Solid Snake is the main character in the Metal Gear video game series. He is known as "the man who makes the impossible possible" and is a mystery and myth to much of the world. He is a highly trained, elite soldier with a personal preference for parachuting, husky racing, SCUBA diving, free climbing, rappelling, small and medium range handguns (though extremely well-versed in all types of munitions), various hand-to-hand combat techniques, and smoking.
He is voiced by Akio Otsuka in the Japanese releases of the Metal Gear Solid series, and by David Hayter in the English releases. Hideo Kojima based Solid Snake on a number of different people and characters, including Christopher Walken, Jean Claude Van Damme, Michael Biehn, Mel Gibson and the character Snake Plissken from the film Escape from New York.
Snake's real name, David, which was revealed in the original Metal Gear Solid, is a reference to two fictional characters: David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dave Forrest from Policenauts (which was also created by Kojima). While Snake shares the same given name with the English voice actor, Hayter, this was not intentional (contrary to popular belief) and is merely coincidental. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he uses the alias Iroquois Pliskin, which is a reference to Snake Plissken, the main character in Escape From New York and Escape From L.A.
According to the personal information suppled in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, he is 178 cm tall and weighed 75 kg and has an IQ of "over 160". In the updated stats featured in Metal Gear Solid, he is 182 cm tall and has an IQ of 180.
Metal Gear 2, set in 1999, features an older-looking Snake than seen in Metal Gear Solid, set in 2005. However, there are numerous inconsistencies between the Metal Gear Solid trilogy and the previous incarnation of the series. Also, the portraits used in Metal Gear 2 were based on real actors, and the characters were redesigned for later games. In Konami's Japanese cell phone re-release of Metal Gear 2, Snake's portrait is brought more in line with his presentation in Metal Gear Solid.
After a largely non-playable appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and a virtual absence in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (wherein he appeared only in the bonus minigame, Snake vs. Monkey), a much older Snake will appear in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, in which he will once again be the main character.
History
Snake was born as a result of the Les Enfants Terribles project, which was an attempt to create clones of the legendary special forces operative Big Boss. Out of the the three clones created (the others being Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake), Solid Snake was given Big Boss's recessive genes (Liquid recieved Boss's dominant genes and Solidus, a balance between the dominant and recessive genes).Ironically ,it was Snake who battled and defeated both Big Boss and Liquid.Details of his early life are largely unknown, the only clue being Snake's own comment that he was "raised by many people." By the early 1990s, Snake had joined the armed forces in time to take part in the first Gulf War.
Apparently his career was notable enough that in 1995 he was recruited into the Special Operations group FOXHOUND. Still a rookie, he was chosen to infiltrate the heavily fortified state of Outer Heaven near South Africa, rescue his fellow operative Gray Fox and other prisoners and destroy a new super weapon called Metal Gear. Unbeknownst to Snake, his superior who ordered him into Outer Heaven, Big Boss, was behind the uprising. Using all his training and abilities, Snake managed to destroy Metal Gear and defeat Big Boss.
After the Outer Heaven incident, Solid Snake decided to leave FOXHOUND. Then he was scouted by the CIA and spent six months as a deep cover agent before he was dissatisfied with the system and left. He then became a mercenary for hire. Earning enough money, he went into semi-retirement in the Canadian wilderness. Eventually, Snake's former commander, Roy Campbell, recalled him for another operation in Central Asia. Snake's mission involved deposing the rising dictator of Zanzibar Land, who turned out to be none other than Big Boss himself, and had command of another Metal Gear tank (Metal Gear D) as well as Snake's former comrade Gray Fox. Snake destroyed Metal Gear D and defeated Gray Fox. After defeating Big Boss for good, Snake learned that the super soldier Big Boss was his father.
After the Zanzibar Land Uprising, Snake returned to North America and retired to an Alaskan wilderness retreat, Twin Lakes, to try to forget his war-torn past and recover from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but when members of recently re-formed FOXHOUND took over the supposed nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island (really a testing ground for Metal Gear REX), Campbell came calling on Snake again. This time, Snake found himself pitted against the new members of FOXHOUND and the Genome Army. Along the way, Snake periodically teamed up with Meryl Silverburgh, Campbell's niece, and Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, REX's designer. The field commander of FOXHOUND was revealed to be "Liquid Snake", Solid Snake's own genetic twin brother and the spoiled outcast of the "Les Enfants Terribles" super soldier project. After destroying the new Metal Gear and eliminating Liquid during an intense car chase, Snake went into deep hiding with Meryl. They eventually parted ways, and Snake would return to action with Otacon.
The two men worked to create the first anti-Metal Gear political group, an NGO called "Philanthropy". Snake and Otacon, needing photographic proof that the Marine Corps were developing a new amphibious Metal Gear, proceed to New York City, following up a rumor that a ship carrying such proof was scheduled to travel through the Hudson. While investigating, the ship and Metal Gear RAY were taken by Gurlukovich Mercenaries. As they were about to take Metal Gear RAY, Revolver Ocelot betrayed Sergei Gurlukovich and took RAY for an unknown force.
Framed for the terrorist act, Solid Snake was believed to have been killed during the incident, and his body was buried (it was actually the body of his twin brother, Liquid Snake). Two years later, during an incident at the Big Shell, Solid Snake turned up (hiding his identity), and assisted new FOXHOUND operative Raiden in rescuing hostages and discovering the plot of former President George Sears, who reveals himself to be Solidus Snake, the third "son" of Big Boss, brother of Solid and Liquid Snake and the one who ordered Ocelot to steal Metal Gear RAY. As the leader of the Sons of Liberty, Solidus was working to overthrow a mysterious underlying force that drives the United States' government called the Patriots. Ocelot then betrays Solidus, upon the orders of the Patriots. At the end of this mission, Snake began looking into who the Patriots were and how Ocelot was involved.
After this (the ending note), Otacon told Solid Snake about the Patriots information on the disc. It told that the Patriots had been dead for more than 100 years... leaving them both in utter confusion.
NOTE: This article contains the storyline of Snake's canonical games, these being the main storylines of Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid (and by extension, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The uncanonical games (i.e: ones that take place outside of the mainstream Metal Gear storyline as established by Konami and Kojima Productions) consist of Snake's Revenge, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, the "Snake Tales" in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, the "Snake vs. Ape" minigame in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Acid. They are not taken into account in this article.
Guns of the Patriots
On September 15, 2005, Kojima Productions released a trailer of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, their upcoming PlayStation 3 title, at the Tokyo Game Show as part of their Metal Gear Saga presentation. The setting of the game is unknown, as the trailer only states that Metal Gear Solid 4 is "X years" or "several years" (depending on which caption is read) after the events of Metal Gear Solid 2. In the trailer, Snake is shown suffering from a respiratory illness after collapsing to the ground in a coughing spasm, which he stops with the use of an immediate injection of medicine into his jugular vein, hinting that his health will play a vital role in the game. It is also possible that the FOXDIE virus has activated due to the wildcard value set by Naomi for Snake's incubation period (as documented in the short story, In The Darkness of Shadow Moses).
Also of note is the fact that Snake is shown wearing an optical eyepatch, called the Solid Eye System, which gives him enhanced vision, continuing the motif of one-eyed Snakes in the series. The two preceding ones are Solidus Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Naked Snake (Big Boss) in Metal Gear Solid 3. Solid Snake's eyepatch covers his left eye, making him more similar to Solidus than Big Boss in this respect, and at this point it is uncertain whether or not Snake has actually lost his eye, had his eye surgically removed or altered purposefully or simply wears the patch for the technological advantage.
The kanji-like symbol on Snake's sneaking suit is called an Otatamashii (オタ魂), which is a portmanteau of Otacon's name with the word tamashii for spirit; beneath it is the phrase "to let the world be". The symbol is Otacon's personal logo and will appear on equipment designed by him.
