The Metal Gear franchise features a large number of fictional characters.
The series' canon comprises (not including re-releases and remakes) Metal Gear (MG) and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MG2) for the MSX2, Metal Gear Solid (MGS) for the PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (MGS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (MGS3) for the PlayStation 2, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (MPO) for the PSP Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS4) for the PlayStation 3[1][2] and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (MPW) for the PSP.
Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake center around the rivalry between protagonist Solid Snake and his commanding officer-turned-nemesis and genetic father Big Boss. This rivalry served as the basis of the Les Enfants Terribles storyline introduced in Metal Gear Solid, where Solid Snake is revealed to be a clone/son of Big Boss, along with his two brothers: Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden goes to confront the terrorist leaded by Solidus, ending in the reappeance of Liquid.
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| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Akio Ōtsuka | David Hayter |
Solid Snake (ソリッド・スネーク Soriddo Sunēku) is the series' protagonist and the player's primary character in Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, and Metal Gear Solid 1 and 4. In Metal Gear Solid 2, he is playable only in the main game's prologue sequence, while both PSP Metal Gear Solid titles, Portable Ops and Peace Walker, serve as prequels set before Solid Snake's birth. In Guns of the Patriots, due to his aging process being accelerated and gaining the appearance of an old man, he is given the nickname Old Snake, and is the playable character once more.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Akio Ōtsuka (MGS3) Chikao Ohtsuka (MGS4) |
David Hayter (MGS3) Richard Doyle (MGS4) |
Big Boss (ビッグ・ボス Biggu Bosu) is known as the greatest soldier that ever lived. Big Boss is introduced as Solid Snake's commanding officer in Metal Gear, but reveals himself to be the enemy leader at the end of the game. He fights Snake a second time in Metal Gear 2, apparently being killed. In Metal Gear Solid, his remains are a part of a terrorist group's ransom demands. He gains the title "Big Boss" after defeating his mentor, the legendary war hero "The Boss", in the penultimate battle of Metal Gear Solid 3, and is presented with the title by the President. After he finds out that killing "The Boss" was part of a cover up and that "The Boss" had never really turned sides, he lays flowers at her unmarked grave. He appears as the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Peace Walker under the identity of Naked Snake.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Kaneto Shiozawa (MGS) Takumi Yamazaki (MGS2: BD) Jun Fukuyama (MGS: PO) |
Greg Eagles (under the pseudonym 'George Byrd') (MGS) Rob Paulsen (MGS: TTS, SSBB, MGS4) Larc Spies (MGS: PO) |
Gray Fox (グレイ・フォックス Gurei Fokkusu, spelled "Grey Fox" in the MSX2 games) first appears in the original Metal Gear as a high-ranking agent of FOXHOUND (the "Fox" codename being the highest commemoration within the unit) who goes missing during a mission prior to the events of the game, his last transmission being a cryptic message simply saying "Metal Gear".[3] Solid Snake's initial objective in the game is to rescue Gray Fox, who reveals the true nature of Metal Gear to the player.
Fox returns in Metal Gear 2, having left FOXHOUND and defected to Zanzibar Land to join Big Boss' side. Fox pilots the new Metal Gear model, Metal Gear D, and confronts Snake a few times, while secretly assisting him as an anonymous informant. Snake destroys Metal Gear D and ends up being challenged by Fox to a fistfight in the middle of a minefield. Fox's past is fleshed out in this game and his civilian identity is revealed to be Frank Jaeger (フランク・イェーガー Furanku Yēgā, "Frank Yeager" in the MSX2 version). His face portrait in the MSX2 version was modeled after actor Tom Berenger.
An Eastern engineer responsible for creating the TX-55 Metal Gear mecha in the original Metal Gear, as well the TX-11 Arnold (Bloody Brad) androids. Dr. Pettrovich is one of the hostages Snake must rescue along with his daughter Ellen. In Metal Gear 2, Dr. Pettrovich bitterly defects to Zanzibar Land and develops Metal Gear D after being rejected by the scientific community. He comes in contact with Snake in the game while posing as a hostage, but attacks him after the truth is revealed. He somehow survives and is mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 4 as the scientist who saved Raiden's life after he was turned into a cyborg by The Patriots.[4] A character bearing Dr. Pettrovich's namesake appears in Snatcher.[5]
The character was simply called "Dr. Pettrovich" in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear. He was given the full name of "Petrovich Madnar" in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2, a name that was originally used in Snatcher. In the later revisions of both games, he is referred by the full name of "Drago Pettrovich Madnar". His likeness in the MSX2 version of MG2 is modeled after Albert Einstein.
The leader of a resistance movement in Metal Gear, who helps Snake as a radio contact. He discovers the identity of the Outer Heaven leader, but is silenced before he can mention his name. In Metal Gear 2, Schneider appears under the guise of "Black Color" ("Black Ninja" in the re-releases), a high-tech ninja under the service of Zanzibarland and the first boss in the game. Solid Snake kills him during a battle but does not learn his true identity until he collapses. He then reveals to Snake that NATO led a bombing raid against Outer Heaven, not caring about the war orphans and/or war refugees. He also tells Snake that Big Boss had forgiven the resistance for being against him, and rescued as many of them as he could from the bombings, both Outer Heaven personnel and Resistance members.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Takeshi Aono Toshio Furukawa (MPO) |
Paul Eiding David Agranov (MPO) Michael McColl (Ape Escape 3) |
Col. Roy Campbell (ロイ・キャンベル大佐 Roi Kyanberu Taisa, "Roy Kyanbel" in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2), is introduced in Metal Gear 2 as the new commanding officer of FOXHOUND.[3] He serves as Snake's primary radio contact in the game and gives information about his mission objective and general gameplay tips. Colonel Campbell's speaking portrait in the MSX2 version was modeled after Richard Crenna, who is known for the role of Col. Sam Trautman in the Rambo films.
In Metal Gear Solid, Campbell comes out of retirement to command Solid Snake once again. Campbell has more of a personal stake in this mission, as his niece, Meryl Silverburgh, is held captive by the revolutionary force Snake is battling. While Campbell is initially forced to keep a number of secrets from Snake, he gradually reveals more and more of them as the story continues, until, finally, Campbell is briefly arrested. However, he is exonerated after Solid Snake defeats Liquid Snake.
In Metal Gear Solid 2, a man who appears to be Col. Campbell (but simply identified as "Colonel", although if the camera is manipulated during a codec transmission, the nametag 'Campbell' appears on his chest) serves as Raiden's commanding officer, supporting him via codec. When a computer virus starts taking effect on Arsenal Gear, however, the Colonel begins acting erratically, revealing its true nature: "the Colonel" is, in fact, not the real Roy Campbell, but an elaborate A.I. constructed by GW, a supercomputer, and based on Raiden's perceptions and expectations from his VR Training.[6][7]
Although he is not involved in the main story, Campbell makes a voice only cameo in Metal Gear Solid 3 during the game over screen scolding Snake for causing a time paradox if the player kills certain supporting characters (namely Sokolov, Ocelot or EVA). He also appears in the Ape Escape crossover minigame "Snake vs. Monkey".
In Portable Ops, a young Roy Campbell appears as one of Naked Snake's (Big Boss) comrades in the game. When the story begins, Naked Snake finds himself imprisoned by the FOX unit in South America with Campbell, a captured Green Beret whose unit was wiped out, in the cell next to him. The two escape and begin to recruit disenfranchised enemy soldiers and other allies to their cause. In the original version of Portable Ops, Campbell is the only main character who cannot be added as a member of Snake's squad, because he had a broken leg at the time: instead he only communicates with the player via the radio and drives the truck which transports captured enemy soldiers. Campbell can only be added to the player's squad in the Portable Ops Plus expansion.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Campbell works for a UN Security Council advisory body that monitors PMC activities. He sends Solid Snake on an unofficial mission to assassinate Liquid in order to put a stop to his plans. He provides the means of transportation Snake uses to complete his mission.[1] He is married to Raiden's former girlfriend, Rosemary, which causes a rift between him and Meryl (who is now aware that Campbell is her father) and which Snake opposes. However, the marriage is a sham used to fool the Patriots in order to protect Raiden's son, John.
Outside the main canon, Campbell reprises his role as Snake's reluctant commanding officer in the Game Boy Color game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, a side-story which serves as an alternate sequel to the events of the original Metal Gear. Campbell, along with Otacon and Mei Ling serves as one of Snake's codec contacts in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He also makes a brief codec appearance in a minigame in Ape Escape 3.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Banjo Ginga (MGS) Tomokazu Sugita (MGSPW) |
Cam Clarke (MGS & MGS:TS) Robin Atkin Downes (MGSPW) |
McDonnell Benedict Miller, also known as Master Miller and Kazuhira Miller, is a drill instructor and survival coach introduced in Metal Gear 2 as a member of FOXHOUND and one of Snake's radio contacts. In Metal Gear Solid, Master is murdered prior to the events of the game and a disguised Liquid, who was hidden at the time, assumes his identity, tricking Snake to unknowingly do his bidding. Master Miller was originally depicted as an Asian-looking man with black hair in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2. In Metal Gear Solid, the character is depicted with blond hair and aviator sunglasses but is revealed to be Liquid's successful attempt to get Snake to input the PAL Card. Revisions of Metal Gear 2 following the 2004 mobile phone version depicted Miller in this design. In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Miller, often referred as Kaz, serves as Big Boss' second-in-command in his Militaires Sans Frontières mercenary group. The blond hair and sunglasses he sports in Metal Gear Solid is complemented by a yellow scarf over his green uniform.[8] The game also reveals his upbringing as the son of a US officer and a Japanese woman, and his short-lived service in the JSDF,[9] although various materials (like the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database as well as the manual for Metal Gear 2) stated that he was originally a third generation Japanese American who was born 60 years after his grandparents immigrated to America.[10]
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Hideyuki Tanaka | Christopher Randolph |
Dr. Hal Emmerich (ハル・エメリッヒ博士 Haru Emerihhi Hakase), nicknamed Otacon (オタコン Otakon) due to his fondness of anime, first appears in Metal Gear Solid as an ArmsTech employee who designed Metal Gear REX.[3] "Hal" is a tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey.[11] He is also a highly accomplished hacker. After being rescued by Snake from the Ninja he begins to assist him after he realizes that REX is being used by the terrorists to launch a new type of nuclear warhead. His assistance is instrumental to Snake's victory, but at a cost: he is forced to watch Snake execute Sniper Wolf, a woman he had developed a crush on. Otacon's family has a rather dark history with nuclear weapons: his grandfather was part of the Manhattan Project, and his father was born on the same day as the Hiroshima bomb. Kojima states that he created Otacon as his way of glorifying the otaku stereotype by having a character who fights the terrorists with his intellect rather than his brawn.[12] According to Kojima, the original idea of Otacon was to make him "heavier, wearing a cap, and programming while eating a chocolate bar". However, the design Shinkawa did for the character was a slender one instead.[13]
In Metal Gear Solid 2, Otacon and Solid Snake form Philanthropy, an anti-proliferation organization dedicated to the eradication of all Metal Gears. During the Tanker chapter, Otacon once again supports Snake via the codec and is in charge of saving the player's progress. He later appears in the Plant chapter, having infiltrated the Big Shell facility with Snake to save his stepsister Emma, who is among the hostages. Tragically, Emma is grievously wounded by Vamp and later dies in Otacon's arms. He transports the surviving hostages to safety and then provides support to Raiden via codec for the remainder of the game. Lead character designer Yoji Shinkawa stated in an interview that Otacon was designed to look somewhat "tougher" than he did in Metal Gear Solid.[14]
Otacon appears in Metal Gear Solid 4, still lending his support to Snake. He and Sunny (Olga's daughter) build a robotic companion to Snake called Metal Gear Mk. II, which he controls remotely. The Mk. II is taken from a robotic character of the same name in Snatcher.[1] He becomes romantically involved with Naomi Hunter through the course of the story although he once again loses her to circumstances beyond his control, thus forcing him yet again to witness the death of a woman he cared about. In the codec of MGS4, Otacon tells Snake that he and Sunny will live with Snake for the remainder of his life, to serve as witnesses of his existence.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Otacon is one of Snake's support crew available through taunting. He is also referred to in the credits of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as the son of Dr. Huey Emmerich and Dr. Strangelove, the creators of the unmanned AI weapons and Metal Gear ZEKE.
Revolver Ocelot appears in Metal Gear Solid as a member of FOXHOUND secretly working as a spy for Solidus Snake, also the U.S. President. He becomes a recurring antagonist in subsequent games, appearing in Metal Gear Solid 2 as an agent of the Patriots who gets possessed by Liquid Snake as the result of an arm transplant, and appears in Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops as his young self Major Ocelot. He is the only character to appear in a majority of all Metal Gear Solid games, with the exception of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Kyoko Terase | Debi Mae West |
Meryl Silverburgh (メリル・シルバーバーグ Meriru Shirubābāgu) is introduced as the teenage niece of Solid Snake's commander, Roy Campbell, in Metal Gear Solid, where she serves as Snake's rookie sidekick. Meryl is also Snake's love interest in the story.[3] Prior to the events of the game, she gets assigned to Shadow Moses for a field exercise, but refuses to join the rebellion led by Liquid Snake and is imprisoned. Her cell guard opens the wrong door in confusion and accidentally releases her. She then subdues him, stealing his uniform as well as everything that was on him. She comes in contact with Snake via the Codec (140.15) and then meets up with him afterwards. Snake rescues her from Psycho Mantis's mind control, but she is later shot and captured by Sniper Wolf. Her ultimate fate depends on the player's actions during the Torture sequence afterwards: if the player succeeds in resisting Revolver Ocelot's torture, Meryl is then rescued by Snake after his fistfight with Liquid and the two escape together from the Shadow Moses base; if the player submits, then an alternate ending is played where Snake finds Meryl dead and he and Otacon escape the base and Campbell reveals to Snake that Meryl was Campbell's biological daughter.
When character designer Yoji Shinkawa was asked about Meryl's omission in Metal Gear Solid 2, he stated that they purposely avoided mentioning her directly in the game, so that the sequel could follow either of the two endings from the first game.[15] Despite this, the character's survival is mentioned in the fictional publication featured in the game, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses. Meryl appears in the expanded version of the game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, in a few of the supplemental game modes unrelated to the main story.
Disproving Shinkawa's comments and proving that the canon storyline is the one in which she survives, Meryl appears in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as the commander of "Rat Patrol Team One" (RAT PT 01), a fictional division of the US Army's CID sent to investigate Liquid Ocelot's PMC activities.[16] She is now aware that Roy Campbell is her true father, but openly resents him due to his marriage with Rosemary, who is her own age. She reconciles with him at the end of the game. At first, Meryl dislikes her subordinate Johnny due to his clumsiness and stomach problems, but forgives him after learning he does not have nanomachines in his body and falls in love with him after he saves her life on their missions in the Middle East, Europe and the Outer Haven Assault, and ends up marrying him at the end of the story.
Kojima Productions' representative Ryan Payton acknowledged criticism that her romance with Johnny felt forced, stating that fans were expecting the character to be paired with Snake following the announcement of her appearance in the game, but then went on to state that he did not expect Snake and Meryl to be romantically paired while reading an early script.[17]
Meryl Silverburgh originally appeared as a character in Hideo Kojima's 1994 adventure game Policenauts (released only in Japan).[18] In this game, set in the year 2040, Meryl is a former FOXHOUND operative who works in the space colony Beyond Coast as an officer in the Police Department's vice unit. She works with a partner named Dave Forrest. According to a commentary on the official site of the PSone Books reissue of Policenauts, while the Meryl from Policenauts has the same name, the same Japanese voice actress, and a similar appearance, they are not meant to be the same individual.[19] Meryl from Metal Gear Solid's canon would be in her 50s at the time Policenauts takes place. Her Rat Patrol teammates Ed and Jonathan are named after the protagonists of Policenauts, Ed Brown and Jonathan Ingram. She also wears a bullet-shaped earring in Guns of the Patriots, similar to the one worn by her counterpart in Policenauts.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Hiromi Tsuru | Jennifer Hale |
Dr. Naomi Hunter (ナオミ・ハンター博士 Naomi Hantā Hakase) is the chief of FOXHOUND's medical staff, and part of the support crew assembled to assist Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid, providing the player with information on the FOXHOUND members Snake faces.[20] A geneticist by practice,[3] she specializes in nanotechnology-based gene therapy. Revealed to be Gray Fox's adopted sister,[21] Naomi seeks revenge on Snake for attempting to kill her brother,[22] though she realizes that some of her original perceptions of him were wrong as the game progresses. When instructed to inject Snake with the FOXDIE virus, she illegally modifies it so that it will kill Snake in addition to FOXHOUND.[1] However, Naomi chooses to set FOXDIE to a "wildcard" value, leaving him vulnerable at a later time. Uncertain of when exactly the FOXDIE would kill Snake, Naomi merely told him to live his life to the fullest in whatever time he had left.[23]
In The Darkness of Shadow Moses, Nastasha's account of the previous game in Metal Gear Solid 2, reveals that Naomi was arrested following the Shadow Moses Island incident. She escaped from detainment three weeks later.[24] In Metal Gear Solid 4, it is revealed that it was Liquid Ocelot who helped her escape.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Naomi is working with Liquid Ocelot in order to hijack the SOP battlefield control system.[1] She becomes romantically involved with Otacon and forms a friendship with Sunny. She also revealed that Snake and Liquid have different DNA patterns, which is why the FOXDIE did not kill Snake during Shadow Moses, and also that Snake's premature aging was planned when he was cloned and that he has only six months left before the FOXDIE inside him will begin to kill people indiscriminately. When they return to Shadow Moses, Naomi reveals that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer that has been kept in check by nanomachines and, guilt-ridden over her past mistakes, commits suicide by disabling them.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Houko Kuwashima | Kim Mai Guest |
Mei Ling (美玲（メイ・リン） Mei Rin) is a Chinese-American data analyst in charge of saving the player's progress in Metal Gear Solid. She is the one who invented Snake's wireless communication equipment, the codec radio, as well the Soliton Radar, which detects the positions and field of vision of nearby enemy soldiers. Every time Snake saves his data, Mei Ling provides him with advice through Chinese proverbs, as well as quotations from Western authors. In the Japanese version, Mei Ling only quoted Chinese proverbs: she would cite the original proverb in Chinese and then explain its meaning to Snake in Japanese. According to Kojima, this made some of the proverbs redundant after translating them to English, since Mei Ling would be saying the same thing twice.[25] The western quotes were added under Jeremy Blaustein's (the game's translator) suggestion. Her design was based on actress Shinobu Nakayama.
In Metal Gear Solid 2, Mei Ling is part of Philanthropy, an anti-Metal Gear organization, but assists Snake and Otacon off-screen, attempting to steal equipment from the SSCEN. She makes a voice only cameo in the game as an easter egg during the Tanker chapter, after the player has saved their progress 13 times.[26] In Metal Gear Solid 4, Mei Ling commands the museum-turned-training vessel USS Missouri and provides Snake and Otacon with backup, courtesy of her connections from the SSCEN.[1][27] At the end of the game, she acts as Meryl Silverburgh's bridesmaid at her wedding.
Mei Ling has made a few appearances outside the main series of Metal Gear games. She is a central character in the radio drama version of Metal Gear Solid (set after the events of the original game) and appears in the Game Boy Color version of Metal Gear Solid (a side story unrelated to the main series). Mei Ling is also one of Snake's support crew in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.[28]
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Naoki Imamura (MGS, MGS2, MGS3) Jun Fukuyama (MGS4) |
Dean Scofield (MGS, MGS2) Michael Gough (MGS3) Beng Spies (MGS4) |
Johnny (ジョニー Jonī), nicknamed Akiba (アキバ) in Metal Gear Solid 4 is a recurring character who first appears as an enemy guard in Metal Gear Solid whose uniform is stolen by Meryl, and again later in the game whilst Snake is being held in-between torture sessions with Revolver Ocelot while suffering from a cold and diarrhea. Johnny's character is never named in the game and is listed only in the ending credits as Johnny Sasaki (ジョニー 佐々木 Jonī Sasaki). The surname Sasaki comes from the game's character model designer, Hideki Sasaki. According to the developers' commentary in Metal Gear Solid: Integral, Hideki was known among the staff for his slackoff behavior and the character was included in the game as an in-joke.[29] This surname was only used in the first two Metal Gear Solid games.
Johnny returns for a pair of voice-over cameos in Metal Gear Solid 2.[26] In an early version of the MGS2 story, his full name was to be Johnny Sasaki Slater (ジョニー・佐々木・スレイター Jonī Sasaki Sureitā) and originally had a minor role in the story in which his character, a Patriot spy, would die from a pacemaker malfunction after coming in contact with Raiden (the scene was retained in the final game, but Ames took said place).[7] During Raiden's talk with Ames, where he uses the Directional Mic to listen in on Solidus' and Ocelot's conversation, if the player points the mic at the bathroom door in the corner, he can hear Johnny talking to himself whilst on the toilet. Johnny can be found again during Raiden's sniper trial at the bottom of the Big Shell's Struts.
In Metal Gear Solid 3, Johnny's grandfather, also named Johnny (who explains that all of the first-born sons in his family are given this name) appears as a cell guard who befriends Naked Snake after he is captured by Colonel Volgin. He wears a Balaclava with the letter J on his forehead. Unlike his grandson, he suffers from constipation as opposed to diarrhea. This same character appears as a recruitable character in Portable Ops Plus.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Johnny is a member of Meryl's Rat Patrol Team 01, his face being revealed for the first time in the series. Johnny's nickname given by his teammates is Akiba, shortened from Akihabara, due to his fascination with high-tech gadgets. He, along with Meryl, assist Snake in Outer Haven by allowing him time to reach the server room. It is revealed that he had been in love with Meryl since he first saw her at Shadow Moses, and he marries her in the epilogue. Also, unlike all of the other soldiers in the Army and the PMCs, Johnny does not have nanomachines since he always avoided the injections due to his trypanophobia; the lack of such explains his frequent spells of colds and diarrhea. While this gives him poor combat performance in comparison to his squad mates, he is completely immune to Liquid Ocelot's ability to directly attack soldiers' nanomachines and Screaming Mantis' ability to directly control people with nanomachines in their bodies (his trump card throughout the game). He admits to Meryl that he fell in love with her the first time they met in Shadow Moses. At first Meryl seems to be utterly annoyed with Johnny since he seemed undisciplined and out of sync with the team but later becomes more forgiving after learning he lacked nanomachines and returned his romantic feelings in the end.
Sniper Wolf (voiced by Tasia Valenza and Naoko Nakamura) is the Iraqi-Kurdish sharpshooter of the FOXHOUND unit, who uses a Heckler & Koch PSG1.[30][31][32] Though snipers usually work in pairs, Sniper Wolf works alone.[33] She is also another "disciple" of Big Boss, the antagonist from the previous two Metal Gear games.[34] During the takeover, she was friendly to Otacon, allowing him to feed the wolves and giving him a handkerchief. Otacon became infatuated with her and was devastated by her death. In Metal Gear Solid she fights Snake twice, the first time results in Meryl being captured, Sniper Wolf with mild blood loss, and Snake being tortured,[35] in the second battle she is killed.[36] She is also apparently addicted to the muscle relaxant Diazepam.
In May 2010, IGN ranked Sniper Wolf #92 on their list of top #100 Videogame villains of all time.[37]
Psycho Mantis (voiced by Doug Stone and Kazuyuki Sogabe, Shōzō Iizuka in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) is a psychic expert for the FOXHOUND unit. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he came to America looking for a job. Prior to joining FOXHOUND, he worked with the KGB and the FBI. During an interrogation with a serial killer, he delved too deep into the killer's mind through his telepathic powers. As a result, he became just like the killer, and it drove him insane. His special abilities include the psychic powers of psychokinesis and telepathy. He also claims to be able to read the future, but this is implied to be a use of telepathy to find out what his opponents will do next as opposed to true clairvoyance. His predictions also seem to be susceptible to change, stating that Snake has a large place in Meryl's heart, but cannot see if their futures lie together. In Metal Gear Solid Mantis encounters Snake twice, the first time he takes control of Meryl's mind, the second encounter he and Snake do battle, with Mantis being defeated.[38] After defeating Screaming Mantis in battle, Psycho Mantis makes an appearance where he demonstrates his mind reading and psychokinesis powers before vanishing into the air. Drebin later reveals that the Beauty and the Beast Corps had been under the control of Psycho Mantis all along.
Vulcan Raven (voiced by Peter Lurie and Yukitoshi Hori) is the Inuit member of FOXHOUND who wields a giant Vulcan cannon and has shamanic powers of intuition. He is able to discern Snake's heritage. He can also tell that Snake is a clone, saying that he is "from another world." He was an employee at Big Boss's fortified nation of Outer Heaven prior to his involvement at FOXHOUND.[39][40] In Metal Gear Solid he does battle with Snake twice, the first battle with Raven in an M1 Abrams tank,[41] the second in a freezer with Raven being killed. During his death scene he gives info on the real identity of the DARPA Chief. He also leaves Snake with a cryptic message of his violent future before his body is completely devoured by ravens.[42]
Vulcan Raven also appears as an in-game joke in Metal Gear Solid 2. In the Tanker chapter, the player is led to believe that Vulcan Raven is alive in the ship through a large shadow in the passageway, but that shadow turns out to be cast by a Vulcan Raven action figure against a floodlight at a high angle. The figure, which can fire bullets as well, also appears in the Shell 2 Core's flooded basement.
Decoy Octopus is a member of FOXHOUND, and, with the rest of his unit, went rogue during the Shadow Moses island incident. Octopus specializes in impersonation; he even injects the blood of those he impersonates into his own body for a more 'perfect' disguise. In Metal Gear Solid he impersonates the DARPA Chief after Ocelot killed him during interrogation,[42][43] and is killed by the FoxDie virus.[44] He is the only member of FOXHOUND whom Snake does not fight. As Donald Anderson, he lies to Snake about having his detonation code found out by Psycho Mantis and also informs him of the PAL override system.
Nastasha Romanenko (voiced by Renee Raudman and Eiko Yamada) is Solid Snake's contact on matters related to nuclear weapons.[45] She was born in Ukrainian SSR and was just ten years old when the Chernobyl Accident took place. She saw many people, including her parents succumb to the effects of radiation. It is revealed in Metal Gear Solid 2 that she was brought into the mission by Richard Ames, her ex-husband.[46] After the events of Metal Gear Solid, her character writes an autobiography titled In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth and then forms "Philanthropy" (an anti-proliferation group featured prominently in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty) with the profits she made.[7] This fictional publication serves as a plot summary of Metal Gear Solid (and reveals previously undisclosed plot details about the events of the games), and is included as a bonus feature in Metal Gear Solid 2, and she herself is credited as writing it in the game credits, rather than the real life writer,[46] Tomokazu Fukushima, the co-writer of the Metal Gear Solid series.
Donald Anderson (voiced by Greg Eagles and Masaharu Sato) is the office chief of DARPA taken hostage by FOXHOUND.[47] As an advocate of the nuclear retaliation theory, he funds the Metal Gear REX project with ArmsTech as part of the US' black budget. During his torture, Donald Anderson recognized Revolver Ocelot[43] as not truly working for the terrorists. Ocelot "accidentally" killed Anderson. As a result, he was later impersonated by Decoy Octopus to fool Snake into using the card keys.
In Metal Gear Solid 3, Sigint (an alias for Anderson) was Naked Snake's technical advisor during Operation Snake Eater. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Big Boss would later confirm that Sigint was one of the Patriots' founding members.
Kenneth Baker (voiced by Allan Lurie and Yuzuru Fujimoto) is the president of ArmsTech, one of the leading manufacturers of the arms industry and taken prisoner by FOXHOUND.[47] In Metal Gear Solid he is tortured by Revolver Ocelot, then rescued by Snake. Snake was unable to rescue him before he gave away his detonation code. However he is killed by the FoxDie virus.[44] He is the first person to realize that FoxDie exists and nearly tells Snake the truth about his mission, but succumbs to the virus before he can finish his sentence.
Jim Houseman (voiced by William Basset and Tomohisa Aso) is the United States Secretary of Defense and serves as the mission controller during the Shadow Moses Island incident via AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System: a radar-based electronic system designed to carry out airborne surveillance).[47] He makes only one appearance at the end of Metal Gear Solid, via CODEC, where he orders the Shadow Moses base to be bombed.[48] According to In the Darkness of Shadow Moses, Houseman commits suicide following the events of Metal Gear Solid, however Nastasha suggests he was murdered.[49]
Liquid Snake (voiced by Banjo Ginga in Japanese and Cam Clarke in English) is introduced in Metal Gear Solid as the main antagonist. He is the twin brother of Solid Snake and the second of Big Boss' clones, a creation of the Les Enfants Terribles project. His surrogate mother is Eva. Moved and raised in the United Kingdom following his birth, Liquid served as an operative for the British SAS and later became the field commander of FOXHOUND (after Snake's and Campbell's retirement) prior to the events of the game. Liquid resembles Snake in terms of facial appearance and physique, with the primary differences being his different skin tone and medium-length blond hair, both stated by Shinkawa to be a result of bleaching during his time in a POW camp, as well as a tattoo of a snake entwined around a sword on his left arm.
He battles Snake numerous times throughout the events of the game; inside a Hind D helicopter, inside Metal Gear REX (after he used Snake to activate the PAL for REX's ability to launch nukes), and on top of a destroyed REX. Towards the conclusion of the game, Liquid corners a trapped Snake, but dies having been exposed to the FOXDIE virus implanted within his brother.
One of Liquid's motivations is his hatred towards Solid Snake, as Liquid believes that Solid received all of Big Boss' superior genes, and that he, Liquid, was destined to be inferior. It is revealed after the credits, that Liquid was intentionally deceived in order to drive him to carry on Big Boss' legacy.[50] This is in line with the game's interpretation of the nature versus nurture debate. As the greater experience that Solid has on the battlefield enables him to defeat Liquid, despite his supposed "genetic superiority" and his personal grudge with Solid, due to him thinking Solid is in fact the superior one.[51]
In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Liquid seemingly returns as a dormant personality that would possess his former ally, Revolver Ocelot, following an arm transplant where Ocelot replaces his own severed hand with one taken from the corpse of Liquid. Liquid supposedly possessed Ocelot via the right arm whenever Solid Snake was in the vicinity. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, it is revealed that Ocelot had artificially (through nanomachines, hypnotherapy etc.) become Liquid to fool The Patriots. The personality and mind of Liquid was transplanted into Ocelot's body. Liquid Ocelot then prepared a new plan to destroy The Patriots. Finally, Liquid fought against Snake on the top of Outer Haven, but as he did so, Ocelot began to reappear. Eventually, Liquid's personality vanished, though it is not known whether this was permanent as Ocelot died moments later.
Raiden, whose real name is Jack, is the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2, who substituted Solid Snake as the player's character in the main portion of the game. He is initially introduced with the codename Snake before being given the codename Raiden. In MGS2, he reveals he was a child soldier in the Liberian Civil War, and that Solidus Snake is technically his adoptive father. Raiden was romantically involved with Rose who served as Raiden's mission support in MGS2. He returns in Metal Gear Solid 4 as a near-indestructible cyborg ninja who supports Old Snake. He will return as the protagonist of the next game in the series, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
Solidus Snake (voiced by Akio Ōtsuka in Japanese and John Cygan in English) is first mentioned by name in the post-credits codec conversation of Metal Gear Solid, where he is revealed to be a third clone of Big Boss, as well as the President of the United States during the events of the game, George Sears. He appears as the antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2, where he is revealed to be the adoptive father of the protagonist Raiden after dropping his charade of impersonating Solid Snake. Raiden defeats Solidus in their duel atop Federal Hall, slicing into the spine of Solidus's powered exoskeleton with a high-frequency blade.
In Metal Gear Solid 4 Raiden is sent out to find Big Boss's body by Big Mama. Once Snake tracks down the resistance and meets Big Mama the body Raiden had found is burned at the lake by Liquid Snake after a long chase. Later on it is found out that the body that had been burned was not the real Big Boss but Solidus Snake, the perfect clone.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Ryotaro Okiayu (MGS2) Shinya Tsukamoto (MGS4) |
Phil LaMarr |
Vamp (ヴァンプ Vanpu) first appears in Metal Gear Solid 2 as a member of Dead Cell from Romania who forms part of the "Sons of Liberty" terrorist group during the Plant chapter. He is a knife-throwing specialist endowed with numerous vampire-like abilities and attributes, such as a taste for blood, superhuman strength, speed, agility, the ability to walk on vertical walls and run across water, and apparent immortality (being able to simply shrug off what would typically be a mortal wound, such as a bullet to the head). His taste for blood is described in a Codec call between Snake and Raiden: as a child, his entire family was killed when a church they were attending was bombed, and he was trapped under rubble, along with being impaled by a crucifix, for two days before he was rescued, and he survived by drinking the blood of his dead family members, which is where he got his bloodlust. Vamp confronts Raiden several times throughout the course of the game, before being, apparently, killed by Raiden's sniper fire and lost to the seas (but not before inflicting a mortal wound on Otacon's stepsister, Emma). Despite his apparent death, he somehow manages to survive and appears among the crowd that forms in the streets of Manhattan after Arsenal Gear crashes into Federal Hall.[26] Vamp was originally designed as a woman, but when the character of Fortune was introduced, the design was changed to that of a man, although the long black hair was retained.[52] His moniker has dual meanings, being a short form of the English word vampire as well as referring to his bisexual orientation, though Snake tells Raiden that "Vamp" explicitly refers to his bisexuality and not his vampiric habits.[53] Vamp's appearance is based on Spanish dancer Joaquín Cortés.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Vamp appears as a member of Liquid Ocelot's private army and as Raiden's rival.[1] His "immortality" is revealed to be caused by nanomachines in his body that heal all of his wounds at an extraordinarily fast rate (Naomi describes it as augmenting his natural healing abilities). Using a syringe designed by Naomi Hunter to destabilize the functionality of nanomachines, Snake disables Vamp's nanomachines, allowing Raiden to mortally wound him at Shadow Moses Island.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Kikuko Inoue | Lara Cody |
Rosemary (ローズマリー Rōzumarī, Rose for short) is introduced as Raiden's girlfriend in the Plant chapter portion of Metal Gear Solid 2. She is employed by the army as a data analyst, and saves the player's progress over Codec. Rosemary also supports Raiden by providing information about the Big Shell facilities and the other characters Raiden encounters in the game. Raiden and Rose spend most of their conversations talking about their relationship. By the end of the game, Rosemary reveals herself to be a spy for The Patriots. She is then taken off the mission and replaced by an A.I. duplicate of her who openly mocks Raiden. After the final battle, Raiden is reunited with the real Rose, pregnant with his child, in front of Federal Hall.
In an early version of MGS2 story, Rosemary dies in the game; in this version, Rosemary and Raiden never meet in person, as she's a supposed hostage in the Big Shell who communicates with Raiden via the Codec, which would lead the player to wonder whether she was real or just an AI construct.[54]
In Metal Gear Solid 4,[27] Rosemary appears as a psychological counselor in a combat stress platoon, offering Snake tips on dealing with stress.[55] Though she became engaged to Raiden after the events of Metal Gear Solid 2, their relationship ended after Rosemary purportedly miscarried their child.[1] Rosemary later marries Campbell, causing a rift between Campbell and Meryl. In reality, Rosemary did give birth to Raiden's child, a boy named John; her marriage is a ploy to protect the boy from The Patriots, by having Campbell pose as John's father. After she reveals the truth to Raiden, the couple reconciles.
Olga Gurlukovich appears in the Tanker chapter as a member of her father's mercenary unit and is the sole boss character in this portion of the game.[3] She takes over her father's unit after his death in the Tanker chapter, lending her team to the Sons of Liberty terrorist faction. She is shown to be at odds with Revolver Ocelot, blaming him for her father's death. She is actually an unwilling agent for the Patriots, who are holding her child hostage, and assists Raiden as a disguised Cyborg Ninja calling herself Mr. X. By doing so, she is betraying her comrades to ensure her child's safety, a realization that makes her feel guilty. After she reveals herself to Solidus, she is killed with a shot to the head. Her daughter, Sunny, who was raised by the Patriots, appears in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Sunny has a portrait of her mother hanging in the kitchen area of the Nomad.
Fatman, who named himself after the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki (which was itself named after Sydney Greenstreet's character in The Maltese Falcon), is a member of Dead Cell specializing in explosives and the first boss character in the Plant chapter (not counting Raiden's encounter with Fortune). He is a psychopathic, overweight bald man in a EOD suit who moves around on rollerblades and is armed with a Glock 18 in addition to his bombs. One of the player's early objectives in the Plant chapter is to deactivate a series of C4 bombs planted within each of the struts surrounding the Shell 1 core. The explosives are revealed to be nothing more than dummy bombs serving to activate the real bomb in basement of Strut A. A similar bomb planted in the basement of the Shell 2 Core detonates, killing Fatman's former mentor Peter Stillman in the process. As Raiden meets with him, Fatman reveals that he wishes to surpass his mentor by killing him and blowing up the Big Shell in the process. Fatman then challenges Raiden to a duel at the heliport atop Strut E. The battle involves neutralizing Fatman while trying to prevent his explosives from blowing up the place. Once the player has defeated Fatman, Fatman says that there is one more bomb, and that "it's very close by". Fatman is actually sitting on the bomb so the player has to grab him and drag him away. Because of Fatman's weight the player can only drag him for about 4 seconds. In the ending sequence of the game, Ocelot reveals that Fatman was actually an agent of The Patriots. Stillman's presence in the facility was arranged to motivate Fatman into participating.
Fortune, whose real name is Helena Dolph Jackson, is the leading member of Dead Cell and a member of the "Sons of Liberty". She is an African-American woman with blond hair and wears a dark leotard and trenchcoat, while her weapon is a railgun. The railgun is a miniature version of Metal Gear Rex's. Her codename comes from her nearly-miraculous ability to have bullets pass by her without hitting her. She confronts Raiden once in the game; the player is unable to actually defeat her in battle and must avoid her attacks while waiting for an elevator to arrive. Her true motive is to seek revenge against Solid Snake whom she believes was responsible for her father's death. Near the end of the game, she learns it was actually Ocelot who killed her father, but is shot in the chest before she can attack: Ocelot reveals that her immunity to bullets was simply the result of an electromagnetic force field surrounding her body, also later revealing that her heart is on the right side of her body, not the left like most other people. Before dying, she manages to deflect RAY's missiles, protecting Raiden, Snake and Solidus, causing Snake to remark "she is Lady Luck". In a later Codec conversation Hal suspects that the haywire AI on Big Shell, GW, was interfering with the missile's guidance systems thus causing them to miss. Snake however acknowledges it was still an extraordinary feat of luck.
Emma Emmerich Danziger (nicknamed "E.E.") is an AI programmer and the stepsister of Hal Emmerich. She is in charge of developing the AI that controls Arsenal Gear. When Emma was a child, her mother, Julie Danziger, married the father of Hal Emmerich. Emma and Hal became very close as children, and they would often play house, in which they were a married couple. When Hal was an adolescent, he was seduced by his stepmother (Emma's mother). Upon learning this, Hal's father committed suicide by drowning himself in the family's swimming pool, and accidentally dragged Emma into the water in the process. She survived, but not without injury. Emma expected Hal to save her, but he wasn't aware that this was happening (due to his relationship with his stepmother). After this, Emma developed a fear of water and became estranged from her stepbrother, blaming him for leaving the family after his father's death. She is escorted to the Shell 1 Core computer room by Raiden to download a virus into GW, but is ambushed by Vamp on the oil fence. Raiden snipes Vamp, but before falling into the sea, Vamp fatally stabs Emma in the stomach. She later dies in the computer room. She is named after the character Dr. E.E. Danziger from the novel Time and Again.
Colonel Richard Ames is a Secret Service agent and an operative for the Patriots who is taken hostage during the Big Shell incident. He previously served the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he met Nastasha Romanenko. He was married to Nastasha for a while, but the two ended up in divorce. After briefly meeting Raiden and being threatened by Revolver Ocelot, a fellow Patriot operative, for revealing too much information to Raiden, he suddenly dies from an apparent heart attack. It is later revealed that he died from his nanomachines turning off his pacemaker thanks to a virus imitating FOXDIE put in place by The Patriots. He is named after the protagonist of the Robert Heinlein novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
General Scott Dolph is the commandant of the Marine Corps and Fortune's father. In the Tanker chapter, he is in charge of transporting the Metal Gear RAY prototype to its testing site and gives a speech to his troops in the cargo holds, unaware that the ship is being hijacked. He is killed by Ocelot, who hijacks Metal Gear RAY, and his death serves as the root of Fortune's sorrow. It is revealed during the Plant chapter that he and Vamp were at one point lovers. His character is named after Scott Dolph, who served as Hideo Kojima's personal English translator during the production of the game.
Colonel Sergei Gurlukovich, who is first mentioned by name in the original Metal Gear Solid, a former C.O. of Revolver Ocelot and father of Olga (and by relation, Sunny's grandfather). He is the leader of the Russian mercenaries who seized the ship during the Tanker chapter for the purpose of hijacking Metal Gear RAY and establishing a new Soviet state. In a turn of events, he and most of his group end up being betrayed and killed by Ocelot, who is a member of the Patriots and wants RAY for their cause.
President James Johnson is the current President of the United States in Metal Gear Solid 2, he has been President for at least four years by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2, he is the primary hostage Raiden is sent to rescue in the Plant chapter. After a series of ordeals, Raiden finally meets the President in the Shell 2 Core. The President reveals that he was actually a willing accomplice in the terrorist act, his vital signs being the input codes to activate Arsenal Gear (the new version of Metal Gear housed in the Big Shell), but was imprisoned after a conflict of interest with Solidus Snake (he wanted power, whereas Solidus preferred rebelling altogether). He reveals the truth about Arsenal Gear and Solidus Snake to Raiden, and learns that he was manipulated to revolt by the Patriots as part of the S3 Plan. He was later killed by Ocelot while arguing with Raiden to kill him to prevent the terrorists from launching a nuclear strike.
Peter Stillman is a former NYPD bomb disposal expert working for the Bund Patrol who infiltrates the Big Shell facility with SEAL Team 10. He is the former mentor of Fatman, one of the Dead Cell terrorists, who has planted bombs within each of the struts in the entire Big Shell facility. He provides Raiden and Pliskin with the tools needed to track down and deactivate each of the explosives, while providing support to the player via the codec. He eventually learns that the explosives Fatman planted were decoys used to activate the real bombs set to destroy the foundation of Shell 1 and Shell 2. Stillman (after revealing that he'd killed his soul) races to the basement of Strut H, only to be caught in Fatman's trap: the bomb being equipped with a proximity sensor, detonates, killing Stillman and floods the basement. Later, while exploring the flooded basement, the player can find Stillman's body floating around. He is named after the character Peter Stillman from the novel City of Glass, which shares the games sense of meta-fiction.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Misa Watanabe (MGS3, MPO, MPW) Mari Natsuki (MGS4) |
Suzetta Miñet (MGS3, MPW) Vanessa Marshall (MPO) Lee Meriwether (MGS4) |
EVA first appears in Metal Gear Solid 3 as a female spy in the service of China[3] sent to retrieve the Philosophers' Legacy.[56] EVA uses her charm and good looks to win over the trust of Snake and his enemies. During the events of Snake Eater, she infiltrates Colonel Volgin's base through the disguise of being Sokolov's lover named Tatyana and assists Naked Snake through the alternative disguise of a KGB spy, to help him reach the Philosophers' Legacy so that she can later steal it from him, even seeming to fall in love with him. After the mission is completed, EVA and Snake have a one night stand, and she cannot bring herself to carry out the order of assassinating Snake, as she promised The Boss she would not. Instead, she flees with what she believes to be the Philosophers' Legacy (later revealed to be a fake). After Snake awakens the next morning, he discovers a tape EVA has left revealing all her secrets, and that she did genuinely fall in love with him. The epilogue prior to the credits goes on to state that EVA disappeared in Hanoi, Vietnam in 1968. EVA's presence in MGS3 has been compared to that of the Bond Girls in the 007 film series.[57] EVA reappears in Portable Ops as a recruitable character by completing a series of non-canon optional missions.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, which is set 50 years after the events of MGS3, she appears under the identity of Big Mama[1] as the leader of a resistance movement against The Patriots. It's revealed that she was fired from her job as a spy by PLA Intelligence after the microfilm she brought to her superiors turned out to be a fake. She was expelled from China and spent years on the run. She met Big Boss again in 1971 when he rescued her in Hanoi, Vietnam, and he invited her to become part of the Patriots. During their years together within the Patriots, Snake and EVA resumed their previous relationship. However, during a mission in which Snake was injured and brought back unconscious, Major Zero secretly decided to use his DNA to create a clone of Snake, as he was thought of as the greatest soldier in the world. She assists Solid Snake in Eastern Europe, ultimately dying due to coming into contact with the FOXDIE virus carried in Snake's body, although it initially appeared as if EVA died from a stomach wound inflicted on her when she fell off her bike, similar to the one inflicted in a similar scene in MGS3.[58]
While not making a direct appearance in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, EVA's explanation to Naked Snake about The Boss's true mission was heard after Big Boss euthanized The Boss's horse, and EVA also supplied tapes detailing various aspects of The Boss's life.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Banjō Ginga | Jim Piddock |
Major Zero, also known as Major Tom, is introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3 as the commanding officer of the FOX unit, who communicates with Naked Snake (Big Boss) via the radio. In Portable Ops, he is supposedly arrested by the Pentagon after being convicted for the FOX unit's revolt, but is "exonerated" after the events of the game.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, he is revealed to be the founder of The Patriots along with Big Boss. However, a fallout between the two causes Zero to plot Big Boss's demise through the use of his clone sons, Solid Snake & Liquid Snake. He appears in the ending as a 105-year-old vegetable in a wheelchair. He dies in the final scene of the game after Big Boss cuts off his oxygen supply. The original codename of Major Tom is based on the movie The Great Escape and change his name to Major Zero after watching the movie and realizing he named himself after the wrong tunnel which was Harry, not named after the song by David Bowie. Snake saying "Can you hear me Major Tom" is just an easter egg put in the game for humor.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Naoki Tatsuta | Brian Cummings |
Dr. Nikolai Stephanovich Sokolov is the rocket scientist who develops the Shagohod, the featured tank in Metal Gear Solid 3. He is cowardly and timid shown when he was captured by Colonel Volgin, who forced him to complete the weapon, and seemingly dies off-screen after he is tortured for trying to escape. Despite his apparent death, he appears in Portable Ops as an informant named Ghost, revealing that he survived Volgin's torture and escaped to the U.S. with the help of the new FOX unit commander Gene. He builds the first Metal Gear model, RAXA, the ICBMG, a quadrupedal model.
| Japanese voice actor | English voice actor |
|---|---|
| Kikuko Inoue | Lori Alan |
The Boss (a.k.a. The Joy) is a legendary American soldier, founder and leader of the Cobra unit, mentor and mother figure to Big Boss/Naked Snake, and is known as the mother of the U.S. special forces.[3] According to the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database, she was born in 1922 and is the daughter of one of the original members of the Philosophers behind the Philosophers' Legacy. She is known in Russia as Voyevoda, literally meaning The Warlord. In June 1944, during World War II, she led the Cobra unit to victory at the Battle of Normandy. She was pregnant at the time with a baby fathered by The Sorrow. The Boss gave birth to a baby boy on the battlefield via a messy caesarian section that left her with a long, snaking scar across her abdomen. The baby was taken by the Philosophers, who was later confirmed to be Revolver Ocelot.
In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, EVA reveals that the Boss infiltrated a sleeper agent into the USSR's OKB-1 from 1959 to 1961 to gather more information about the Sputnik program with a little help from the Philosophers. She was eventually commissioned into Project Mercury to test the Mercury capsule and launched into space at roughly the same time as Yuri Gagarin's flight on April 12, 1961. However, the capsule suffered heavy damage upon reentry. The Boss, who was dubbed within the program as the "Mercury Lady," survived the crash, but was rendered comatose for six months. All evidence of her role in the program was erased, including airbrushing her out of an official picture of the Mercury astronauts, she being the eighth member.[59] Her entire career is also reconstructed in a special AI system developed by Dr Strangelove for the Peace Walker mech.
The primary antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin (Евгений Борисович Волгин), known as "Thunderbolt" in the West, is a sadistic Stalinist GRU colonel who attempts to seize control of the Soviet Union by overthrowing Nikita Khrushchev and installing Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin in his place. Furthermore, it can be learned that Volgin was a mastermind behind the Katyn Forest Massacre.[60] His body carries an electric charge of ten million volts. He uses it chiefly for fighting and for torture. He is brutal and careless, beating Granin and (apparently) Sokolov to death during torture sessions and torturing Snake to a near death point (Ocelot compliments Snake on having survived). He also seems to be easily agitated and extremely careless as, while torturing Snake, he reveals the location of the Philosopher's legacy although Snake, EVA, Ocelot and The Boss were also in the room. Due to his electrical charge, he is vulnerable to water and electrically charged items. He frequently chants "Kuwabara" when it rains, this is an ancient Japanese spell preventing him from being hit by lightning. After he battles Snake and EVA, both in and atop the Shagohod, it begins to rain. He is at first unafraid but is rapidly struck by a bolt of lightning which is implied to have been summoned by The Sorrow. Volgin's sexual preference is also a topic of discussion among fans as is very heavily implied that he had some sort of sexual relations with both EVA and Major Raikov throughout the course of the game.
Para-Medic is a FOX support team member who provides Naked Snake with surgical and medical information as well as general information on the local flora and fauna. As Snake Eater is set before the modern use of the word "paramedic", her name instead comes from a portmanteau of "parachute" and "medic."[61] It is later revealed that Para-Medic is actually Dr. Clark, one of the founders of The Patriots. She would go on to head the project "Les Enfants Terribles", giving birth to Solid, Liquid, and Solidus Snake, along with resurrecting Gray Fox as Cyborg Ninja, who kills her shortly after his "creation".
Though Para-Medic is revealed to be Dr. Clark in Metal Gear Solid 4, Naomi Hunter referred to her as a male in Metal Gear Solid after the battle with the Cyborg Ninja in Otacon's lab. In a conversation with Campbell, Naomi states: "It happened right after you retired. My predecessor, Dr. Clark, was in charge. [...] He started the gene therapy project". This was later resolved in the database by explaining that Naomi did not know Dr. Clark directly and made few public appearances, leading to an assumption that she was a man.
The End is a member of the Cobra unit with exceptional sniping skills, born in the early 1860s, and the only member of the unit without an emotion-based codename, though it is explained in the game that it signifies "true oblivion".[62] The End uses stun grenades and a modified Mosin-Nagant rifle converted to fire sedative rounds. He has a pet parrot (an Alexandrine parakeet) who can alert him to Snake's presence. The End is the only member of the Cobras who will not kill the player under any circumstances.
In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, his voice can sometimes be heard over the Codec during ghost missions, and Snake comments numerous times during mission briefings asking Kaz if he saw any parrots with the enemy snipers and scouts.
The Fear is a member of the Cobra unit known for his superhuman speed and agility, as well as his freakish, fearsome appearance. His elbows are double jointed, and he has a long, lizard-like tongue, forked through surgery, that he can use to grasp objects. Capable of dislocating his joints at will, he is able to crawl, walk on water, flip, leap extremely quickly in the manner of a spider, and also climb and jump around in trees with ease. He mainly uses a crossbow in battle, coating his bolts in the venom of the Brazilian wandering spider,[63] setting them on fire or even outfitting them with explosives. He uses a variety of wires and ropes to enhance his mobility. On top of his incredible agility, he also uses Stealth camouflage to make himself nearly invisible; as a result, he is incredibly difficult to hit. He is also an expert in booby traps; the forest where Snake fights The Fear is riddled with them. The Fear is killed in a skirmish with Snake following his departure from Granin's lab. The Fear has two crossbows. He calls the bigger crossbow William Tell, and the smaller one Little Joe. At the beginning of the battle, he shoots Snake in the leg with a poisoned crossbow bolt, but wants to kill Snake himself rather than let the venom do the job for him. The poison begins to make Snake hallucinate, giving the Fear a distinct advantage, though Snake still manages to defeat him.
The Fury is a pyromaniac and former Soviet cosmonaut. He utilizes a flame-resistant Soviet space suit in conjunction with a jet pack and a powerful flamethrower, both of which are powered by liquid rocket fuel UDMH. His codename reflects the unmitigated fury he feels towards the world while he is fighting.[64]
The Pain has the ability to control hornets at his will, through the buzzing of a queen bee that he keeps in his backpack. Apart from his hornets, The Pain is also equipped with a Tommy gun and grenades, using his hornets in conjunction with these weapons. He also uses his hornets to shield himself and create the form of a body double to confuse and draw his opponents into the open.
The Sorrow was a powerful spirit medium and a former member of the Cobra unit who used his psychic powers to aid his fellow soldiers on the battlefield. He was romantically involved with The Boss and is revealed in the course of the game to be the father of her child Ocelot. After the ideological rift created by the Cold War, loyalties changed with him and The Boss each taking their respective sides. The Boss kills him in 1962 for making a double agent out of a sleeper agent she sent to OKB-1 to gather data on the USSR's space program.[65] He makes many hidden appearances (in ghost form) throughout the game's cut scenes. His skeleton can also be seen in first-person view near the end of the Virtuous Mission following the confrontation between Snake and The Boss. During the scene in which Snake is tortured by Volgin he can be seen in first-person view holding a sign with the code needed to unlock Snake's jail cell. Also towards the end of the game, when the clock is counting down to a massive explosion of rocket fuel and C3, The Sorrow can be seen in a number of cut scenes holding up a sign displaying the amount of time left. Snake also encounters him after escaping from Groznyj Grad and suffering a near-death experience, in which the Sorrow forces him to wade through an endless river swarming with all of the enemies (including the fallen Cobras) that Snake has killed up to that point.
In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the Sorrow appears as one of the dolls controlled by Screaming Mantis. After she is defeated, her doppelganger appears to affend Snake, but is sent back to the underworld, followed by The Sorrow appearing and repeating to Snake the last words he said as a human to The Boss: "The spirit of the warrior will always be with you."
In two top 10 lists by GameFAQs, The Sorrow was listed as the 6th strangest video game boss and, most recently, as the 10th most out-of-place boss (along with the other four Cobra Unit members). The articles state that although the section with the Sorrow was technically a boss fight, it did not play like a typical boss battle. The articles noted aspects of the section such as seeing the enemies the player character had killed throughout the course of the game and the fact that the player dies (and revives himself with an item) at the end of the battle.[66][67]
Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov (Иван Райденович Райков) is a high-ranking officer within Groznyj Grad and a parody of Sons of Liberty's Raiden. He is implied to be Colonel Volgin's secret lover, and subsequently has colonel-class authority despite his rank. There are numerous references to Raiden, ranging from Raikov's likeness, his name, his fighting style, a locker poster, and the shared voice actor in the Japanese version. He also has a small lightning bolt on the side of his underwear, in reference to Raiden being the Japanese word for "Thunder" and Volgin's alias being "Thunderbolt". In the Subsistence version of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Raikov even says some phrases that Raiden says in the end sequence of Sons of Liberty like "No, never heard the name before" and "We'll tell them together". To get him to say these things, the player must use CQC to interrogate him. The name "Raidenovitch" is also a reference to both the character of Raiden, and the suffix "-ovitch" (meaning "son of") used in Russian patronymic names.
Raikov appears as a secret character in Portable Ops as being exiled to Colombia by the Soviet military after the fallout of Operation Snake Eater runs him afoul of the Kremlin.
Aleksandr Leonidovitch Granin (Александр Леонидович Гранин) is the director of OKB-812, the Granin Design Bureau. He is the man who originally came up with the concept of bipedal walking tanks (the blueprints for Metal Gear D and Metal Gear REX and a model of Metal Gear RAY can be seen on his desk). He supplies Snake with the key to the door near the warehouse, but dies under Volgin's torture. Before he was caught, Granin sent his files on Metal Gear to a friend in the United States (which is revealed in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as Huey).
The daughter of Olga Gurlukovich from Metal Gear Solid 2. After the Big Shell Incident, Sunny was rescued from the Patriots by Raiden and taken under the custody of Snake and Otacon. She is a gifted computer programmer who, along with Naomi Hunter, designs FOXALIVE, the virus which Snake uses to disable the Patriots' AIs. Sunny is voiced by Christina Puccelli in the English version and Kikuko Inoue (the voice of Rosemary and The Boss) in Japanese.
A weapons launderer who assists Snake by disabling ID-tagged weapons taken from PMC troops, usually accompanied by his pet monkey, Little Gray. He also provides exposition on the origins of each of the B&B members. Drebin is actually a Patriot spy assigned to help Snake defeat Liquid Ocelot. He injects Snake with a syringe that secretly contains a new strain of FOXDIE programmed to kill EVA, Ocelot, and Big Boss; in addition to the nanomachines allowing Snake to use Drebin's weapons. The number 893 in Drebins name refers to the Yakuza. In traditional Japanese counting, ya-ku-sa means 8-9-3, which in turn refers to the most difficult hand that required the most skill and the least luck in order to win a game of a traditional Japanese card game often played by samurai. Drebin is voiced by Khary Payton in the English version and Keiji Fujiwara (the voice of Sigint) in Japanese.
Also Drebin is a reference to Frank Drebin from the TV series Police Squad and the Naked Gun movies.
The other two members of Rat Patrol. Jonathan is a hulking Korean-American who serves as the team's heavy weapons specialist and has a mohawk in the shape of an exclamation mark, which is first emphasized with the classic alert noise when an enemy first detects you. He attends Meryl's wedding at the end. He is named after the main character in Policenauts. In Japan he is voiced by Hideyuki Tanaka, who voices Otacon and also voiced the Policenauts Jonathan. He is not to be confused with Jonathan from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
Ed is an African-American who serves as the team's sniper and Meryl's second-in-command. He is presumed to have died from bullet wounds during Liquid's initial take over, but he returns with Jonathan at Meryl's wedding. He is also named after a character from Policenauts, where Meryl originally debuted as a supporting character. As a tribute to this character, like Meryl and Jonathan, in Japan he is voiced by Shōzō Iizuka who voiced the original Policenauts character.
Screaming Mantis is perhaps the most powerful and intimidating member of the Beauty and the Beast Corps. Able to fly by some kind of unknown ability, she has the ability to crush people at will and manipulate soldiers to do her bidding, including killing their former allies. She has two puppets that appear to be Psycho Mantis from MGS and The Sorrow from MGS3. It was revealed that the Psycho Mantis puppet is used to control and manipulate living people while The Sorrow puppet can be used to manipulate dead bodies. However, her powers are limited by the fact that they only work by manipulating the nanomachines inside a person, meaning people who do not have nanomachines or who have the ability to suppress them are effectively immune to her powers. She openly references Psycho Mantis (as her namesake) from Metal Gear Solid, Vamp (his use of knives) from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and either The Pain or The Fear (their emotions the cause of screaming) from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Crying Wolf is physically the strongest member of the Corps, attacking with a railgun and sheer brute force. Her olfactory system is particularly strong, being able to smell her opponents on the battlefield. She was born in an unnamed village in Africa, in a country afflicted by civil war. After her family was killed in an attack, Wolf fled the village with her baby brother and became a refugee. When hiding from an enemy unit in a shack, her brother began to cry; she covered his mouth to silence him and accidentally smothered him to death. Upon reaching a refugee camp, Wolf was driven insane by her grief and by the cries of children. She experienced visions of a wolf killing the children of the camp; in reality, it was she who did so. Crying Wolf does not accept that she killed the children until she is killed by Snake. After she is killed, she is taken away by one of Sniper Wolf's wolves, with Otacon implying the wolf carrying her was Sniper Wolf's spirit. She openly references Sniper Wolf (her namesake) from Metal Gear Solid, Fortune (her use of the railgun weapon) from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and The Sorrow (his emotion the cause of crying) from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Laughing Octopus was born and raised in a small Scandinavian hamlet known as the Devil's Village, which was known for its inhabitants' customary eating of octopus. A nearby cult took offense to the village's diet and attacked, sparing few, including the young girl. On pain of death, they forced her to torture—and eventually kill—her entire family, making sure she laughed all the while. This has utterly numbed her to bloodshed and has spawned an obsession with laughter, particularly during battle. She was eventually recruited by the Beauty and the Beast Corps and had remained active until her death at the hands of Old Snake. She openly references Decoy Octopus (her namesake) from Metal Gear Solid, Solidus Snake (his use of tentacles and P90) from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and The Joy (her emotion the cause of laughter) from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Raging Raven is an aerial based member of the Corps, utilizing UCAVs and a grenade launcher to attack her enemies. Born in Aceh, Indonesia, Raging Raven was taken as a prisoner of war as a child. After enduring months of torture and starvation, Raven's captors abruptly abandoned the prison, leaving her and the other child prisoners to be eaten alive by ravens. Raven was the last living child; though instead of eating her, the ravens pecked away her bonds. Raven found the base camp of the group that had tortured her and killed both the soldiers and civilians residing there. She openly references Vulcan Raven (her namesake) from Metal Gear Solid, Fatman (his use of explosive ordinance) from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and The Fury (his use of a jetpack and his emotion the cause of rage) from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Amanda Valenciano Libre is the leader of the FSLN and is the older sister of Chico Libre. She is also a smoker, mostly as a result of a fear of Mosquitos after surviving a potentially bad case of Malaria after being bitten by one. At some point during or prior to 1974, Amanda and most of her FSLN troops were ousted from Nicaragua forcibly by Somoza's National Guards and they fled into Costa Rica by crossing the Rio San Juan. The KGB later aided her FSLN group by supplying them with a factory, which was a front for a drug refining plant for them to get the money that they will use for food, "compas" (troops), and weapons (which Amanda felt ashamed for, and did not want Chico to know due to feeling that he is too young to understand). She also planned to rebuild Nicaragua with their own hands, even if they had to dirty their hands in drug trafficking in order to so. Amanda also shows a romantic interest in Snake. She eventually revolts against the KGB and forces Ramon Galvez Mena (real name Vladimir Alexandrovich Zadornov) to surrender.
Chico Libre is brother of Amanda. He is a member of the FSLN unit in Costa Rica. During the Somoza regime, he and his sister, along with their FSLN unit, were forced to flee into Costa Rica. His unit attempted to keep him out of the fact that his fellow troops and his sister, in order to amass funds for weapons, food, and their "compas", had to resort to drug trafficking using a drug purifying plant owned by the KGB. However, he deduced what they were actually doing. Whenever he got into an argument with his sister, he often wandered around Costa Rica, which made him far more knowledgeable about territory than anyone else in the FSLN unit. At one point when fighting Amanda, he left for Mt. Irazu and camped near the Irazu facility. He then bore witness to "El Basilisco." Chico shows an interest in cryptozoology, is the one who briefs Snake on monster hunter missions, and now has a crush on Paz.
Huey Emmerich appears in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (although he is mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 3 in a radio call between Naked Snake and Sigint (although Sigint is unable to remember his name correctly) and appears in a photograph alongside Russian weapons designer Granin.[68]) Much like his son Otacon, Huey is responsible for building Metal Gear, although Huey's case is all of the Peace Sentinels' AI weapons and later MSF's own Metal Gear ZEKE. Unlike Otacon, Huey is wheelchair-bound and was born without functioning legs due to having an abnormal spine. In one of the game's Briefing Files, Dr. Emmerich (Huey) talks about the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and his and Dr. Strangelove's common fondness for the movie's AI character HAL, and goes on to say that Hal would be a good name. In a personal letter he wrote to her, which he asks Naked Snake to give to her, it is revealed that they have worked together while in NASA and Huey was expressing much interest in her.[69]
One of the game's antagonists, Hot Coldman is depicted as a former director of the CIA. Because of bitterness over the demotion, Coldman plans to use the Peace Sentinels and the Peace Walker Project to regain his status as a power player in Washington. He admits to Naked Snake that he planned Operation Snake Eater and implies that this was the reason why he ended up demoted as head of the CIA Latin America station. [70] Late in the game, Coldman dies of Zadornov's gunshots, after inputting Peace Walker's nuclear launch codes and leaking the false data to NORAD.
A professor at the University of Peace, Galvez and his student Paz Ortega Andrade appear at the start of the game by visiting the MSF's base in Colombia to recruit Snake's services. Possessing a red bionic right hand, Galvez helps out the MSF as they slowly uncover the Peace Sentinels' true motives in Costa Rica. He later admits to being the KGB intelligence operative Vladimir Zadornov when Coldman prepares the Peace Walker to attack from inside a US base in Nicaragua. The MSF, teaming up with the FSLN, captures him and locks him up at the Mother Base, but he breaks out on several occasions, forcing the player to recapture him. He is eventually killed by Big Boss in self-defense.
Strangelove appears in the game as a misanthropic British AI expert hired to work in the Peace Walker project. During her stint with NASA in the late 1950s, Strangelove met The Boss and Huey while working in the Mercury program. Her experience with the Boss and subsequent work in ARPA inspires her to create Peace Walker's AI matrix with the personality of the Boss years later. At the end of the game, she joins the MSF in helping create Metal Gear Zeke's AI matrix. The character's name is inspired by the film Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.
Cecile (セシール・コジマ・カミナンデス Seshīru Kojima Kaminandesu) is a French ornithologist caught while trying to record quetzal sounds near an Incan ruin where the Peace Walker Project's AI laboratory is located. The way her name is pronounced is a play on the phrase Kojima, kami nan desu (小島、神なんです?, "Kojima, he's definitely a god").[71] She is also named after and visually based on Cécile Caminades, an employee from the Paris branch of Konami Digital Entertainment.[72]
One of Galvez's students at the University of Peace, Paz is depicted in the game as an innocent schoolgirl. However, in the game's true ending, Paz is revealed to be an agent of Cipher (Zero) and hijacks Metal Gear ZEKE and tries to launch its nuclear warhead at the US East Coast with the intention of framing the Militaires Sans Frontieres as being an extremist cult under Cipher's orders. Big Boss defeats her and she is thrown into the water from the force of ZEKE's explosion, although Big Boss suspects that there is a possibility that she survived.[73]
Paz (who is really Pacifica Ocean) provides commentary about her deep-cover mission in a ten-part series of audio tapes called Paz's Diary (unlocked in the AI pods of the Extra Ops mech battles). In the tapes, Paz talks about life in Mother Base and her fears about a strong reprisal from Cipher if she blew her cover. The last tape was made just before she activates Zeke.
High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND (ハイテク特殊部隊フォックスハウンド Haiteku Tokushu Butai Fokkusuhaundo, also spelled FOX-HOUND) is a US Army elite special forces unit that has appeared in numerous forms throughout the Metal Gear series.[3] FOXHOUND was formed in 1971 according to Metal Gear Solid 3 (later depicted in Portable Ops) to cope with local revolutions, regional complications, and global terrorist activities. This unit specializes in black ops, carrying out top-secret operations within "unauthorized" combat zones which are too politically-sensitive to intervene in through conventional means. In the original Metal Gear, FOXHOUND is led by Big Boss (the team's commanding officer), with Solid Snake and Gray Fox serving as field operatives, although Big Boss betrays the unit in the end of the game. Roy Campbell, the unit's executive officer, becomes the new commanding officer in Metal Gear 2, with him, drill instructor Master Miller and military strategist George Kasler forming part of Snake's support crew in the game.
In Metal Gear Solid, Snake and Campbell are already retired from FOXHOUND and the unit turns rogue under the leadership of Liquid Snake, with five other members involved in the terrorist activity. Although the unit is disbanded by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden is led to believe that he is serving a newly-reinstated FOXHOUND under the command of "The Colonel" (an A.I. representation of Colonel Campbell controlled by The Patriots).
The FOX unit, a precursor to FOXHOUND led by Major Zero, is introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3 as the special forces unit Naked Snake (Big Boss) belonged to prior to forming FOXHOUND. The FOX unit turns renegade in Portable Ops under the leadership of Gene, leading to Naked Snake and his new partner Roy Campbell to form their own team of specialists, which forms the foundation of FOXHOUND.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, Meryl's squad, Rat Patrol Team 01 sport the FOXHOUND logo as a team emblem. The emblem is used purely out of nostalgia as the squad has no official attachment with FOXHOUND.
Outside the Metal Gear canon, FOXHOUND is mentioned in Snatcher as a military unit that JUNKER Chief Benson Cunningham previously served; and in Policenauts as Meryl's former unit (the character being the basis for the Meryl in Metal Gear Solid, has a paint tattoo of the team's original logo). Outside of video games, the team has inspired a New York rock-jazz fusion band to take FOXHOUND as their name, as well as inspiring replica clothing company AbbyShot Clothiers to create the "Foxhound Coat", a replica of Liquid's Snake's trench coat from Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.[74]
The Militaires Sans Frontieres (Soldiers Without Borders) is a mercenary group that appeared in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Naked Snake organized the unit in Colombia during the early 1970s using the funds and resources he inherited from Gene at the end of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. It is later based at an offshore platform in the Caribbean. Per The Boss' will, Snake conceptualized the unit as capable of providing combat support to any individual or country, regardless of other factors. Miller helps develop the MSF into a private military contractor offering a wide range of services. The group's logo is a skull stylized after Pangaea inside a yellow and black circle. The MSF is the precursor of what would become Outer Heaven.
Militaires Sans Frontieres is a play on words on the humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization Médecins Sans Frontières, a group dedicated to assisting countries ravaged by war and epidemics that are in need of doctors and medical experts. In a trailer for the HD release, Kojima Productions stated that the group is not in any way liked to or inspired by the real MSF.
The Patriots (愛国者達 Aikokushatachi), also sometimes referred to as the La-li-lu-le-lo (らりるれろ Rarirurero), are a secret cabal, revealed in Metal Gear Solid 2, that control the United States of America.[3] The group is initially revealed as an inner circle consisting of twelve people known as The Wisemen's Committee (賢人会議 Kenjin Kaigi). After Snake becomes a public hero in the aftermath of the Shadow Moses incident, the Patriots begin a smear campaign against him and frame him for blowing up an oil tanker in New York, and, according to Emma Emmerich, were responsible for fixing the Y2K problem. They initiate the construction of Arsenal Gear, and its A.I. GW, in order to censor the flow of digital information, and manipulate the events of the story through their trusted agent Revolver Ocelot. At the game's end, Snake acquires a disk containing the identities of the Wisemen's Committee and in the post-credits ending, Otacon examines the disk, stating that one of their members was a major supporter of Philanthropy, and that all twelve had been dead for "about a hundred years."
In Metal Gear Solid 3, the Wisemen's Committee are actually the founding members of The Philosophers (賢者達 Kenjatachi), a preceding organization which was formed at the end of World War I when the leaders of the United States, China and Bolshevik Russia entered a secret pact with a stated purpose of pooling money to rebuild countries affected by the war. After the original Wisemen died during the 1930s, their followers began fighting amongst themselves to inherit "The Philosophers' Legacy", a fund left by the original members, which becomes the central plot of MGS3. In the ending timeline, it is mentioned that the Patriots was formed by the American branch of The Philosophers after accumulating the missing fund.
Nevertheless, the ending of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops reveals that Ocelot was ordered by a mysterious man to "end" the American Philosophers. Ocelot kills his former employer, the DCI, and obtains documents containing the identities of the Philosophers, as well as the locations of their funds. The mysterious man contacts Ocelot and invites him to form part of his new organization, the Patriots. Ocelot agrees under the condition that Big Boss joins the organization as well.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, the mysterious man is identified as Major Zero, who formed the organization with Big Boss and Ocelot, along with EVA, Sigint and Para-Medic. The organization was formed to fulfill The Boss's ideal of a unified world. However, Zero, Para-Medic and Sigint eventually grew too powerful and greedy to control everything with Para-Medic as a morally corrupt medic within FOXHOUND and Sigint abusing his position at DARPA by accepting bribes. A fallout between Zero and Big Boss occurred due to each of them interpreting The Boss's will differently. Zero took the concept to mean control of the entire world by a group, to ensure unification. Big Boss believed that The Boss wanted a world where soldiers were not used as tools by the government. These differences led to the group being split into two factions: with Ocelot and EVA on Big Boss's side; and Sigint and Para-Medic working for Zero. Para-Medic is revealed to be Dr. Clark (although in Metal Gear Solid, Naomi refers to Dr. Clark as "he". In the MGS database, this is rectified by stating that Naomi never met Dr. Clark, nor knew her gender), a character mentioned in Metal Gear Solid, who was killed by the Cyborg Ninja prior to the events of that game. Sigint became the DARPA Chief, a minor character in Metal Gear Solid who was killed by Ocelot. (According to EVA—later called Big Mama—both killings were intentionally done for the "pro-Big Boss" faction.) By the time of Metal Gear Solid 4, Zero is in a vegetative state, and the Patriots now consist of four computer AIs: GW, TJ, TR and AL (named after the U.S. Presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln), all controlled by a fifth proxy AI named JD (John Doe). Zero created these AIs to carry out his own will, due to his increasing age and his skepticism that human subordinates would be able to do so. During the events of MGS2, the fourth AI, GW is completed. Over time, the system evolved from simply maintaining economic and political systems into creating an entirely new world order, one which is based on war economies, something not even Zero himself envisioned.
The Patriots' network is shut down by a computer worm created by Naomi and Sunny that used GW as a conduit to access the others. With the deaths of Zero and Big Boss during the game's surprise epilogue (from the FoxDie virus), the Patriots' demise is ensured and Big Boss realized that The Boss's dream was meant as words of wisdom as opposed to Zero's or Big Boss's original interpretations.
Philanthropy is a U.N. recognized anti-Metal Gear organization founded by Nastasha Romanenko following the events of the original Metal Gear Solid. Its members consists of Solid Snake (the protagonist of the previous Metal Gear games), a former FOXHOUND operative, and Metal Gear REX designer Hal "Otacon" Emmerich as well as Mei Ling who makes a cameo appearance via codec if the player saves the game thirteen times during the Tanker chapter. A large amount of the startup funds for the organization were provided by Nastasha Romanenko.
Philanthropy is an NGO (non-government organization), which means that while the U.N. recognizes its existence, it has no official government backing. As Philanthropy is a semi-clandestine organization, Otacon must sometimes obtain equipment and information through less-than-legal methods (Snake mentions that on more than one occasion, Otacon has hacked classified networks to 'appropriate' experimental technology). In addition, it was also involved in activities comparable to Terrorism.[75]
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