In yesterday's Nintendo Direct, it was revealed that the non-canon NES sequel to Metal Gear, Snake's Revenge, will be among the bonus content coming to the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1.
For some fans watching at home, this would have been one of the more surprising announcements of the showcase, given that Snake's Revenge has always been a bit of an overlooked title in the Metal Gear series — and for some fairly understandable reasons.
The 1990 sequel to the NES port of the original Metal Gear was notably developed behind the back of the series creator Hideo Kojima, with the director once claiming in an interview with Gamers Today in 1999 that he only heard about it after a member of the Famicom division approached him on a train and told him that it was in development. This is allegedly what convinced him to begin work on his own entirely separate sequel for the MSX, which was eventually called Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
In the past, Kojima has issued some fairly mixed reactions to the game on account of this, calling it "faithful to the Metal Gear concept" in one interview before jokingly labelling it "a crap game" at GDC 2009 because it lacked his involvement.
At least to our knowledge, Snake's Revenge has never been rereleased since the NES days, while the MSX games, on the other hand, have been reissued a few times (including as a playable bonus in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence in the mid-2000s, as well as in the Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection released in 2011). One of the main reasons for this is arguably down to the game's non-canon nature, with the title acting as an alternative sequel to Metal Gear that sees Solid Snake take on a cybernetically-enhanced Big Boss. Now that Kojima is gone, however, it seems that Konami is finally ready to acknowledge it and make it more widely available again.
If you don't have an NES or a copy of the game and want to pick it up, the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S on October 24th, 2023. It will also include Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, as well as Metal Gear NES. In other words, it's shaping up to be a great new way to experience the series!