologization of war. Every conflict spawns legends – soldiers who become more than human in the retelling. The Cobras are living embodiments of war stories, the kinds of tales soldiers tell each other that grow with each telling until they become folklore.

But there’s something else going on here. Each Cobra represents an emotion tied to war – Pain, Fear, Fury, Sorrow, and The End (death itself). The Boss, who leads them, is The Joy, which seems contradictory until you realize she represents the pure joy of battle, the thing that creates soldiers in the first place. It’s a psychological examination of what war does to people, wrapped in supernatural nonsense that somehow makes it more profound.

Ocelot: The Triple Agent

We need to talk about Revolver Ocelot, because no discussion of Cold War espionage in MGS3 is complete without him. Young Ocelot (he’s just “Ocelot” here, the revolver comes later) appears to be a hot-headed GRU officer obsessed with cowboy movies and torture. But the post-credits reveal shows he’s actually a triple agent – working for the KGB while secretly being CIA agent ADAM.

Ocelot embodies the impossibility of trust in Cold War espionage. Everyone’s playing multiple angles, loyalty is purely transactional, and today’s ally is tomorrow’s enemy. The fact that he’s also The Boss’s son (revealed much later in the series) adds another layer – even family bonds become subordinate to the great game of international espionage.

His fascination with Snake throughout the game takes on new meaning when you realize he’s watching Snake undergo the same disillusionment he probably experienced. They’re both soldiers realizing they’re just pieces on someone else’s board.

The Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater: The Language of War

Even the mission names deserve examination. The “Virtuous Mission” – Snake’s initial failed attempt to rescue Sokolov – frames military action in moral terms. It’s not just a mission; it’s virtuous, righteous, justified. When it fails catastrophically, it becomes “Operation Snake Eater,” which is primal, visceral, almost primitive.

This shift in language reflects Snake’s journey from civilized soldier to something more fundamental. By the end, he’s literally eating snakes (among other things) to survive, becoming the very thing the operation named him for. The game asks: what’s the difference between a soldier and a snake? Both kill to survive. Both shed their skin and become something new.

Why It Still Matters

Playing MGS3 today, twenty years after its release, it remains remarkably relevant. The questions it asks about loyalty, patriotism, and the price of being a soldier haven’t aged a day. If anything, in our current era of information warfare and questions about institutional trust, The Boss’s sacrifice – being branded a traitor to serve her country – feels even more poignant.

The game’s ultimate message seems to be that in the world of international espionage, there are no heroes or villains, just people following orders that serve interests they’ll never fully understand. The real tragedy isn’t that The Boss died; it’s that she died for a system that immediately forgot her sacrifice and moved on to the next crisis.

Snake Eater works because it uses its video game format to make us complicit in this system. We pull the trigger on The Boss. We complete the mission. We participate in the lie. The game doesn’t just tell us about the moral compromises of Cold War politics; it makes us experience them.

And yes, it does all this while also featuring a ladder so long that the entire theme song plays while you climb it. Because this is Metal Gear Solid, and if you’re not mixing profound political commentary with absolute absurdity, what are you even doing?

The Cold War might be over (depending on who you ask), but the questions Snake Eater raises about power, loyalty, and the stories nations tell themselves to justify their actions remain painfully relevant. It turns out you can learn a lot about international relations by hiding in a cardboard box in the jungle, eating tree frogs, and wondering if your government would throw you under the bus for the greater good.

The answer, by the way, is yes. They absolutely would. But at least you’d get a cool title like “Big Boss” out of it.

Just don’t think too hard about what that title actually cost.