Video Game / Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

aka: Metal Gear Solid 4

Spoilers for all works in the Metal Gear series preceding this one, including Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

"War has changed."

"In the not too distant future. On a tired battlefield. War has become routine."

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the sixth main entry in the Metal Gear storyline, launched on the PlayStation 3 on June 12, 2008.

Nine years have passed since the Shadow Moses Incident. The world economy is no longer controlled by the trade of oil, but of warfare. Within this new world order, Private Military Companies (PMCs) act as de-facto global powers fighting proxy wars for the highest bidder, maintaining the economies of the world through perpetual demand and supply of the tools of warfare. Equipped with the revolutionary "Sons of the Patriots" (SOP) nanomachine network, which allows soldiers to share and co-ordinate tactical information on an unprecedented scale, PMCs have become the pinnacle of military training and efficiency. It is a world where soldiers will always have a place. It is the realisation of Big Boss' vision.

Yet the sinister truth is that the war economy is artificially created and controlled by a secret organisation known as The Patriots. Revolver Ocelot, now possessed by the spirit of Liquid Snake, has purchased the five most powerful PMCs and is preparing to unleash an apocalyptic insurrection against The Patriots so he can seize control of SOP and Take Over the World.

Solid Snake, who is now an old man as a result of accelerated ageing, is pulled out of retirement for one final mission: assassinate Revolver Ocelot and settle the score with Liquid Snake once and for all.

Metal Gear Solid 4 features a new camera and aiming system, making the game play more like a third-person shooter, along with a high-tech camouflage suit for Snake and the ability to pick up enemies' weapons, and the gameplay is a lot more dynamic than in previous installments, with Snake often sneaking through warzones — or shooting his way through it, should the player choose to do so.

Often considered more of an interactive movie than a game, MGS4 is simultaneously acclaimed (among those interested in the characters and story) and infamous (among those who just want to play the missions) for its epic-length cutscenes, particularly those between missions and with one lasting more than an hour.

Since the rest of the series has a theme associated with it - "gene" for Metal Gear Solid, "meme" for Metal Gear Solid 2, and "scene" for Metal Gear Solid 3 - the major theme for Metal Gear Solid 4 is the unique "sense" a given human being has about the world around them, how they acquire it, how it colors the world in a unique way, and how it's lost forever when they die.

Showcasing the return or cameo of virtually every major figure of the Metal Gear Solid storyline, Metal Gear Solid 4 tries its best to tie up every loose end from the entire franchise up to this point, including the infamously confusing ending of Metal Gear Solid 2. Metal Gear Solid 4 absolutely ends the saga for Solid Snake; everything to come out from the series since has shifted focus to Raiden's life after the events of this game, or the continuing exploits of Naked Snake/Big Boss in the years before Solid Snake's fateful mission at Outer Heaven.

For tropes relating to its companion online component, please visit the Metal Gear Online page.

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Troping...has changed:

A-F

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Raiden's high-frequency sword can carve through war machines and soldiers like they're made of paper.
• Accidental Truth: Liquid convinces the BB Corps that by killing Snake, their minds will finally be cleansed. Naturally, they don't manage to do so, but as it turns out, just fighting Snake, according to Drebin, turns out to be exactly the therapy they needed.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Drebin has too much in common with Smuggler for it to be a coincidence: same voice actor, same appearance and wardrobe, same job description. This also applied to his Japanese voice actor since he voiced the Shady Salesman in the Japanese dub of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando.
    • Drebin gets a more explicit allusion to Payton's role as Smuggler in the ending, when Drebin dreads the idea of the U.N. filling the void The Patriots left behind. In Deus Ex, the U.N.'s counterterrorist organization, UNATCO, turns out to be an enforcement arm for Majestic-12, an organization with similar goals and methods to The Patriots.
  • Raiden gets hit with this on both sides of the Pacific. Now that he's a ninja, he shares a voice with Pain and Iruka Umino from the Japanese and English dubs of Naruto, respectively.
• Adam Westing: David Hayter appears in one of the live-action TV spots at the beginning, promoting his "new movie" in full Sneaking Suit garb. Lee Meriwether plays the host who asks the hapless Hayter inane questions.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: All the maps in Metal Gear Online and its expansions had alliterative names (Silo Sunset, Hazard House, Virtuous Vista).
• Afraid of Needles:
  • Johnny is revealed to be this. This is actually a plot point, since it turns out to be the reason Johnny is unaffected by the removal of SOP - because he was never injected with the nanomachines.
  • When Drebin attempts to inject Snake with the newer generation of nanomachines, Snake resists because of what happened to him the last time he was injected. Drebin accuses him of being this. Of course, nanomachines aren't the only thing in that syringe. It also contains a new strain of FOXDIE designed to kill Big Mama, Big Boss, and Ocelot. On the plus side, it's also taking out the old strain that was threatening to turn Snake into a living bioweapon.
• After-Action Healing Drama: After fighting Vamp, Raiden begins suffering from what appears to be severe lactic acidosis. Naomi explains that he will die if dialysis equipment cannot be obtained.
• Age Cut: In the form of a flashback while Big Boss salutes The Boss's grave. This is also done in Act 3, fading from a painting of EVA to Big Mama. It also, in a manner of speaking, happens at the start of Act 4, where Snake - after a "nightmare" that is a fully-playable version of the helipad from the start of the first Metal Gear Solid - still appears with his blocky, polygonal MGS1 face for a second before fading back to his regular aged appearance.
• A God Am I: Liquid Ocelot.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The reason why the Patriots are gunning for world domination.
• A.K.A.-47: Averted; all the guns use their real names, though they tend to avoid using the manufacturer's name: the Springfield Operator is just the "Operator," for example.
• All Men Are Perverts: Even with the nanomachines supposedly regulating their emotions, male soldiers can't help being attracted to Playboy magazines.
  • Snake may be midway through a vital mission, and he may have just successfully tracked down his old friend Naomi, who appears to have major health problems of her own, but he still finds time to fake dropping his cigarette so he can try and look up her skirt.^note Very possibly a bit of lampshading aimed at the player; in the game, cutscenes are interactive at times, with the option sometimes given to switch to Snake's POV. A player used to this might expect the POV option to appear at this point, but it does not; the POV cutscene is hidden, but her knees are closed inward, obscuring any view for Snake and the player.
• Alas, Poor Villain: The Beauty in the Beast unit members, all of them are insane beyond repair due to traumas they suffered as children. Beyond them, this more or less applies to every antagonist in the game except for Psycho Mantis and the Patriot AIs.
• Almost Kiss: Between Naomi and Otacon during the sitcom episode-length cutscene between Acts 2 and 3.
• Amazon Brigade: The FROGS, although they're not designed as eye candy as, for once, an all-female group wears decent body armor. Their stormtrooper helmets are sufficiently intimidating enough that at a distance you wouldn't even notice they're female, if they didn't have distinctly-female voices and breasts. There's also the Beauty and the Beast Unit, four female soldiers with powerful powered armor themed after animals. It's never made entirely clear why they're all women. Wild Mass Guessing ranges from pragmatic explanations (such as merely Author Appeal; Kojima is shameless) to technical justifications, such as women having, on average, lighter frames and lower centers of gravity than men, two things that would come in handy for all the acrobatics they do.
  • Otselotovaya Khvatka is implied to be this because their ad showed two women in combat; however, since they don't actually appear in the game, nothing can prove this.
• Ambiguous Robots: The Gekkos appear to be giant organic legs with an AT-ST head on top. They bellow like cattle when entering combat and spew black fluid when "killed".
  • Supplemental materials reveal that the Gekko's body is a robotic frame with an artificial intelligence. The legs, meanwhile, are organic. They are made of artificially-grown muscles, created using stem cells from ungulate embryos. This makes their legs extremely strong. When they "puke", they are ejecting excess lactic acid that builds up after continuous intense use. This also means that you can use a tranquilizer on their legs. It does not affect the inorganic upper half, but the organic lower half "goes numb" and renders the Gekko immobile.
• America Saves the Day: To a degree anyway. The USS Missouri, a World War II battleship manned by sailors and Marines without the benefits of SOP systems take on Outer Haven, buying time for Snake to do his job. And they win.
• A Father to His Men: As if her title wasn't enough, Big Mama almost exclusively refers to the Paradise Lost Army as her "children."
• And I Must Scream:
  • Remember how Liquid Snake wanted the corpse of Big Boss as part of his demands at Shadow Moses? It turns out that after your last fight, Zero and the Patriots grabbed Big Boss, chopped off his limbs, stuffed him in a life support machine, and pumped him full of nanomachines to cut his brain off from his body. They left his higher brain functions fully operational.
  • Wonder what Solidus has been up to since Metal Gear Solid 2? As part of their master plan, Big Mama and her Paradise Lost Army rescued Big Boss and shoved Solidus in the life support machine. After chopping off his limbs to serve as replacement parts for Big Boss, and possibly to further make him a decoy to Big Boss. And then he got thrown in a fire.
  • In a more realistic version of this trope, Zero has been reduced to a vegetative state and needs an oxygen mask at all times to breathe.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Altair's robe from Assassin's Creed is available for Old Snake to wear, as well as corpse camo for dying too many times and Snake's suit from the intro. Additionally, there is FaceCamos that Snake can wear based on other characters, including the Beauties and Big Boss ( the latter is actually Solidus').
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If you get lost within the collapsed building in Act 1, which is quite easy to do if you don't know to look for footprints, Otacon will eventually call you up and walk you through how to get out of it, step by step.
  • During one sneaking segment, the Solid Eye is needed to easily follow the correct path, but the buzzing noise made by the Solid Eye is enough for enemies to get a general idea of your location. Otacon will warn you before they actually reach you, giving you time to turn it off and find a hiding spot.
  • If you can't figure out how to beat Vamp and he resurrects more than once, he will start taunting you with "So long as these nanomachines swim through my blood, you can never kill me." This is a hint to use the syringe on him to suppress his nanomachines. He'll also go down faster after repeated attempts so you can try again sooner. If you don't get the hint, Otacon will eventually figure it out and tell you exactly what to do.
• Anyone Can Die: Several returning characters with prominent roles in previous games are killed off.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Metal Gear Solid 4's answer to virtually every question raised in the series? Nanomachines (or occasionally "AI").
• Arms Dealer: The Drebin Network, who are your one stop shop for ammunition, unlocking weapons and porno mags. And its all 100% Patriot free. Not.
• Artifact Title: The game is more about resolving the ongoing plot than stopping a specific Metal Gear this time around. There is a nuclear launch you're trying to prevent, however, and one specific Metal Gear does turn out to be very important. The closest thing to stopping a specific Metal Gear in the plot is in Act 5 when it turns out that Ocelot plans to overthrow JD and place GW in its place using Outer Haven, which is an Arsenal Gear unit that Ocelot somehow stole between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4. It should be noted that Outer Haven is not the same Arsenal Gear as the one that crashed into Manhattan.
  • On the other hand, this is the only game where you get to control a Metal Gear to fight another Metal Gear. In fact, counting Otacon's Metal Gear Mk. II and later the Mk. III, you actually get to control three robots at least named after Metal Gear.
• Artificial Limbs: Ocelot replaced Liquid Snake's transplanted right arm with a cybernetic one after the Big Shell incident.
• Artificial Stupidity: Gekko are this in-universe; among other things, it's demonstrated in Act 1 that they lack an ability to judge their own weight compared to their surroundings, resulting in one specimen crashing through a staircase as it pursues Snake.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: The CQC system has expanded to support some rifles, shotguns and other long arms in addition to handguns. Because of this, Snake holds his knife in his off-hand while holding the weapon to facilitate CQC moves. However, some who have proper martial arts experience and training believe that this gun-knife combination in reality is flawed; It is very uncomfortable to hold and aim a weapon in the way Snake does, not to mention that it restricts the dexterity of the knife hand while performing actions like reloading, opening doors, etc. A more in-depth analysis can be found here.
• Ascended Extra: Johnny Sasaki. Previously, he was a soldier with an easily upset stomach who appears once a game. This time, he has plot relevance, as opposed to being simply a Joke Character.
• Attacking Through Yourself: During his fight with Vamp, Raiden is trapped in a choke-hold from behind. This prompts Raiden to use his own katana to stab himself (and therefore Vamp) through the abdomen. Unfortunately Vamp is a vampire, and he responds by pulling the blade in deeper and twisting it so Raiden is further injured by the move.
• Ate His Gun: Snake does it if you wait long enough at the title screen. Why he would do it takes the whole game to explain.
• Attract Mode: The main menu is overlaid on top of a scene of Snake visiting a veterans graveyard, smoking a cigarette, removing and inspecting his gun, falling to his knees, putting the barrel in his mouth, and having the camera pan up just before the gunshot is heard. As mentioned above, the rest of the game is leading up to this.
• Bad Black Barf: After the boss fight with Laughing Octopus, she proceeds to vomit black fluid till a pool forms around her. It's not clear if this is ink, referencing her codename, or a part of her condition.
• The Bad Guy Wins: A subversion. Ocelot succeeds in his plan to upload a virus into the SOP system, destroying both the Patriots and the Crapsack World they created, but not replacing it with the anarchic Outer Heaven like he wanted thanks to Sunny's tinkering with the virus.
• Back for the Finale: Almost every surviving character in the series returns in this game. Not even death can stop Psycho Mantis from coming back.
• Bad Boss: Liquid Ocelot shows shades of this during his SOP hacking test in Act 2. When Vamp warns him that they don't know what could happen, Liquid nonchalantly states that he's "willing to make a few sacrifices"; the end result is that several of his mooks suffer brain damage and become Technically Living Zombies. During the Act 3 mission briefing, Naomi states that Liquid in fact knew from the very beginning that said test would be a failure, and yet he chose to go through with it anyway.
• Badass Boast: Raiden's immortal "I am lightning. The rain transformed." during his Big Damn Heroes moment below, said with his katana clenched between his teeth through his mechanized vocoder implant, as sparks of electricity emanate from his body.
• Badass Longcoat: Raiden, Vamp, and Ocelot all sport one and cast them off at different points.
• Badass Normal: Oddly enough, Akiba qualifies for this. He's patently useless in the majority of appearances, but his actions at the end of the game cement his status (considering he was just a normal completely unmodified human soldier).
• Battle Couple: Johnny and Meryl once he reveals his feelings to her.
• Behemoth Battle: There is an epic battle between the original Metal Gear REX from the original Metal Gear Solid, and a Metal Gear RAY unit.
• BFG: There's a whole stack of light machine guns, heavy sniper rifles and rocket launchers for Snake to play around with, as well as a motorbike-sized railgun just like the one Fortune used.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Liquid Ocelot is the primary threat, though the Patriots also get into it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Raiden shows up just in time to save Snake when he reaches his limit just outside the server room and is at the mercy of a squad of Haven Troopers.
• Big "NO!": Snake lets one out when Raiden is crushed by Outer Haven.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the beginning cutscene of Act 3, the player can see multiple posters written in Czech. The translation of the posters state "This area is monitored by industrial camera."
• Bittersweet Ending: Yes, the Patriots' computer system has been disabled by a large part, cutting down the war economy that has tortured Earth for years. Also, Meryl and Johnny are happily married, and Raiden reconciled and reunited with his family, having learned that Rose's marriage to Roy Campbell was a sham and that Raiden's miscarried child is alive and well. However, Otacon lost Naomi, who essentially killed herself out of atonement, and Snake, whose father has come back from the dead, told Snake he respects him, and died, has a year to live. However, Snake plans on spending that last year in peace, and he will do so with his best friend, Otacon, and Sunny by his side.
• Blade Run: Vamp does this to Raiden in their fight in South America at the end of Act 2.
• Blood from the Mouth: Raiden vomits blood after being critically injured in the aforementioned fight with Vamp. Upon being stabbed by several FROGS inside Outer Haven, he briefly coughs up blood as well.
  • During the final boss, both Snake and Liquid also briefly spit up blood after taking a hit to the gut.
• Book Ends: Saluting The Boss at her grave.
  • Also, Solid Snake in the originial Metal Gear had to traverse through a permanently generating electric floor in order to get to the TX-55 and destroy it. Near the end of Act 5, he has to do something similar: traverse through a microwave hallway in order to access GW's server room to upload FOXALIVE.
• Boring, but Practical: In tried and true Metal Gear Solid fashion, the Mk. 22 tranquilizer pistol you start the game with is going to be your best friend if you're going for a pacifist run — or, in other words, if you want the massive score bonuses at the end of each chapter for never killing any soldiers and never being spotted.
• Bottomless Magazines: The FROGS appear to have these at the end of Act 3, probably because the "Guns of the Patriots" sequence would be a lot less dramatic if they had to keep stopping to reload. Notably, however, after the initial such use of this trope, once they start firing again they do so in bursts of two or three bullets. It helps that they're using the FN P90, which is well-known as having a large (50-round) magazine.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: During a cutscene in which a character discusses events being just like a game, a succession of images goes by - the cover art for the earlier Metal Gear Solid games, ending with the logo of the game you're now playing and a brief clip of Snake from earlier in the game.
• Bring My Brown Pants: While helping Snake fight off FROGS in the Middle East, Akiba loses control of his bowels in the midst of battle and shits himself right then and there, much to the disgust of Meryl and his teammates.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: As in the series it came from, the Solar Gun is reloaded by Snake holding it high above his head and shouting "Sunlight!!"
• Cacophony Cover Up: In the first two Acts, it is much easier to sneak past guards because they are too focused fighting the rebels to notice you. Your camo index even artificially rises when there is a lot of commotion around you. This can also work to your disadvantage as wind and explosions can disrupt your Solid Eye information, making it hard to determine enemy positions. This even works against human players in Metal Gear Online.
• Call-Back:
  • Partway through the fight, Screaming Mantis takes control of Meryl and uses her to shoot at you, then, later, tries to force her to commit suicide, just like Psycho Mantis back in Metal Gear Solid.
  • An entire chapter takes place in the same place that Metal Gear Solid did, including a dream sequence of that game's second playable scene. During the chapter, lots more references appear:
    • Liquid's Hind D is still crashed in a corner.
    • Snake notices a very dark spot next to a locker in Otacon's old room. Shortly after this, Otacon tells him that he's unlocked all the doors, which brings back bad memories for the both of them about the keycards.
  • The final boss is one massive callback to the earlier Solid games. It starts as a fistfight between Snake and Liquid, just like in the first Solid game, with the classic health bars identifying Solid Snake and Liquid and playing the Encounter music used for boss fights in that game. After a while it shifts to calling back to Sons of Liberty, with Ocelot favoring punches from his replacement arm and his health bar identifying him as "Liquid Ocelot", as music from the fight in the Tanker's holds plays. Then it shifts to Snake Eater, with the health bars changing into their MGS3 forms (including identifying the two as simply Snake and Ocelot) as both start making more extensive use of CQC holds and throws against each other, as the iconic "Snake Eater" plays.
  • During the epilogue, Big Boss says "It's been a long time, Snake", echoing Colonel Campbell's opening line during the briefing tapes in Metal Gear Solid.
• Casting Gag: The recasting of Big Boss counts as this in the Japanese version. As Big Boss is Solid Snake's father, he's voiced by Akio Ōtsuka's real life father.
• Catapult to Glory: Rat Patrol's answer as to how to penetrate Ocelot's base. Akiba's doesn't work.
• Chainmail Bikini: While the FROGS do have fairly consistent body armor, they still seem to have straps under their breasts that emphasize them. Just a little.
• Chase Scene: A particularly memorable one through the streets of Eastern Europe in Act 3. The first half of it is pretty standard. But in the second half, Raging Raven and her flyers show up to join the fun.
• Chekhov's Gun: Quite a number, including:
  • Drebin's syringe used to suppress Snake's nanomachines is in fact a new strain of FOXDIE, designed for a different set of targets - and, more importantly, set to eliminate the old strain that was threatening to turn into a biological weapon.
  • Otacon has a model of Metal Gear Rex on board the Nomad and while discussing about his past sins to Naomi, the camera zooms in on the model. Later in the game, Metal Gear Rex will plays a plot in Liquid's insurrection and then piloted by Snake to combat Metal Gear Ray.
  • The nanomachine inhibitor syringe, ultimately used to kill Vamp, Naomi, and help defeat Screaming Mantis.
  • Raiden's ability to pneumatically push out knives jammed into his body is used to fire them into Vamp at a critical moment in their fight.
  • Johnny's Butt-Monkey status is because he is afraid of needles, inadvertently making him the only person immune to the SOP hacking and to Screaming Mantis' control.
• Chewing the Scenery: Jennifer Hale as Naomi Hunter during Naomi's death scene.
  • Liquid Ocelot constantly hams it up throughout the game. Especially during Act 3.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Surprisingly, not Ocelot. Unsurprisingly, Naomi. She apparently betrays the good guys and the bad guys multiple times, confusing everyone involved.
• Clone Degeneration: The reason for Snake's rapid aging. And unlike most other examples of the trope, this was deliberate, to keep the secrets of how to make more Snakes out of enemy hands.
• Clothes Make the Superman: A mild example, in Snake's OctoCamo suit. It electrically stimulates his muscles to keep him at top performance. While it does not enhance him much beyond what he could always do, it does keep him in the game despite his failing body. In Otacon's words, "It's kind of a crutch."
• Coat Cape: Raiden shows up in the final act wearing his leather duster like this. Since he's lost both arms by then, he holds it in place with one of Snake's flak jackets.
• The Coats Are Off: During the Final Boss, Ocelot casts off his Badass Longcoat before putting the smackdown on Snake. Since he's also rocking the No Shirt, Long Jacket look, this also reveals to both Snake and the audience that he's replaced Liquid Snake's transplanted arm with a cybernetic one.
• Combat Breakdown: Snake and Ocelot's final showdown atop Outer Haven. It starts out as a big-time martial arts smackdown, and by the fourth and final round, consists simply of two exhausted old men slugging at each other as hard as they can.
• Comforting Comforter: Naomi covers a sleeping Sunny with her hoodie during the Act 3 mission briefing.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Both Liquid Ocelot and, to a lesser extent, Old Snake greatly resemble the late actor Lee Van Cleef. Van Cleef was in two of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of which Kojima is a huge fan.
• Continuity Nod: The entire fourth Act, including a playable flashback of an area from the original Metal Gear Solid, with PS1 graphics, no less, and too many audio flashbacks to mention.
  • The final battle deserves a mention, as the entire battle consists of a battle atop a wrecked Metal Gear of sorts — Outer Haven being a nuke delivery platform, if not quite wrecked — complete with flashback segments, background music and health meters that change as the fight changes which game it's referencing, and Liquid Ocelot's final line as a callback to Metal Gear Solid 3.
    • "You're pretty good", which itself is a callback to Ocelot's immediate line to Solid Snake after their first boss battle in Metal Gear Solid.
  • A lot of the guns available for purchase showed up in some form in previous games, often unusable to the player in its initial appearance - among others are Meryl's Desert Eagle, Fatman's Glock 18, the Gurlukovich soldiers' AN-94, The Boss' Patriot pistol, Big Boss' custom 1911, and the MP5SD from the Integral and PC versions of the original Metal Gear Solid. Even the Five-Seven pistol has a reference in its description to the mission to Galuade from Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, despite that it isn't even canon to the main series.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Snake dons one in Eastern Europe to bypass Raven Sword's checkpoints, and a trio of Dwarf Gekko do the same to follow Snake to Big Mama's hideout.
• Continuity Porn: The sheer number of continuity nods and shout outs to past entries, both subtle and blatant, is absolutely ludicrous, reaching all the way back to the MSX2 games. For example, Liquid's crashed Hind from the tower fight can be found in a corner.
  • The game doesn't point it out explicitly, but you can notice that Meryl and her Rat Patrol are wearing mass-production versions of Snake's old Sneaking Suit underneath their combat webbing. They have the iconic three dots on the shoulder, with the words "Sneaking Suit" printed underneath.
• Cool Boat: Ocelot's base is pretty much a boat version of a Base on Wheels, being a new version of Arsenal Gear (a floating fortress so huge it had its own series of twenty-five giant robots to protect it).
• Cool Plane: The Nomad, Snake and Otacon's mobile home/base. The game also has a big thing for coaxial rotor helicopters; usually based on modern ones (Snake and Otacon use a converted UH-60 Blackhawk for shorter trips after arriving via the Nomad, in particular).
• Cool Tank: Well, more Cooldozer: Israeli Cat D9R dozers appear several times during the storyline, usually doing something awesome. There are still a few tanks, but most of them end up destroyed in short order.
• Cool Versus Awesome: Metal Gear REX vs. Metal Gear RAY.
• Cross Counter: Happens more than once during the final boss fight.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Johnny gives CPR to Meryl's bulletproof vest. The first thing she does is spit up water, but then it goes straight to clean pretty romantic and they kiss.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Liquid runs four of the biggest PMCs in the world; his armies outnumber the standing forces of most countries (the PMC from Act 2 in particular is stated to have more combat troops than the combined populations of Canada and Mexico) and he's making money hand over fist. Apparently this just isn't enough for him, so he tries to take over the system entirely and rule the world. Of course, all of that power and money was never his motive, just a means to his ultimate goal.
• Cute Machines: Metal Gear Mk. II and Mk. III.
• Cutscene: Over nine hours' worth. MGS4 currently holds an official Guinness World Record for longest cutscene within a game. Several cutscenes last for 20 minutes or more (and while they can be skipped, see "Unskippable Cutscene" below for reasons why this isn't a good idea), with the granddaddy being the cutscene that ends the game, which is a movie unto itself lasting more than an hour. An urban legend emerged when some media reported rumors of the game featuring a 90-minute-long cutscene, but this was denied via Word of God prior to the game's actual release.
• Cutscene Incompetence:
  • Snake is in a very bad condition because of his accelerated aging, and this is very noticeable during cutscenes: Snake often groans in pain, collapses because of a sudden attack and needs to relieve his pain with the syringe. During normal gameplay, Snake is fit as ever. The worst age-related things that can happen are back pains caused by rolling and crouching.
  • The FROGS suddenly become far stupider and easier to kill in cutscenes, particularly during the last chapter.
  • Also, Snake is sent to kill Liquid, and despite having unavoidably collected an assault rifle and almost certainly owning a sniper rifle, insists on doing it with his sidearm and taking so long about it that Liquid can put his plan into action and incapacitate him. Roughly the same inventory-related Gameplay and Story Segregation happens again later on the Volta, with Snake not thinking to hand his sizable arsenal of non-ID weapons out to Meryl's team after their own weapons fail, although it could be handwaved as his other weapons not being on the boat (since he only ever uses the M4 and Operator in cutscenes, and they were discarded earlier).
  • Gekko suffer routinely from a combination of this and mook chivalry: during gameplay, they're extremely deadly, but in cutscenes they're stunningly dumb and often forget they're armed. The one that chases Snake near the start of the first mission repeatedly has an M2 heavy machine gun pointed directly at him but never fires (and, apparently, cannot fire and change its point of aim at the same time), while Raiden-versus-Gekko has them attack him one at a time for most of the sequence, and they pause after each attack so he can murder them to death more easily.
    (from the comments of Chip Cheezum's Let's Play) I tell you, give a tank legs and it forgets it has a gun, it just wants to kick things all day.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul:
  • The SOP nanomachines suppress emotional responses in their users, turning them into soldiers who feel no pain, anger, fear, or guilt in the name of increased battlefield efficiency. When Liquid hijacks the System, the sudden loss of it is incapacitating, and in some cases lethal. Naomi mentions that the problem is that, while their emotional responses are suppressed, they're not forgotten - as soon as the System is turned off, they react all at once to all the things they saw and did while part of it.
  • Furthermore, Raiden is shown to be a far darker and more violent character since becoming the new Cyborg Ninja, though this is attributed more to the memories of his Dark and Troubled Past and PTSD than this trope.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: This is part of the reason Snake decided to use CQC again. When someone tries to use a "cookie-cutter imitation" of CQC against him, he reflexively responds with the original CQC techniques he learned directly from Big Boss.
• Darker and Edgier: This is one of the grimmest and most somber of all the Metal Gear Solid games. It occasionally has its iconic, no-fourth wall humor, but that doesn't change the fact that the protagonist is genuinely and irreversibly dying. The usual comic relief from Snake's support team is all but absent, too.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: The chickens on the Nomad, who do little besides hang out in their cages and lay eggs for Sunny to cook, are named Solid, Liquid and Solidus.
• Deconstructor Fleet: If Metal Gear Solid 2 deconstructs the concept of a video game sequel, then Metal Gear Solid 4 in turn deconstructs the concept of a video game franchise. Metal Gear Solid 4's plot is an increasingly chaotic parody of the series' established tropes and existing routines. It lampshades that the series has become a franchise zombie. Metal Gear Solid 4 utilizes many of the series' staples for the sole purpose of twisting them.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: During Raiden and Vamp's fight in South America, Vamp grabs Raiden in a chokehold, which prompts Raiden to quickly drive his sword through both his own and Vamp's body. Vamp turns it back around by driving the blade in even further and then twisting it.
• Degraded Boss: Vamp can still put the hurt on, but he's not nearly as fancy as he was in Metal Gear Solid 2. He doesn't dodge bullets as much or pull any tricks like stabbing your shadow this time. His nearly-limitless regenerative abilities and the loss of his "Queen" have apparently caused him to become a bit of a death seeker; he's constantly daring you to kill him off for good, so maybe he's not even really trying.
• Demonic Spiders: Deliberately invoked in the Gekko, which are semi-sentient walking tanks with extremely flexible organic legs. They do have a couple of exploitable weaknesses (you can tranquilize their organic legs, and a specific weak point on top of the head is vulnerable to any form of gunfire) but if you're not careful, they can kill you with one sweep of their legs. They're also surprisingly agile for creatures so huge, and if they can't chase you, they'll throw grenades at you with their little manipulator arms.
• Determinator: Snake. He simply will not give up, not matter the situation. The second act of the game has him being examined by Naomi to determine why he's aging very fast, and one of the results is that he shouldn't even be able to move, and yet he routinely outperforms enhanced soldiers in the primes of their lives^*There is some justification in that his Octocamo suit is a muscle enhancer, allowing him mobility on par with someone much younger, but even so. In the final act, while trying to cross the microwave hallway, after losing all his Psyche and all but the tiniest sliver of his Life, collapsing to his hands and knees and barely able to move, he will pull himself forward inch by painful inch with his fingers. He simply will. Not. Stop.
• Developer's Foresight: See this page.
• Disc-One Nuke: The M14 EBR. It is incredibly versatile, being the only sniper rifle that can take a suppressor and change fire modes without firing an extremely rare proprietary bullet - it instead uses the most common ammo type in the game - and you can get it almost as soon as Drebin opens up his shop to you within the first fifteen minutes, being cheap enough that you can usually afford to just buy one straight from him with the points you retroactively get for picking up guns before then, and if you want to pick one up and unlock it to save points, one in every three bad guys carries it.
• Dirty Communists: The South American rebels are strongly implied from their wearing red armbands and red berets that they are strong supporters of Communism. The implication is strengthened further in the Novelization, where it mentions that they adopted similar guerilla tactics to that of Mao Zedong.
  • This is further supported by the next game, Peace Walker, heavily centering around communist rebels in the same region.
• Distaff Counterpart: The FROG/Haven Troopers are the female versions of the Arsenal Tengu from the second game, with the same basic look, nearly the same loadout, and the same role.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The full story of the Patriots' schism seems deliberately written to resemble a religion splitting into warring sects; appropriately enough, Big Boss' feud with Major Zero began because they interpreted The Boss' will in very different ways. Hell, "The Boss" even sounds like a tongue-in-cheek nickname for God.
  • When Big Mama discusses Zero wanting to use Big Boss as an icon, Big Boss's image is deliberately put over a shining cross. Several times.
• Doing In the Wizard: A lot of this game debunks previous seemingly-mystical things as merely the products of high technology, including some of Vamp's powers. Psychic powers, at least, do seem to exist in the Metal Gear universe, but as noted below, technology is advancing to the point where the difference between magic and science is starting to get blurry.
  • Screaming Mantis may be psychic, but her power to control people seems to only extend over nanomachines and The System. Instead of plugging in an alternate controller port to get around her, you have to use the nanomachine suppressor syringe on yourself to make the "strings" disappear off of Snake.
  • And then the dead return from the grave, only to be slapped down by an even deader psychic. Much like how elite soldiers have become mass produced, even magic has just become another product, and another weapon of war.
• Do Not Go Gentle: The game is full of this:
  • The game pretty much opens with explaining that Snake's body is failing and that he will most likely die within months. While often near the point of giving up, he gets a grip on himself and gives everything to stop Liquid Ocelot.
  • "I only get off my bike when I fall in love. ...or fall dead." Big Mama's resistance is uncovered and she doesn't have much hope of any of her men to see the next morning. But that doesn't mean she won't fight Ocelot until the very end.
  • And then there's the entire final act of the game. There's really not much the recruits on the Missouri can do against Outer Haven, but with only a few hours left before Ocelot's rule over the world becomes perfect and being the last military unit not under his complete control, Mei Ling leads them into a full out attack anyway.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Meryl Silverburgh's method of disciplining Johnny is from the "grounds for court martial" school of military discipline; the scene would likely be considered unacceptable if the genders were reversed. Johnny's status as a Butt-Monkey is also a contributing factor for why it's "okay" for her to smack him.
• Dragon Ascendant: After serving as The Dragon under three consecutive big bads (and managing to outlive them all), Ocelot finally takes his place as the big bad.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap:
  • After their Metal Gear showdown on Shadow Moses, Snake ends up dislocating his right shoulder as REX powers down, leaving him unable to aim his rifle properly at Liquid as he makes his escape on Outer Haven.
  • Snake's Solid Eye and OctoCamo suit get fried as he makes his way through Outer Haven's microwave corridor.
• Driven to Suicide: At the end of the game, Snake puts his gun in his mouth and the camera moves away, then we hear a gunshot. It's subverted though, he did not actually kill himself.
  • It is heavily implied that this was Vamp's main goal now. However, he really can't do it himself because of his rapid healing, requiring someone to find a way to kill him (likely in battle).
  • Also, Naomi.
  • Big Boss hugs Snake, knowing full well that he'll contract FOXDIE, effectively committing suicide.
• Dying Alone: Subverted for Snake twice. First, he almost commits suicide in front of Big Boss' grave by himself in the cemetery. However, he doesn't go through with it and with some pleading from Big Boss, Snake decides to live out the rest of his life in peace. Second, after Snake tells Otacon he doesn't need to accompany him to the end of his life, Otacon nevertheless decides to stay with Snake and stick with him to the end.
  • Subverted also for Big Boss. Despite their long-standing relationship as enemies, Big Boss peacefully dies in front of his son.
  • Subverted for Zero. Despite starting out as Zero's best friend, and then becoming bitter enemies, Big Boss holds on to Zero after cutting off his life support so that Zero won't have to die alone.
• Dying as Yourself: Ocelot's personality returns to normal right before kicking the bucket, as his last words make this very clear.
  "I am Liquid's doppelganger...and you are his. You're just like your father. You're... pretty good."
  • The BB Corps seem to come to their senses a bit when you defeat their beast forms.
• Dying for Symbolism: Solid Snake's advanced aging and terminal illness (ending the game knowing he will die in a few months), is used to hammer home Kojima's message that the series is a Franchise Zombie.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Sure, a lot of major characters died, and Solid Snake will soon join them, but the world has been freed from the Patriots' control; Johnny and Meryl get married; Raiden and Rosemary reconcile, with Rosemary revealing Raiden is a father; Drebin, Meryl, and their entire unit are no longer tools of the Patriots; Otacon adopts Sunny to raise her as his own daughter; Major Zero dies in the arms of his oldest friend, Big Boss, who reconciles with his estranged son Snake before also dying in his arms; and Snake has been cured of the FOXDIE virus (or at least injected with a new variant that is unlikely to mutate again before his death), and, while he still only has a few months to live, resolves to spend them peacefully rebuilding the world together with his oldest friend Otacon and his adopted daughter Sunny. All things considered, it's pretty damn beautiful, and damn did everyone left work for it. Big Boss says it all.
  Big Boss This is good, isn't it?
• Easter Egg: Tons of 'em; much more than would be productive to list here (though GameFAQs is sure to help you in that department).
• Elite Mooks: The FROG units under Liquid. They're able to leap about 20 feet in the air and cling to walls (likely why they're called FROGS) and they can hear the noise produced by the Solid Eye in night vision mode. They've also got strangling wires they can use to turn around any attempt at CQC you try on them (unless you catch them by surprise). No in-game explanation is given why they're all female, or why the nanomachines inside their bodies immolate them when they die. According to stuff not in game, it's to stop the enemy from capturing their equipment (besides weapons, which are already protected with an ID lock, though Snake can bypass that).
• Embarrassing Nickname: Snake really hates being referred to as "Old Snake." In one cutscene, being called as such actually takes an entire quarter out of his Psyche gauge.
• End of an Age: The game chronicles the end of Solid Snake's career and life, how magic like psychics and ghosts are becoming irrelevant due to advances in science allowing similar levels of ability, the end of the original Patriots and their AI successors and the end of an economy only based on war, the end of information being vastly controlled and kept from the public, and more. In many ways, Metal Gear Solid 4 is the Ragnarok of the series.
• The End of the World as We Know It: A twofold problem the protagonists face for most of the game:
  • On one hand, Liquid Ocelot wants to destroy the Patriots, which would disrupt the control they impose over the world but leave it in anarchic chaos as the global economy would collapse and society would basically fail all over the world. The protagonists don't want to keep the current system intact any more than Liquid, but faced with the certainty of chaos, they realize they have no choice but to protect the current system, no matter how odious they find it. In the end, Naomi and Sunny come up with a third option, burning the Patriots out of the current system but leaving it otherwise intact: taking the AI control away without causing a massive disruption to the world and allowing self-determination.
  • On the other, it's also determined early on that the FOXDIE virus Snake was injected with back in Shadow Moses is still propagating - but it's also decaying, many of the receptors that are supposed to determine targets breaking to the point that, in another six months, FOXDIE will start to spread even to people who don't match the original target list and kill them. There's no way of knowing how many people will be targeted once that happens, but either way, from the point he learns this Snake is determined to finish the fight before that happens so he can then take it with him. This also ends up not coming to pass, as it turns out the injection Drebin gave him in the first Act included a new strain of FOXDIE which destroyed the old variation - it has the same possibility of degrading to the same degree, but that relies on Snake living another decade, which he's almost certainly not going to do given his accelerated aging.
• Enemy Civil War:
  • The first two major areas of the game feature a unique twist for Metal Gear; you're sneaking through a battlefield as two sides shoot at each other. It's possible to get on the good side of the local militia, so they won't go into Alert Mode when they see you, but it still requires you to be careful.
  • It's revealed that the original Patriots fighting among themselves is the real reason behind the events of the entire series.
• Enemy of My Enemy: If Snake should choose to aide rebel insurgents against the PM Cs, they will become friendly towards him.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar: Tweaked heavily from previous incarnations. When Snake crouches and holds still, a "threat ring" appears around him, a sort of wave with spikes depicting nearby enemies. The Solid Eye item also detects sounds and other disturbances and puts them on a minimap, but if there's too much wind, gunfire, or interference in the area, its usefulness decreases.
  • Enemy Scan: The Solid Eye also does this. It's a little hard to see unless you're zoomed-in, but you see the emotional state, affiliation, gun type, health and psyche meter of any soldier you look at. It also counts as a justification for some of the Acceptable Breaks from Reality like seeing the names of items floating over them.
    • You can also use the Scanning Plug if you capture a soldier in a CQC hold. It will make every soldier linked to him through SOP flash momentarily, allowing you to see every enemy soldier in the area.
  • Everything Sensor: Scope, IR / NV, threat detector, sound detector, scent detector, object identifier, footprint scanner, emotion sensor... It probably even has one of those things for getting stones out of horses' hooves on it somewhere.
• Everybody Was CQC Fighting: Between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, Big Boss' files were declassified by the Pentagon, and his CQC techniques became widespread enough that practically every soldier in battle at least knows about it. Snake himself learned CQC directly from Big Boss, but refused to use it in the previous games due to his disrespect for him, although in this game he decides to play along with everyone else, while also being grossly dissatisfied with the enemy soldiers' "cookie-cutter imitation" of CQC.
• Everyone Owns a Mac: Thanks to a Product Placement deal with Apple, almost any computer seen in the game is a Mac: There are two PowerMacs on the Nomad alone (one for Otacon and one for Sunny), Otacon is seen using a MacBook in a few cutscenes, and Snake brings a 30-gigabyte iPod with him onto the mission.
• Evil Brit: After all the intricate power games and misdirections throughout the series, the ultimate Big Bad of the Metal Gear universe (beyond the pettiness of human government) is Zero. A British man who took control of the American government. Somehow. However, going by EVA's backstory, Zero's a well-intentioned Evil Brit.
• Exploding Barrels: Large drums of explodium are present in numerous areas including on the streets of a European city, despite one character mentioning that oil and biofuel are now as valuable as diamonds.
  • The setting as it's been explored up to this point gives this a justification; it's not that oil and fuel have hit Hubbert's Peak, but that the world devolving into constant conflict in the name of the war economy has simply made it hard to get, along with anything else we take for granted. After all, there hardly seems to be an energy crisis, what with all the stuff requiring fuel working fine, and the PMCs holding down martial law in Prague the Eastern European town would surely need to cart some fuel around for themselves to keep their APCs running.
    • Not to mention the existence of OILIX, which has yet to be retconned or anything aside from possibly Big Mama's comment about how fuel and other commodities have become as rare as diamonds shortly after the chase/crash in Act 3.
• Explosions in Space: Averted. Why does Liquid Ocelot go through all the trouble of implanting REX's railgun on Outer Haven and having it fired as close to target as possible, while in Metal Gear Solid, it's stated that the railgun is strong enough to launch nukes to any target on the globe? It's because a nuke's effective detonating radius in space is only 300 m, while JD is moving at 10 km/s speed, so he needs all the help he can get. Oh, and EMP? It doesn't work in a vacuum, either. Shown Their Work indeed.
• Exposition Break: Used throughout the game. Many longer breaks are characterized by switching to ambient animation with little to watch, allowing the player to concentrate on the exposition.
• Expository Gameplay Limitation: Briefing scenes often give the player control of Metal Gear Mk. II, a little robot that can only roam around looking for a few pick ups and bump into people for FaceCamos.
• Expy: Metal Gear Mk. II, the little robot that Otacon remotely controls to follow Snake around, is imported directly from an older Kojima game, Snatcher. Snatcher's Mk. II was based on the original Metal Gear, so it's a double expy.
  • Drebin is Smuggler in literally everything but name. Both characters have the same job, wardrobe, physical appearance, and even the same voice actor.
• Face–Heel Revolving Door: For a large portion of the game, it's unclear if Naomi even has a side.
• Face Ship: Outer Haven has the faces of Solidus Snake, Liquid Snake, Solid Snake and Big Boss on it that resembles Mt. Rushmore. It has been dubbed "Mt. Snakemore" by fans.
• Face With An Internet Connection: Averted for the most part with Metal Gear Solid 4's Codec: literally half of the storyline-based Codec calls (ie, Drebin, Raiden, Meryl/Rat Patrol 01) don't actually show the face of the caller. Only Rosemary, Campbell, and Otacon's faces were actually shown in Codec calls, and at least in Otacon's case, it is implied that communications with them were actually utilized via Metal Gear Mk. II/Mk. III.
• Fan Disservice: After Snake defeats a BB Corps member, the victory cutscene can be relied upon to spend more time than is really necessary on long, lingering shots of those areas of a woman which are generally considered most attractive, although usually not while the woman in question is sobbing, screaming, vomiting, collapsing into totally unresponsive catatonia, or all of the above. Also of note is that the BB Corps' members OctoCamo suits, no doubt for good and sensible military reasons, switch to "bra, panties, and thigh-high stockings, complete with garter belt" mode during these cutscenes, and also for the "sexy photo shoot" sequence which can take place should Snake unlimber his digital camera during the coda between destroying a BB Corps member's suit and defeating her entirely.
• Feeling Their Age: Due to accelerated aging, Snake feels this way for the entirety of the game. For example, when he crouches and walks for too long, his back suffers, which didn't used to happen in previous installments. It also helps to mention that his hair is gray in this game just to add to the fact.
• Final Battle: Old Sun.
• Final First Hug: Big Boss hugs Snake like a father before his death.
• Finger Gun: "Bang! Bang!" This one disables entire armies.
• Fingore: During the final boss cutscene, Snake breaks Liquid Ocelot's index finger in order to steal his syringe and pull off a Heroic Second Wind. Liquid, after a moment, simply pops it back into place.
• Flirting Under Fire: Johnny admits his crush to Meryl while they're both in the middle of battle, and he even asks her to marry him. Meryl of course comments on his impeccable sense of timing and refuses... and then asks him to marry her instead.
• Flunky Boss: Every member of the BB Corps is accompanied by a detachment of Haven Troopers/FROGS during their respective boss fights. Raging Raven instead gets various UAV's to act as spotters.
• Fluorescent Footprints: At least in certain areas, it's possible to easily see people's footprints by way of the Solid Eye's thermal vision mode. The second half of Act 2 in particular is all about this, tasking the player with following a trail made by PMC soldiers who did everything in their power to throw you off and keep you from rescuing Naomi.
• Flynning: Exaggerated in the second fight between Vamp and Raiden, sparks fly as they clash their knives together. Knife fights do not work like that, and it would be much easier for both of them to aim for the opponent's body and not their weapon.
  • Happens again with the final fight between Snake and Liquid, this time with their fists colliding.
• Forever War: The war economy, of course.
• Foreshadowing:
  • It's very easy to miss, but when "Big Boss"'s body is destroyed by Ocelot in Europe, it zooms in on his eye for a second... his right eye. Big Boss's right eye was shot off, which is why he has the eyepatch there. It makes sense later, though, because it's really Solidus' body.
    • Along with this, Act 3 is called Third Sun. Because Solidus IS the "third son".
  • The flowers on The Boss' grave.
  • Meryl's line about Johnny not being a "team player" after it is explained that the nanomachines help the team function as one is foreshadowing to the fact that he doesn't have nanomachines in him.
  • Sunny tells Naomi that her Sunny Side Up eggs are a form of fortune telling: The better the eggs, the better the mission outcome. Throughout the game, it's made clear that she's not very good at cooking eggs, and every Act follows through with it. During the montage of everyone battling/struggling during the microwave hallway scene she celebrates because they finally came out well.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2, we saw Ocelot being possessed by Liquid, and Liquid had his own, easily recognizable voice whenever he spoke through Ocelot. Come this game, this never happens even though Liquid is supposed to be permanently in control of Ocelot, because Ocelot has since removed Liquid's arm and is faking it. However, see Real Life Writes the Plot below.
    • During the final battle, all of the flashbacks seen in the transitions between phases of the battle are flashbacks of Ocelot, and never of Liquid Snake. Furthermore, and rather blatantly, one of the flashbacks goes to the events of Metal Gear Solid 3, which Liquid couldn't have possibly been involved in since Operation Snake Eater predates the Les Enfants Terribles project.
    • In the Shadow Moses act, you can photograph the ghosts of the game's developers, as well as characters from the original Metal Gear Solid who were killed during the events of the game. This includes the ghost of Liquid Snake. But wait! Isn't Liquid supposed to be possessing Ocelot?
• For the Evulz: Liquid Ocelot takes a turn towards this in the second half of the game, what with the finger machine gun charades in Act 3 and making "nah nah nah boo boo" gestures at Snake while running away in Act 4.
• Framing Device: As suggested by the post-credits voiceover, which in the Metal Gear Solid games is reserved for information that forces mindblowing recontextualization of the games' plots:
  Otacon: You said it yourself, Snake. There's nothing inside you can pass on to the next generation. No genes, no memes... You're man-made... You're a beast.
  Snake: I know... A blue rose. There won't be any happy "Beauty and the Beast" ending for me. What little time I have left will be spent living... As a beast. A shadow of the inside... Of the old age.
  Otacon: Exactly. That's why you need me. As a witness.
  Snake: A witness?
  Otacon: Yeah. Someone on the outside to bear witness to your final days. Someone to pass on your story... Not that I'm the only witness. But I'll remember everything you were... And stick with you to the end.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The B&B Corps receive no sympathy from Snake, and he even expresses annoyance that Drebin insists on telling him their backstories and how they were mentally broken. Life can be horrible, but after a certain point, this stops being an excuse for your actions, and you will never truly have absolution unless you confront your own problems instead of blaming them on others. Contrast with Otacon, who was sexually abused by his stepmother, among other things, but has turned out as Snake's best friend. They're close in a way that Snake, as a soldier, has probably only ever known with other soldiers. It's no coincidence they first meet because Snake's old best friend — a soldier with a dark past who turned traitor out of blind loyalty — was trying to kill Otacon at the time.

G-L

• Gallows Humor: Snake's response to the reveal of Outer Haven's microwave hallway is:
  "You'd have to have a death wish to go in there. Sounds like the perfect job for me."
• Gambit Roulette: Ocelot's plan, and possibly Big Boss's as well.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Snake's Psyche meter is an indication not of his physical stamina, but his mental fortitude^*Which is an example in and of itself, as he is told that he's basically running on mental discipline alone, so when his mental fortitude is low, he's much less combat-effective as a result. As such, getting bad or depressing news will lower it during cutscenes.
  • A minor example is from the beginning of the game: Snake's AK jams almost instantly, and he is told later that the problem was a bad batch of ammunition, basically underpowered rounds, that didn't cycle properly. Sure enough, you can pick up the gun as soon as you take over control, but it has no ammo.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Snake's inventory can be up to 70 weapons, but he'll usually stick to the M4 Custom with no mods or the Operator with no silencer in cutscenes, with other weapons usually only acknowledged if he receives them in a cutscene (Skorpion before the chase in Act 3, the BB Corps' guns) or is in a situation that the M4 or Operator would not work in (using a DSR-1 from the rear of Otacon's chopper). Mods do occasionally show up, however. Also, Snake's worsening health in the cutscenes has far less significance once you get to the actual game, except when your Psyche gets too low.
  • In Solid Sun opening, Laughing Octopus tries to get the local militia to go after Snake by using his face with her FaceCamo. However, you can free the militia by ambushing the PMC mooks, and they'll still fight along side you, and it still won't trigger an alert (unless you attack them).
• Gangsta Style: Justified - the model of gun it's used with is for a tactical purpose, as explained the first time the character in question did so in MGS3.
• Gassy Gastronomy: Drebin belches constantly due to the soda he drinks all the time.
• Generation Xerox: Overlaps with Book Ends. Naked Snake fighting (and eventually killing) The Boss essentially marked the conflicts of the series. It ended with Old Snake defeating Ocelot, who are the sons of Naked Snake and The Boss (clone in case of the former), respectively.
• Godzilla Threshold: It's the In-Universe justification for Snake using CQC here, despite not using it in 1 or 2. He already was a master, but he swore to never use it again after Big Boss turned Heel. However, after it became more widespread, and publicly known, he lifted that personal ban out of necessity.
• Going Through the Motions: While the cutscenes themselves are lovingly and intricately motion-captured, the Codec animations use a set of pre-determined gestures repeated again and again. It's particularly amusing whenever Otacon pokes the bridge of his nose even when he's not wearing glasses, purely out of habit.
  • Although the above example is justified by being Truth in Television: People mostly using glasses will tend to "correct" their glasses even when using contacts.
• Grand Finale: The entire game is this for the Metal Gear saga. Practically every major plot thread is tied up, and every surviving character from the previous games has some role in it. For the game itself, the assault on Outer Haven is the Grand Finale. In the cases of Psycho Mantis and The Sorrow, even some dead characters make an appearance.
• Groin Attack: You can knock out a male enemy by crushing their balls. Performing it on a FROG, however, turns it into a grope and a very angry FROG.
  • Strangely enough, the Gekkos are apparently vulnerable to groin attacks, as there is a plate right between their legs that states that they shouldn't attack this part.
• Gun Accessories: A fair percentage of the guns can equip custom parts like flashlights and scopes, using a mounting point-based system with up to five possible accessories on a given gun (barrel, handguard left / right, underbarrel, scope). There's also a fair few weapons with non-detachable scopes. The sheer number of attachments you can stick onto the M4 Custom makes it basically the single best weapon for most players.
• Gun Porn: If a weapon has appeared in a previous Metal Gear game, but has previously been unavailable to the player, you can damn well bet that it's available in this game.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: The Javelin. The real missile is a self-guided fire-and-forget system while in game it's command guided for its entire course, and when reloading you're supposed to detach the launch tube from the CLU and attach the next tube, not throw the entire assembly away.
• Hand Cannon: Three examples available to the player. The standard and long barrel Desert Eagles are pretty much to be expected. Then there's the Thor .45-70.
• Handicapped Badass: Raiden doesn't let the loss of both arms slow him down in the last chapter.
• Handy Mouth: In the game's climax, Raiden, after having lost his arms earlier in the game, holds off a team of enemy cyborgs with nothing but a sword in his mouth so that Snake can continue progressing the final level and defeat the Big Bad once and for all.
• Heal Thyself: Resting in hidden areas in Metal Gear Solid 4 restores health. Also, there are at least two iPod songs that specifically increase Old Snake's recovery rate. Those songs are essential for getting 100% Completion, as using healing items otherwise lowers one's final score.
• Heroic RRoD: After going through a whole game's worth of physical trauma, including multiple seizures, a stab wound, electrocution, shoulder dislocation, on top of being very, very old and nowhere near peak physical condition, Snake finally hits his limit just outside of the microwave corridor. As Naomi puts it, "The only thing keeping you together is the strength of your will."
• Heroic Second Wind: During the final boss fight, Snake is initially outmatched by Liquid and ends up on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, but when Liquid gets tired and whips out a syringe to use it on himself, Snake breaks one of his fingers, swipes the syringe, and uses it on himself.
• Homage Derailment: Snake and Liquid Ocelot recreate Liquid's iconic death scene from the first MGS, only for Liquid to reveal it's all just a big fake-out.
  Liquid: FOX!....
  Snake: —DIE....
  [beat]
  Liquid: Just kidding!
• Honest John: Drebin 893 is a deconstruction of the trope. His deals in regards to laundered weapons are actually very beneficial and not rip-offs, even offering a few freebies like the M4 Custom and weapons (or other items, like FaceCamo) taken from the B&B Corps bosses, and the one line he will not cross is betraying his customers. However, he does have some tendencies of the trope: Namely secretly injecting Snake with transmitters to spy on him, and a FOXHOUND base under Patriot orders.
• How Much More Can He Take?: The final battle between Snake and Ocelot is a seemingly endless fist-fight which has both combatants dishing out and taking incredible beatings. The fight takes place as much in cutscenes as in gameplay, and at the end, both Snake and Ocelot look like they can barely stand, not to mention fight.
• Human Weapon: Taken to its logical conclusion with the SOP system, where the economy has become utterly dependent on constant war, and nanomachines ensure that the soldiers used are utterly under control.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: You can carry seventy weapons, but only five at a time in the quick-access menu. Taken to the point of intentional parody with the oil drum, which is larger than Snake himself. Supposedly you access this equipment through your Robot Buddy and keep equipped items in your invisible backpack but given the Metal Gear Mk. II is about half a foot tall and one of the guns is the size of a motorcyle, this really makes no sense whatsoever. There is, however, a downside to carrying too much heavy stuff in your "active" inventory at one time; you get tired quicker and your running speed slows.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: Snake has decided he cannot die until he completes his mission, in spite of it being quite clear he has very little left to live for, is aging so rapidly that he'll die within the year, and will become a literal Person of Mass Destruction within a few months. Of course, the latter turns out to be false.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: As per series tradition, averted with flying colors. Practically everyone in this game practices trigger discipline, even if they're just using their gun to threaten each other. Snake in particular practices incredibly good gun safety much of the time: he carefully engages the safety whenever putting one rifle down, and he's very cautious around new guns; the intro has him very gently testing a fallen rifle with his knife for booby traps (an occasional tactic used by guerrilla fighters) before picking it up; later he field-strips the M4 before actually accepting it.
  • Of course, the one major (intentional) exception is Johnny, who threatens Snake with his rifle despite the safety still being on.
  • Additionally, once again, a character voiced by the Trope Namer experiences this.
  • There is one instance where the trope is played straight besides Johnny, however: At one point, there were two Middle Eastern militiamen bragging about gaining a laundered HK21E from a gun launderer (implied to be Drebin), and one of them is clearly shown ignoring a lot of gun safety rules while bragging about it by waving it around in front of his friend, as can be seen here◊.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: When Big Boss and Snake meet again during the debriefing, Snake quickly draws his gun at him and assumes that he's back to settle the score. After a few tense moments of holding one another at gunpoint, Big Boss drops his gun, easily overpowers Snake, and gives him a combination Cooldown Hug/Final First Hug, softly reassuring his last living son that he didn't come all this way to pick a fight.
• In a World…: In the not too distant future.
• In the Hood: Snake's Middle Eastern militia disguise in Act 1, as he's infiltrating the area by pretending to be one of their hired PMC advisors. He isn't even given the usual introduction-text until he loses the disguise in the cutscene following the Gekko's introduction.
• Infinite Supplies: Drebin can sell you as much ammo as you can pay for. On harder difficulties, however, he doesn't sell non-lethal ammo, which means if you're going for the Big Boss emblem you'll need to actually find tranq ammo and use it sparingly.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The VSS more than falls into this category; it's a powerful selective-fire sniper weapon that has a scope and an integral silencer that never runs out, and it only requires that you go a little out of your way in Act 2 to get it. The P90, M14 EBR and M4 Custom are also candidates, since all three are extremely capable, have the most customization of their weapon classes, are easy to get ahold of if not given for free in a cutscene, and don't require rare ammo; all three can also be silenced. Unless you're doing a no-kills run, you'll probably be using some combination of the above more often than not.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Barrett M82A2 is one of the most expensive weapons in the game (only the Lethal Joke Item costs more) and it's unlikely you'll get hold of it before Act 4 at the earliest. It's also ridiculously powerful, one-shotting Gekko and demolishing bosses. Heck, even the description says, "Recommended by Hideo Kojima!"
• Informed Ability: Both the soldiers and PMCs are said to employ CQC (which, as Snake puts it, "a cookie-cutter imitation") in combat. Despite this, they all employ basic knife-fighting skills if forced into an unarmed combat with nary a throw on sight.
• Informed Equipment:
  • Otacon's description of the inventory says Snake stores weapons he has equipped but isn't using in his backpack. Snake isn't actually wearing a backpack. He's wearing heavy combat webbing, but unless those pockets are hyper-dimensional, he ain't fitting a rocket launcher in there.
  • Having Metal Gear Mk. II carry all his equipment is a little more logical, except that Mk. II is still pretty tiny, so it can't exactly haul a giant rail gun around whenever Snake isn't using it.
• Injured Self-Drag: Upon reaching the microwave corridor, Old Snake begins to receive the impact of said microwaves onto his body (as they heat the molecules of the water present in his body). Though Raiden offered himself to go in his place, Snake persuaded him to keep the enemy soldiers distracted while he traversed the perilous corridor. Snake walks through the corridor with extreme difficulty, and when he can't do so anymore he crawls, and when he's too weak to do that he creeps forward. He succeeds in reaching the other end.
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: The mech battle at the end of Act 4. Piloting REX proves why Otacon's design was the most badass weapon ever developed in a semi-realistic setting.
• Instant Home Delivery: Drebin offers Instant Battlefield Delivery, with the addition of being able to launder some guns' IDs, namely weapons dropped by the B&B's, literally the instant Snake touches it.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Some of the things used to block off routes fall into this category; rubble is often easily low enough to climb over, and it's only not possible to backtrack into Naomi's lab because Snake can't be bothered to climb through the windows.
• Interrupted Suicide: Inverted. Big Boss witnesses Snake attempt suicide at the end, but doesn't actually try to stop him; Snake stops himself from doing so, and Big Boss commends him for it.
• Inverse Dialogue/Death Rule: Big Boss' dying monologue lasts at least a good five minutes (after a good ten-minute exposition, no less). Many other bosses in the series also take a while to actually die, but his takes the cake.
• It's Not You, It's Me: It's heavily implied that the reason why Raiden left Rose was because he was starting to become haunted even further by his Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from his days as a Child Soldier.
• Jiggle Physics: Several characters, most notably Rose; tilting the Sixaxis during a Codec call with her makes her breasts bounce. Beyond that, the jiggle is mostly only noticeable during the occasions when the suit-less BB Corps start writhing in agony, which is exactly the one time jiggle physics would be called for (and they don't even have large breasts). This is also present in every female character in Metal Gear Online, with boobs that act more like Jell-O.
• Kansas City Shuffle: A fiendishly complicated one is pulled off by Ocelot, EVA and Naomi in order to destroy the Patriots and revive Big Boss.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In a cutscene during Act 1, when the Middle Eastern militiamen's cavalry arrives in the form of a BMP-3 Infantry Fighting Vehicle, one of the Praying Mantis soldiers is seen immediately throwing a smoke grenade while fleeing with his comrades.
• Kudzu Plot: There are some minor plot details which aren't completely resolved even by the game's conclusion.
  • Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar, the man who developed the first ever Metal Gear unit, TX-55 (until it turned out it wasn't the first), is casually referenced as still being alive, and was even integral to Raiden's survival as a cyborg. How, what? How did he survive? How did he escape Zanzibar Land? Why is Snake not surprised to discover this after Madnar betrayed him in Zanzibar Land?
• Lampshade Hanging: On Shadow Moses, there are a whole stack of conversations with Otacon about sillier aspects of the original game, including trying to fight a tank with hand grenades, fighting an attack helicopter solo, and the fact that the Nikita missile's powerplant and guidance would be so complicated there'd barely be room for a warhead.
  • A subtle one in Act 5, when Meryl asks Johnny why Mantis couldn't control him, and he tells her that he guesses Mantis' control is actually nanomachine hacking, and he has no nanomachines, Meryl asks him if he knew this was going to happen as if she's expecting yet another layer of Gambit Roulette.
    • Hint: He had no idea. He's just afraid of needles.
• Lap Pillow: After Raiden has his breakdown in the Act 4 briefing and collapses, Sunny immediately goes to him and puts his head in her lap. Despite the circumstances, it actually is pretty cute.
• Large Ham: "Behold! Guns of the Patriots!"
• Laser Hallway: The microwave hallway at the end of Act 5 is this in principle, even though it doesn't use lasers.
• Laser Sight: Useful. You'll need it if you use third person a lot.
• Laughing Mad: Laughing Octopus. Also Ed when the SOP shut down on him, and pretty much any enemy soldier who is hit with a Yellow Smoke Grenade or a Laughter Emotive Ammo.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If you die and then call Rosemary, Snake will tell her he has the strangest deja vu feeling - like he just died somehow, in the exact way the player just died - and the two will have a conversation about it where Rosemary will assume it's just his combat instincts (implied to be the player themselves) giving him a warning. Then to calm Snake down they'll reiterate some of the basics of not dying in those ways. Most times, it's implied that every time the player fails are actually his subconscious visualizing fatal situations before he actually acts (and succeeds). On the other hand, at one point the conversation is flipped and Rosemary talks about how she had a dream about the way the player just died. The implications are staggering.
  Snake: I can't describe the sensation. It's like I died and restarted the mission. I also get the sense that I'm watching myself from a distance... over my own shoulder...
  • The Codec call with Otacon that explains why Snake suddenly knows how to use CQC does so by stating he'd really rather not because of its association with Big Boss; it's simply a Reflexive Response to the PMC soldiers attempting to use a "cookie-cutter imitation" of it on him. Why and how do they all know it? Big Boss' files were recently declassified after the events on the Big Shell, and now the whole world knows of his Cold War-era, pre-Outer Heaven/Zanzibar Land exploits and sees him as a hero.
• Legacy Boss Battle: Crying Wolf carries the legacy of Sniper Wolf, and Screaming Mantis is literally possessed by Psycho Mantis; both of their fights are reminiscent of the originals, but with new twists. Crying Wolf even fights you in the same snowy canyon that Sniper Wolf did, and arms herself with a sniping rail cannon. Screaming Mantis employs People Puppets to control Meryl's actions — first she uses Meryl to shoot at you, then threatens to make Meryl shoot herself, just like Psycho Mantis did.
  • In a more meta example, the boss fight with Laughing Octopus is similar to the one the devs had planned but were unable to implement for Decoy Octopus from the original Metal Gear Solid. All of the bosses also use weapons one of the MGS2 bosses did - Octopus has Solidus' P90 and mechanical tentacles, Crying Wolf above has Fortune's railgun, Screaming Mantis has Vamp's knives, and Raging Raven uses various explosives a la Fatman.
• Legacy Character: Each of the Metal Gear games (except the original and Metal Gear Solid 3, which was set in the past) had a different Cyborg Ninja. Raiden's the new Cyborg Ninja in this one. He was gearing up towards this by the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 anyway, as he had already inherited the Absurdly Sharp Blade.
• Lethal Joke Item:
  • The Tanegashima costs a million Drebin points; for this, you get a muzzle-loading single-shot musket which can only be reloaded standing up. Seems useless, until you realize that firing outdoors has a one-in-three chance of producing a gigantic whirlwind that blankets a massive area with item drops.
  • The Tranquilizer Gun is practically useless for combat situations, especially against mechanical enemies as it's obviously a nonlethal weapon. But it's a staple for stealth runs for the sheer fact that it does not break concealment. It makes no sound, and enemies put to sleep will raise no alarm even when it's in his/her partner's plain sight. Also while it's not a One-Hit Kill, it comes pretty close; a single hit will put your enemy to sleep. A headshot will put your target to sleep instantly while a graze takes a few seconds but will put them to sleep nonetheless.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Done by Raiden in Act 4, though it was really more of a decision between Snake's life and his own limb.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: In the initial release, the game uninstalled and reinstalled large amounts of data between each major chapter of the game, which can take up to six minutes at a time, even after the regular 8-minute installation at the very start. This does make the chapters otherwise seamless, though.
  • Although you do install each Act separately, the game does have a loading time after entering and exiting virtually every area. Granted it's only a second or two each time, but it is annoying nonetheless since you have to press the start button after most of the loading times.
  • This also comes with a nice reference from Snake himself once it finishes and the player presses Start.
  Snake: "Kept you waiting, huh?"
  • By the time of the trophy patch, there is now the option to install all five Acts at once. This takes about sixteen minutes, but in return makes the wait between one act ending and the next one beginning on-par with changing areas in the middle of one.
• Lost in Translation: "La Li Lu Le Lo" are missing vowel sounds in Japanese; the point of the name is that it's not technically possible to write or say it in Hiragana (because there's no distinction between "L" and "R" and the string is usually "Ra Ri Ru Re Ro"), so the Patriots censor their name to something that can't be written down or spoken. This is never really gone into in the dub (since English doesn't do that), so it just seems to be meaningless babble.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: In Act 3, Snake meets Big Mama aka Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater EVA who reveals to him that she is the surrogate mother for him and Liquid.

M-R

• Magic from Technology: Otacon invokes Clarke's Third Law during an explanation of Vamp's 'superpowers':
  Snake: So it's technology, then, not magic?
  Otacon: With technology this advanced, who can tell the difference?
• The Magic Goes Away: There's a noticeable transition in the series between characters who have clearly supernatural abilities like the Cobras to characters who have nothing technology doesn't give them, like the BB Corps. Vamp seems to be the transition between the two personified, with supernatural healing that is nonetheless augmented by technology, and Charles Atlas Superpowers that let him dodge bullets through practiced skills with added technology to let him run up walls (though his ability to run on water and swim in the non-buoyant Life Reaction Pool isn't explained). His presence in this game next to the all-tech BB Corps as well as his rivalry with the fully cybernetic Raiden creates a sense that the magic-users are the old guard, on the way out and being replaced by something new. Four years later, there is indeed no magic to be found, only technologically augmented soldiers who make the BB corps seem quaint.
• The Man Behind the Man: Like you wouldn't believe.
  • Let's see... first, there's the obvious Liquid Ocelot controlling several PMCs from behind the scene while the Patriots run the American side of things, along with several other PMCs. Then, it turns out that Patriots don't really exist and are, in fact, a self-perpetuating set of non-sapient AIs routinely continuing obsolete orders set up by Zero after he lost faith in humanity. It also turns out even later that Liquid Ocelot, who supposedly is trying to take Big Boss's place in legend and Zero's in power, and who it is said again and again is Ocelot's body taken over by Liquid's arm, is actually Ocelot pretending to be Liquid mind-controlling Ocelot. And it turns out this was all part of a plan by Ocelot and EVA to remove the Patriots from power and rescue Big Boss from his artificially induced coma. It works.
  • A more local, less-convoluted man behind the man reveals that the psychic commander of the BB Corps, Screaming Mantis, is herself the puppet of the psychic influence of an older Mantis.
• May–December Romance: Campbell and Rose. Needless to say, it disgusts both Meryl and Raiden; even Snake, who has a history as a Handsome Lech, calls him out on it. It's to make sure the Patriots aren't going to go after Little John.
• Meaningful Name: Not for characters but rather for levels. The first two acts of the game are called Liquid Sun and Solid Sun, so it seems logical to call the third act Third Sun, but it's also a hint that the chapter revolves around the third of Big Boss's clones, Solidus Snake. Of course, the player doesn't realize this until the end of the game. Also, the fourth act is called Twin Suns, and takes place on Shadow Moses Island, the setting of Metal Gear Solid, as well as its remake, The Twin Snakes. The two parts of the finale are also called "Naked Sin" and "Naked Son", referencing the fact that the man once known as Naked Snake comes back for the ending.
• Mechanical Monster: The Gekko are as much life-form as machine; they're about as smart as an animal, make appropriate sounds when they're in distress, and, of course, have organic legs. They also follow the basic use of the trope in that they are much more dangerous and intimidating than a simple robot would be.
• Men Can't Keep House: A Running Gag is that Sunny always burns eggs she tries to fry in a pan, which Snake and Otacon are then reluctant to eat. When Otacon hassles Snake about hurting Sunny's feelings for refusing to eat her eggs, Snake quips back that Otacon should teach Sunny to cook. Otacon protests that he knows nothing about cooking. Naomi finally teaches Sunny how to fry eggs without burning them halfway through the game.
• Meta Casting: Both Akio Ōtsuka (Snake's Japanese voice actor) and his father, Chikao Ohtsuka, happened to be accomplished voice actors in their own right, so the latter was a perfect fit for Big Boss in the Japanese version.
• Mexican Standoff: During the debriefing, Snake and Big Boss get in one for a minute before Big Boss drops his gun.
• Mind Rape: On a new game plus, you can purchase ammunition that influences the emotions of the soldiers you shoot. You can cause them to become enraged, terrified, sad, or hysterical (mimicking the emotions of the BB Corps).
• Mind Screwdriver: This game more or less makes sense out of pretty much everything that happened, especially in the ending, of Metal Gear Solid 2.
• Molotov Cocktail: Used frequently in Act 1 under the name "petrol bomb" (which is the technical name for them).
• Monster Clown: Not in Metal Gear Solid 4 itself, but the add on Metal Gear Online invoked this with the "Clown" facepaint.
• Mood Whiplash: Be it the entire game, coming after the often light-hearted and goofy Metal Gear Solid 3, the scene where after a big, serious fight scene Ocelot and Snake re-enact the "FOXDIE" scene from the original and then Ocelot runs away giggling while Snake falls over, or the disturbing use of Zero, previously a frequent source of light-hearted humor.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: You can hardly get any more morally ambiguous than Naomi. In the first game, she was tricked into becoming a pawn for the Patriots, but in Metal Gear Solid 4, she's completely aware of what she's doing, but we never learn what it exactly was she was trying to do until right after FOXALIVE spreads throughout the Patriots' A.I.s and takes them offline.
• Multi-Disc Work: Mocked In-Universe when Otacon calls Snake just before entering the blast furnace on Shadow Moses - the same point where the MGS1 disc change happened - saying it's time to switch to disc two, only to remember the game is on a dual-layered Blu-Ray disc, meaning there is no second disc, much to his relief.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Towards the very end, a slowly dying Big Boss finally realizes the reasons and motivations behind the Boss' actions.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the Nostalgia Level, if you mess with the camera so it's over Snake's head, he'll comment that it's "just like the old days!" He has the same comment if you equip the SOCOM. You get a trophy for doing it after the patch that added them.
  • Almost every weapon available in the game was used by someone in a previous game, from the AN-94 used by most of the Gurlukovich troops on the Big Shell and the MP5SD from the Integral rerelease and PC port of the first game, to Solidus' P90 and a more modern version of the SVD as used in Snake Eater. Even the Five-Seven Snake used in the non-canon Ghost Babel shows up, with an explicit reference to the mission in Galuade from that game in its menu description.
  • If you pay attention, you'll notice Snake always manually pulls the charging handle of his gun to eject a round after reloading. This is the same "Middle East Technique" that backfired on Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3, except here, it's a technique of habit, instead of vanity, and for some reason Snake uses it for every kind of gun except for pistols.
  • The Solar Gun, when fully charged, can take out Vamp in one hit. This is because it's from the Boktai/Lunar Knights games, where the weapon is designed to kill vampires.
  • Ed and Jonathan, Meryl's two squad mates in Rat Patrol 01, are named after the protagonists of Policenauts, Kojima's previous game where Meryl first appeared.
  • Several allusions exist on the briefing scene computers, such as Policenauts and Zone of the Enders wallpapers, small Otacon avatars in the screen corner, and a disconnected monitor that says "HIDEO".
  • When Snake returns to Shadow Moses, he's forced to take a detour back down to the computer room in the second basement of the nuclear warhead storage building, where he first met Otacon. On one wall he can find a Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner poster as was there in The Twin Snakes... and he can also see that it's started to peel off, revealing the Policenauts poster that was there in the original PS1 game.
  • The penultimate battle in Shadow Moses is a two-part battle, Snake dealing with several bomb-equipped Gekko before they can destroy the base while Raiden duels Vamp on top of the ruins of Metal Gear REX. During quiet moments where there are no Gekko to deal with, you can aim at Raiden and Vamp, but not interfere with the duel - trying to pull the trigger will have Snake comment that "I can't do it", the same as if you try firing a Stinger at him at the end of the original Metal Gear Solid.
  • The final confrontation with Liquid Ocelot is made of these, split into four sections with the first three each representing one of the previous Solid games. In the first Ocelot will use Liquid's charging tackle from the first game, in the second he focuses on heavy punches with his artificial arm, and in the third he switches over to Big Boss-style CQC.
• Nausea Fuel: In-universe. Snake's Codec call to Otacon while hiding in a trash can/dumpster. When Otacon asks Snake how he knows how it is where the household dumps their waste, Snake explains in full, such as it smelling bad from last night's leftovers from dinner, as well as bugs crawling around his face, apparently roaches, a lot of them, as well as something crawling up his leg, leaving Otacon completely grossed out by the end. When questioned by Otacon whether he even feels sick from this, Snake mentions that he's perfectly willing to even crawl into a toilet as long as it at least allows him to hide from the enemy effectively.
• Navel-Deep Neckline:
  • Big Mama needs to learn how to button her shirt, as her neckline just barely hits her stomach.
  • Naomi Hunter also has an unbuttoned blouse and is clearly not wearing a bra. Believe it or not, the lack of a bra turns out to be important, as when you're trying to track Naomi down when she's being carted off by a bunch of soldiers, you find a discarded bra left behind as one of the soldiers' many fake outs. She never bothers to reacquire one later.
• Nerf: It's a numerical nerf rather than a functionality nerf. The game is abundant with robots big and small that want to destroy you. The series' anti-technology weapon, chaff grenades, would therefore be of immense use in this game. Unfortunately they're so rare you're likely to only find three of them in one playthrough.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Naomi, EVA/Big Mama, and Ocelot all went out of their way to revive Big Boss, and all three of them died before they ever got to see him again.
• New Game Plus: Everything you got in previous playthroughs is available as soon as Snake finds the Mk. II. There are also unlockable rewards for completing the game in certain ways.
• New Media Are Evil: The Patriots are all for perpetuating the constant state of war globally, using those terrible first person shooters to indoctrinate people as soldiers. ^note  Given that it shows the Metal Gear games during this talk, although FPS games are mentioned directly, it's more directed at anything being able to be used for propaganda. After all the same thing was done with movies and comic books in the past.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Given Fortune and now Raiden, we can safely say you can gain superpowers in the Metal Gear universe just by really, really wanting to have them.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Act 1, Liquid's Haven Troopers track down Snake and Rat Patrol by seeing the sunlight reflect off of Johnny/Akiba's binocular lens, leading to a brief Heroic BSoD from Akiba.
• Nintendo Hard: To get the best goodies and the "Big Boss" emblem, you need to beat the game in 5 hours, without dying (you can save-scum, though), causing no alerts, and using only non-lethal weaponry (except against robots), on the hardest possible difficulty level, using no healing items. You can try to lay down to recharge slightly in a few missions, but good freaking luck getting through the rail shooter missions in one piece, especially the one in Europe. For extra annoyance, you can't purchase any non-lethal ammo from Drebin on the hardest difficulty mode, too. Yikes.
  • If one is careful to meet the proper prerequisites on prior playthroughs, this becomes much easier. Healing music tracks for the iPod can greatly speed up Snake's health recovery time without counting as "healing items" for score purposes. The Solar Gun, normally Awesome, but Impractical for its (literally) flashy use, becomes a godsend for rail shooting segments, where its noticability is a non-issue.
• No Communities Were Harmed: The "Middle East" is somewhere in Maghreb (possibly Morocco, as seen in the credits), "Eastern Europe" is quite obviously Prague, Czech Republic and "South America" is somewhat less obviously Peru, but the countries are never named (outside of the credits). The only location explicitly stated matter-of-factly is the fictional Shadow Moses Island, the only new section of which is the interior of a Japanese steel mill.
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Snake will always use either the Operator or the M4 Custom in cutscenes, even if the player has been using something else, including weapons that were collected in prior cutscenes, such as the AK or the Mark II. The game's inventory system will force these two guns into the active inventory if they weren't there already, likely forcing out whatever other guns the player might have been using at the time.
• No Fourth Wall:
  • It got to the point of Lampshade Hanging: during Act 4, Otacon calls Snake and tells him to put in Disc 2. Then he remembers that, because the game is on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc, there is no Disc 2 (Snake tells Otacon to stop fooling around, while players freak out due to the location of this conversation being exactly where the disc change happened in the original MGS). Then, when Psycho Mantis shows up again, he tries to pull the same tricks. However, he can't read your memory since the PS3 doesn't have a memory card, and he can only make the controller vibrate if the player is using the DualShock 3. And again in the previous boss fight, where the Colonel recommends using the same tricks against a different psychic boss, only to have them all shot down. The Colonel even nonchalantly explains to Rose that they beat Psycho Mantis with controller-based tactics.
  • If you remembered Metal Gear Solid and try to switch controllers again, Snake calls Otacon and tells him he can't move. Then Otacon berates Snake and the player for thinking the same tricks would actually work again.
  • The first cardboard box you see has "No place for Hideo" printed on it, which was a throwback to when Kojima claimed he wasn't working on Metal Gear anymore.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ocelot to Snake at the end of Act 3. Snake gets his own back at Ocelot later at the end of Act 5, however.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: The Shotgun's non lethal rounds aren't tranquillisers. They are described as vortex ring rounds.
• Nostalgia Level: The entire fourth act, plus at least one nostalgia boss fight in Act 5. In Act 4, Snake returns to Shadow Moses, the setting of Metal Gear Solid. He even has a dream before getting there where the player plays a portion of the original game, and when you die in Act 4, the Game Over music from the original game is played.
  • The aforementioned boss fight, on the other hand, was intended as a callback to the Liquid fight in Metal Gear Solid, except instead of fighting with Liquid on top of the ruins of Metal Gear REX, you're fighting with Liquid Ocelot on top of the ruins of Outer Haven. The fight goes through all four Metal Gear Solid games phase-by-phase, changing Ocelot's fighting style, life bar and background music to match each game, until the very end where the fight boils down to two old men throwing very slow haymakers at one another.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Both played straight and averted. The Praying Mantis and Pieuvre Armement troops themselves do not have a British or French accent, respectively. However, the female PA Announcers for each of them do possess a pretty articulate accent representing each PMC's nationalities. Also, the Middle Eastern soldiers seemed to speak with a slight accent (at the very least, they sounded deeper and more gruff than the other characters).
  • Possibly justified at least in the case of the latter: in the 7th Circle game show, it's mentioned that Pieuvre Armement at the time of the game employs a bigger armed force than the populations of Mexico and Canada combined, which according to current data, would be equivalent to roughly double the entire population of France, meaning they (and thus presumably Preying Mantis as well) employ mostly foreigners, much like the French Foreign Legion.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Briefly used by Drebin at the end. He tells Otacon that the United Nations will now likely play an important role in stabilizing the world in the coming years, now that the Patriots' demise has caused a massive political vacuum. He cynically notes that, as a giant political body committed to uniting the world under one government, the UN really isn't that different from the Patriots.
• Obi-Wan Moment: Big Mama and Big Boss' deaths. Whilst the former admittedly experiences a great deal of stress beforehand, both have a quiet moment to reconcile with their son. Big Mama even mentions her love for David as she dies in his arms, whilst Big Boss admits his respect for Snake whilst he has one last smoke.
  "This is good, isn't it?"
• On-Site Procurement: It is still possible to secure perfectly working, unlocked weapons in the field (and Snake does exactly this when he gets the M32 grenade launcher and railgun from defeating Raging Raven and Crying Wolf respectively,) but the increasingly common usage of ID-locked guns, nanomachines and the introduction of Drebin's store makes this trope increasingly impractical, as unlocked guns by themselves are harder to come by. If Snake needs more ammo or guns, he'll have to make use of Drebin's services, and even if he finds a gun on site, it'll probably be locked, thus necessitating the use of Drebin again, and even if it isn't locked there's no guarantee it'll not be using poor-quality local ammo (such as the AK he starts with, which jams to complete uselessness before the opening cutscene is even over), so once again, he's gotta hook up with Drebin since he's got high quality, mint condition weapons and ammo.
• One-Hit Kill: Downplayed as it's nonlethal, but the tranquilizer gun only needs one shot to put an enemy to sleep. A headshot is instant, a graze will take a few seconds but they will put the target to sleep nonetheless. As added bonus, the gun also makes no noise, and enemy put to sleep or even hit won't even raise an alarm. All things considered, disabling an enemy is about as good as killing them in a Stealth-Based Game, thus meriting an entry here.
• One Last Smoke: Big Boss has his last cigar lit by Old Snake as he sits dying near The Boss's grave. Also counts as one last smoke for Snake, as he decides to quit smoking afterwards.
  Big Boss: "This is good... isn't it?"
• One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Meryl beats a teammate easily in arm wrestling, as a Funny Background Event while Drebin speaks to Otacon at Meryl's wedding.
• One-Woman Wail: The game's "Love Theme".
• Overly Long Gag: The soldiers cock their guns and point them at Ocelot's boat! Gasp! Then... The soldiers cock their guns and point them at Ocelot's boat! Gasp! Then... Repeat so many times you start to wonder if this is how the series is going to end.
• Pacifist Run: You receive a lower score at the end if you kill everything, and no-kill runs are required to unlock special weapons and certain Emblems.
• Parrot Exposition: Largely averted. Snake is experienced and knowledgeable enough that he doesn't need clarification on anything; even the iconic "Metal Gear?!" line is only spoken as more of a whisper when Otacon reveals the name of the Mk II. The most notable instance of it still occurring is Snake's surprise at Big Mama's revelation that Big Boss originally was known as Snake.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": It's possible to make out the password Johnny keys in to shut off the laser grid as an all-lowercase "meryl (something)," presumably "meryl silverburgh."
• Perilous Marriage Proposal: The climactic attack on Outer Haven sees a combo of this and Wacky Marriage Proposal between Johnny and Meryl: after Johnny barges in to save Meryl, only for them to end up pinned down by a swarm of soldiers, his explaining of why he chose to stay by her side devolves into him confessing all his feelings for her, figuring that now's a good a time as any to pop the question. Meryl is annoyed and furious by his awkward timing... and also because she wanted to propose first. They end up casually discussing marriage plans amidst the increasingly dire firefight, implicitly with the knowledge that neither of them are going to make it. Fortunately, they do.
• Photo Mode:
  • The Camera item, unlike the First-Person Snapshooter features in other games of the series, can be used in third-person.
  • If you break the armor of a BB boss and don't attack them in the second phase for about 3 minutes, you two will be teleported into a White Void Room, and using the Camera there makes the boss suggestively pose for you.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Despite what shippers say, and the massive amount of Homoerotic Subtext, Otacon and Snake platonically live together as her two dads, raising Olga's daughter, Sunny.
• Playing Possum: Snake can now play dead, either by lying down and relaxing his body, or remaining motionless after being knocked over by an attack. Enemies who are actively searching for him will check bodies though, giving them a little kick as they pass by, so this ability is mostly useful when Snake wants to be overlooked during a larger battle between PMC forces and their enemies, where no one has time to check the bodies anyway. Alternatively, if Snake lies down among a bunch of already present bodies, patroling soldiers might simply consider him another corpse on the pile.
• Playing with Syringes: Vamp, it turns out, was an experiment by the Patriots developed out of the very same nanomachines Naomi developed for Metal Gear Solid and it is this which allows him his Healing Factor. Also, it is revealed that Naomi has a lesser version of this, which keeps her cancer under control. Somewhat Narmified by the fact that as soon as she suppresses her nanomachines, she dies within the minute.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: During the Act 4 mission briefing, Raiden has an emotional breakdown in which he collapses to the ground and seizes Snake by the ankle while begging Snake not to leave him alone.
• Potty Failure: Next generation technology means the series' running gag of people wetting themselves can be one-upped with a scene of a man shitting his pants. Um, thanks Kojima.
• Precision F-Strike: Laughing Octopus delivers the first English F-bomb in the entire franchise^note EVA directed a "Fuck you" at Volgin in the Japanese version of Snake Eater, which makes it just that much more unsettling.
  • During Snake and Otacon's discussion of the tank battle in Metal Gear Solid:
  Otacon: ...Now I know it. You're nuts! Single-handedly taking out a tank? That's crazy! You're insane!
  Old Snake: (annoyed) Otacon, is this your idea of a compliment?
  Otacon: Yes! You're the toughest, craziest, most hardcore badass on the planet. You're... the shit!
• Pre-Mortem Catchphrase: The last thing Ocelot says to Snake before dying is his classic "You're pretty good".
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: A Pieuvre Armement soldier at the start of Act II will tell one of the captured rebels, "Say good night!" before executing him if the player doesn't intervene.
• Product Placement: The iPod and MacBook, Playboy, Regain, PlayStation 3, and even Assassin's Creed are all prominently promoted in the game. Sunny can be seen playing with a PSP during the briefings, as well (and the game she's playing is the first one Kojima ever made). Apparently Red Bull was also planned to be used, but was replaced with fictional "Narc Cola".
• Promoted to Playable: What started as an attempt to stop Liquid from going back to Shadow Moses and stealing Metal Gear REX's railgun with the nuke still loaded on it ended with Otacon reactivating what's left of REX with Snake piloting it in order to easily escape the facility before the GEKKO's blow the place up, then facing off against Liquid with Metal Gear RAY.
• Private Military Contractors: One of the themes in the game. With first world countries bogged down in other affairs, corporate mercenaries are a cheap, reliable, and expendable way of waging war for the most pointless of reasons.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Several!
  • Vamp, the "wizard with knives," returns to torment us (and is unsurprisingly good with them in Metal Gear Online). Raiden uses some knife-fu of his own to face him, but sparingly. Screaming Mantis has six extra cybernetic arms and can throw around knives with all of them.
  • Snake might qualify, if players pay attention to his left hand. He never really puts away that knife of his either. Bonus points for actually using it a couple times in cutscenes too. A bit ironic as well, as he mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 2 that he is not a fan of blades. On the other hand, Snake is now using CQC again as taught to him by Big Boss himself. And as Naked Snake explained in Metal Gear Solid 3, the knife is an integral part of CQC and often the better weapon in close proximity encounters.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Liquid Ocelot's mannerisms in the second half suggest he is this. See For the Evulz for more details.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • The Gekko in the basement of Shadow Moses. Granted, you CAN take it down the conventional way, but the easiest way to do it without giving yourself away is running Metal Gear Mk. II over to the control panel for the electrical floor and running a charge through it.
  • Screaming Mantis cannot be fought like the previous B&Bs. She will simply deflect or Flash Step away from your bullets. To beat her, you have to shoot her Mantis Doll away from her, then pick it up and use it against her.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Continuing series tradition, the Beauty and the Beast Unit serve as this.
• Reality Is Unrealistic:
  • When using weapon-mounted flashlights, Snake only turns them on for a seemingly-useless split second rather than keeping them on as with Metal Gear Solid 2's USP taclight. This is actually how you're supposed to use a weaponlight; it's called "light discipline" and prevents you screwing up your night vision or giving your enemy a nice bright target to shoot at. This is situational, however. Inside a building, a light is almost always on. Outside, it is never on unless you hear or see something that needs to be revealed now.
  • Also, one of the criticisms of the game was the inclusion of the iPod as an item for blatant product placement purposes. However, militaries in real life do actually use the iPod during combat. For instance, the BulletFlight application for iPod Touch, which covers bullet trajectory calculations, are used by real world snipers.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Ocelot's "Liquid Ocelot" persona was created because Kōji Totani, Revolver Ocelot's Japanese voice actor, died prior to the production of the game, resulting in the recasting to Banjo Ginga (the Japanese voice of Liquid Snake) for the role.
  • Bizarrely, the English version went with Patric Zimmerman (Ocelot) voicing Liquid Ocelot, despite that Cam Clarke (Liquid) had voiced the Liquid Ocelot persona in Metal Gear Solid 2. Possibly a Woolseyism applied to literary devices; the fact that Liquid spoke with his own voice in Metal Gear Solid 2 but always sounds like Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 4 is a giant hint that it's Ocelot faking possession by Liquid all along, to the point where many players aren't surprised at all.
• Recruiters Always Lie: Satirised with the fake military recruitment ads during the opening scene that are based on the style of real ones, exaggerated with tons of psychedelia and Deliberate Values Dissonance. Notably, the ads, like real ads, repeatedly use video game-like imagery like First-Person Perspective and unthinking, unbleeding, identical enemies — in some ways, a comment on video games being used to recruit young people into fighting real wars.
• Redshirt Army:
  • The U.S. Army/Marine Corps task force becomes this in Act 3, in part because the System is ripped out from beneath them. However, they later fend off a horde of FROGS, without any assistance from the System at that.
  • The rebel militia in the Middle East in the beginning of the game. They have a tendency to get mowed down in droves, both in-cutscene and out.
• Regenerating Health: Your health will regenerate at a very slow rate over time, but if you want to recharge fast, find a nice, shady spot out of the sun and just lie down. As long as there aren't any nearby explosions driving your stress meter up, anyway.
• Respawning Enemies: A subtler version than you'll usually notice. Enemies will enter battlegrounds by hopping over fences, cliffs and whatnot to replace their dead comrades. This means that between rebels and PMCs there will be effectively limitless fighting unless you intervene, and sometimes even then. One incentive for a Pacifist Run is that tranquilized enemies are not replaced.
• Retcon: This game does a lot of them. Not only does the story develop in a way which invalidates many plot points in earlier games, but it also retcons its own continuity for the ending. The biggest example is that Big Boss' actions in Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land were actually meant to take the fight to the Patriots themselves, and by stopping him both times, Snake pretty much ensured that the Patriots controlled the whole planet by the 21st century.
• Re Vision: Metal Gear Solid 4 does this to all the previous games, providing backstory that links Metal Gear Solid 3 with the more distantly connected Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2, in addition to the first two games. See Mind Screwdriver for more details.
  • Snake turns out to be extremely competent at CQC, which he learned from Big Boss himself. The reason why he doesn't use CQC in earlier games is reluctance to use Big Boss's technique, and the reason he starts using it is that soldiers knowing CQC is common now that Big Boss's files have been declassified, and he finds himself instinctively calling on CQC when someone else comes at him with it.
• Right Makes Might: It is worth noting that REX, after being stripped of its railgun (which makes it capable of firing nukes), is now fighting RAY, who in this case is protecting a nuke launching. So, REX now takes the same stance as RAY originally did, which also happens to be the purpose its designer originally intended; defending against nukes. AND IT WINS. It also has the message that, even after doing horrible things, you can still atone for your sins.
• Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Reason: Johnny turns out to be immune to the nasty side effects that arise when the nanomachines are shut down by the Big Bad, and this later allows him to have a big damn hero moment in rescuing Meryl, all because he never got the nanomachine injections in the first place. Meryl asks him how he knew something like Liquid's hijacking of the system would happen, and Johnny says he didn't. He was just so Afraid of Needles he avoided all the mandatory injections.
• Rock Beats Laser: In a world where anybody with nanomachines can be manipulated and incapacitated, Johnny gets his moments to shine when he reveals that he never had nanomachines implanted into his body, rendering him immune to the high tech methods to disable nanomachine enhanced soldiers. There's also the point where Mei Ling is given command of the USS Missouri, a ship that, due to it's age, was the only ship unaffected by Liquids' takeover of military systems.
  • The M2 Browning, a heavy machine gun designed in 1918 (making it nearly a century old in 2014, the year the game takes place) is shown to be completely effective against the cutting-edge GEKKOs (which also carry an M2, it should be noted).
• Role-Reversal Boss: The last section of Act 4 drops the game's stealth mechanics in favour of having Snake pilot Metal Gear REX, a Humongous Mecha boss from Metal Gear Solid, for a mech vs. mech fight against Liquid Ocelot piloting a Metal Gear RAY.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Sunny's eggs, as their condition represents (and sometimes foreshadows) the progression of the Snakes. For example, "Act 3 — Third Sun" has Sunny cracking one single yolk egg and one double yolk egg, alluding to third, non-twin brother Solidus Snake and his return. Additionally, she cooks eggs one-sided and uncovered as a type of fortune telling. Throughout the plot, she constantly makes bad eggs as things keep getting worse for Snake; when things start looking up in the conclusion, however, she finally makes decent eggs.
  • When Big Boss is making his way over to the Boss' grave, he ends up falling to his knees and has to support himself by holding his hands out in front of him when he's right in front of her headstone, emphasizing how he's all but asking for her forgiveness due to him straying from his path and going against her will.
• Running Gag: Anytime anyone take a swig of Narc Cola, they belch. Even the female characters and the monkey.

S-Z

• Sanity Has Advantages: The BB Corps are all psychologically damaged. Rose points out that this probably doesn't help their combat abilities and that only a monster would put such broken people on the front line, especially since they'll eventually break down completely and be useless. Snake agrees on all points, but he also notes that it's to his advantage if they're not fighting at their full combat effectiveness.
• Say My Name:
  • The series' normal use of a dramatic name scream is inverted near the end when the Dwarf Gekkos start piling on Snake, which causes him to scream for Otacon, rather then the inverse as usually happens. This also happens earlier, when he gets half of his face burned very badly.
• Scars Are Forever:
  • Snake gets the entire left side of his face damn near burnt off near the end of Act 3. The burn scar remains for the rest of the game.
  • Despite his Healing Factor, Vamp retains the bullet scar from where Raiden shot him in the head in MGS2. This can possibly be justified in that said healing factor looks to be much faster-working now than it was back then - Raiden's headshot immediately "killed" him for a couple minutes, but then when Snake shoots him in nearly the same spot he stays up for a minute to keep talking and then, in his words, "takes a nap" for only about half of another minute.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • The Laughing Octopus fight lives off this. Several times she will disguise herself and her voice as one of your companions trying to bait you into a trap and if you fall for it she'll laugh in your face at your gullibility after blowing you up.
  • While tracking Naomi when she's taken in Act 2 you can potentially end up going the wrong way and end up in an ambush. Some of these traps involve just stepping on explosives or getting ambushed by the Frogs, while others include hearing a very obviously fake recording of Naomi being tortured in a shack to lure Snake in or finding her bra near some tracks to throw you off the trail. In the last example, an observant player could avoid falling for it if they had noticed that Naomi clearly wasn't wearing a bra in the earlier cutscene.
  • During Act 4 at the helipad at Shadow Moses, you have several ways to enter the base including the classic methods from the original Metal Gear Solid. However unlike the original, the front hangar door is also open and you can choose to waltz right in. Doing so will land you right in an ambush.
• Scratchy-Voiced Senior: Solid Snake speaks with a very deep, gravely voice. Decades of cigarette smoking certainly didn't help.
• Second-Face Smoke: In Act 3, Liquid blows cigar smoke into Snake's face prior to enacting the first stage of his plan.
• Self-Deprecation: While Snake approaches the ruins of Shadow Moses, Otacon tells him to change the game discs before remembering that they're on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc, meaning that they could avoid doing the former nowadays. Kojima himself hated it as well, hence this conversation.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Naomi, Big Mama, and Ocelot all die in the process of reviving Big Boss, only for Big Boss to be Killed Off for Real shortly after being revived.
• Sequel Non-Entity: Nastasha Romanenko is the only surviving character from previous games who does not appear in Metal Gear Solid 4.
• Sequel Reset: Metal Gear Solid 2 had established by the Plant chapter that Snake had been framed as an ecoterrorist by the Patriots and that the entire world believed him dead. Here, characters like Campbell and Meryl not only know he's still alive and didn't do what he was accused of, they barely register surprise to see him; Campbell even tracks Snake down himself to ask him to deal with Liquid^*However, that is the line that has been fed to people by the Patriots, so it seems likely that those Snake considers his friends would know the truth..
• Series Continuity Error: Connecting this game and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain would be hard to do:
  • According to EVA, the bitter tragedy between Big Boss and Zero happened due to the Les Enfant Terribles project happening without his consent. He left the US, created his own mercenary company, and drifted around the world. Where's the error in this? Big Boss feigned surrender to Zero and took command of Foxhound and Outer Heaven. The problem? Zero was infected by a parasite around the late-70's-early 80's and Snake defeating Big Boss in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake causing Zero fall into Despair Event Horizon could not happen unless he was on the last legs of his life at that point before becoming a vegetable.
• Serious Business: Metal Gear Online was arguably more in-depth than other games that have multiplayer, in that matches are not randomly made from a set of pre-established rules, you create a character with their own name (you don't use your PSN name) and each game can be tweaked greatly to the host's choosing. There are even "official" matches — Tournament and Survival, which award players in-game points they can use to customize their character. Consequently, there was still a decently-sized community that played the game, even up to it being shut down four years later. However, some people would deliberately lag the game...and near the end even went so far as using a Direct Denial of Service attack to force other players off PSN.
• Shirtless Scene: Snake gets one in Act 2 when Naomi performs an extensive medical exam on him. Of course, given his accelerated aging, it's more along the lines of Fan Disservice, and Naomi reacts with horror at the sight and is reduced to tears at what is happening to him.
• Show Within a Show: Upon starting a new game, players will see a variety of expensive, live-action short clips from television shows that (more or less) take place within the Metal Gear universe, followed by advertisements for various PMCs. They include a grotesque cooking show, a "paid programming" segment advertising a workout regiment with nanomachine enhancement, a Discovery Channel-like show about Octopi and so forth. The most memorable of them all is David Hayter (playing himself) being interviewed by a bizarre talk show host played by Lee Merriweather.
• Shout-Out: To all sorts of stuff. A few examples below:
  • Drebin's name comes from the protagonist of The Naked Gun. This is because he sells "naked guns" without ID locks on them.
  • The Precision F-Strike that Laughing Octopus uses ("It's all so FUCKING HYSTERICAL!") is a shout-out to Road to Perdition.
  • The Rat Patrol refers to the old show of the same name, a group of soldiers who would patrol the desert.
  • Kill enough guys with a knife, and you unlock Altaïr's outfit from Assassin's Creed. This isn't the only time the series references Assassin's Creed, either; they do it again in Peace Walker with the Assassin's Straw Box. Kojima apparently is a big fan of Assassin's Creed.
  • Also, some bonus weapons in a second playthrough have either grenades that emit colored smoke that causes a victim to emit an emotion relating to the color of the smoke, or shoot the enemy with a special type of ammo that has them undergoing a certain emotion, depending on the ammo's color, when shot with it. The yellow smoke grenades/yellow ammunition behave in a very similar fashion to a certain trademark toxin used by The Joker.
    • Speaking of Batman-related references, Snake and several of Liquid Ocelot's PMCs having to inject themselves with syringes in order to suppress their nanomachines enough to not be driven insane by the hacking of SOP or their nanos malfunctioning/being manipulated and driving them insane is similar to the Fear Toxin vaccine, as well as Batman, Rachel, and Lieutenant Gordon's use of the vaccination when infected with fear toxin in Batman Begins.
  • Also, after Liquid Ocelot's failed attempt at hijacking the SOP system in the Middle East causes all SOP-linked soldiers in the area to experience uncontrolled emotions boiling up relating to their participation in the battlefield, the Rat Patrol member Ed is seen laughing maniacally. This isn't the only "Ed" who often laughed maniacally.
  • Speaking of the Rat Patrol, two of its members are named Ed and Jonathan, as in Ed Brown and Jonathan Ingram from Policenauts, right down to their Japanese voice actors and even quoting their Policenauts counterparts' final lines. To add to that, Meryl now wears a bullet earring just like her Policenauts self.
  • Screaming Mantis's strategy of keeping out of your reach and choice of weapon resemble that of Death.
  • Drebin's story about Crying Wolf's past is very much like Hawkeye's story in the series finale of M*A*S*H, in which a Korean woman suffocates her child to stop its crying when Hawkeye and a group of civilians are hiding themselves from troops.
  • In Act 3, when Ocelot takes control of the SOP system, and brings down the helicopters first, some of the angles of the pilot reactions and army guys struggling to stay on the falling helicopters are visually similar to the helicopter crashes from Black Hawk Down.
  • As a cyborg, Raiden has white blood.
  • As mentioned above, Drebin is Smuggler in everything but name. Kojima is lucky Looking Glass Studios dissolved years ago, or he'd be talking to some lawyers.
• Side Quest: It's possible to help out the militia forces in most areas of the first two acts, though it's not that clear how or if the militia can win the battle in a given location.
• Significant Anagram: Turns out Meryl's group, Rat Patrol 01, is actually an anagram of "PatR10t" (Patriot), indicating that their true benefactors were the Patriots, but they never actually knew this.
• Sinister Whistling: The villainous members of La Résistance throughout Prague are happily whistling away, enabling you to track them. It straddles the line between silly and eerie.
• Skyward Scream: LIQUUUUUUUUUUIIIID!!! Complete with echo and Snake dramatically tossing his arms to the air.
• Smoking Is Cool: Okay, it's pretty cool to see Snake light up in the beginning (he even has a storage container for half-finished cigarettes) but this trope becomes cruelly subverted as it goes on; a guy who's coughing up his lungs, sucking on an oxygen mask, and still keeps asking for a light is not cool.
• So Last Season: The normally game-breaking Stealth Camo item is no longer the infallible bonus item it was, as it simply will not hide Snake from infra-red devices like, say, the numerous Gekko units dotted throughout the game. Snake's going to have to use it in concert with the Octocamo to be truly invisible.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: You can pick which songs you want playing in the background with the game's iPod. This means you can have this song playing during tense, life-threatening situations.
• The Stinger: "Why does Big Boss have a credited voice actor?..."
• Story to Gameplay Ratio: There are nine and a half hours of cutscenes. Fortunately, they're almost all skippable.
  • Unfortunately, skipping all but a few will rob you of the free Drebin Points you could otherwise gain through flashbacks.
  • The ending is by far the longest cutscene sequence ever made according to Guinness World Records. It has a total combined running time of seventy-one minutes.
  • A skilled player can complete all the actual game play in far less time than it takes to view the cutscenes. For example, the extensive series of cutscenes that ends Act 3 runs about twice as long as the complete "follow the resistance member" and "shoot from the motorcycle" elements of the act.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: In-game, Snake is now a master of CQC, despite never using it before. Supplemental material reveals that he was taught CQC by Big Boss, but refused to use it after the latter's Face–Heel Turn. A combination of Big Boss' vindication by history (his exploits from the 1960s being declassified sometime after the Big Shell incident from Metal Gear Solid 2) and Snake instinctively reacting to other soldiers using CQC techniques in the field results in him starting to use the techniques again.
• Swiss-Army Gun: True to its example in the Real Life section of the trope page, the M4 Custom that Snake acquires early in the game can be configured with Gun Accessories to function as an Assault Rifle, Sniper Weapon, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, and/or Flashlight. Other guns have their own options, but the M4 Custom has more accessories available than any other single weapon in the game.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Rose expresses pity for the B&B Corps due to their Dark And Troubled Pasts, remarking that Liquid is truly a heartless monster for putting such mentally-damaged people into combat situations. Snake agrees, but also points out that, since they're crazy and thus not fighting at their full effectiveness, he has the advantage.
  • Drebin's comments to Snake after defeating each B&B boss also invokes this, especially if Snake kills them rather than just knocks them out.
• Take Cover!: The player can press a button to have Snake snap to cover, from which he can pop out and shoot enemies much like Gears of War.
• Take That!: Kojima really hates changing discs in the middle of a game, as is evidenced by an in-universe Codec conversation celebrating Blu-ray while also lampooning disc-changing.
• Technology Marches On: Repeatedly lampshaded. Apparently, everything really was canonically blocky back in Metal Gear Solid, as shown in the flashbacks and MGS1 mask (it's a replica of the polygon model of Snake's head from the first game).
  • In-universe, as well. Otacon uses one of his remote robots to interface with a computer in the Nostalgia Level and complains that it's ten years out of date.
  • Stealth camouflage, the technology that made Snake and his enemies invisible in previous games, is now considered outmoded because it doesn't hide you from infrared sensors, and Gekko and other unmanned weapons all use infrared sensor technology now. Snake has upgraded to an "OctoCamo" system that mimics an octopus' instant-camouflage abilities and blocks your heat signature. Unfortunately, one of your enemies also uses OctoCamo, which means you can't use the standard tactic of sniffing out the invisible enemy by using IR Goggles any more.
  • Early in the series, military-grade nanotechnology is highly experimental and only used by few. By the time of Metal Gear Solid 4 pretty much all the armies in the world use it, and if the live action mock ads are canon, then it's so freely available that people use nanites in diet and fitness programs.
• Temporal Paradox: Otacon tells you to go and find Metal Gear Mk. II on a Codec interface with "Metal Gear Mk. II" written in the bottom corner.
• Title Drop: Ocelot's plan is called "Guns of the Patriots," referring to the nanomachine "system" used to control the world's small arms. The first on-screen invoking of the title, courtesy Naomi, is delivered with the subtlety of a grenade.
• That Man Is Dead: Raiden tells Snake as much when the latter refers to him as Jack. Considering how eerily peaceful and quiet his voice now is, it's not hard to imagine you're talking to a dead man.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. You actually have a therapist as one of your two contacts (Rose). She mostly just gives you advice on what actions you can take within the game to increase your psyche meter and keep stress levels down, rather than give real advice, but considering Gameplay and Story Segregation, this is probably for the best. When introduced, it is at first implied that speaking to her will increase psyche, but this ends up not being the case. Her presence is also justified in another way, because therapy for combat veterans is a growing, highly necessary field. As shown when SOP is disabled, there's a reason for that.
• The Unseen: Otselotovaya Khvatka is the only PMC group mentioned that you never actually encounter. Likewise, Werewolf are the main opposing faction in Act 4, but Snake only encounters their unmanned units in Shadow Moses.
• Those Two Guys: The only really important members of the Rat Patrol are Meryl and Johnny. The other two, Jonathan and Ed, barely get any lines.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Most missions can be completed without using deadly force, although the availability of effective tranquilizer ammo isn't made obvious. Even the bosses can for the most part be defeated non-lethally. The game offers numerous rewards to players who minimize or avoid killing in terms of Drebin points and special gear. NPCs may also react negatively to Snake - and Snake himself may experience physical problems - if too many mooks are killed. (Also, when one of the FROG soldiers dies at Snake's hands - these are the female soldiers - their screams and movements as they expire are somewhat disturbing.)
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The Johnny family. Throughout the series, they've been limited to butt monkeys. Suddenly, at the end of Act 3, Johnny turns into an actual character and even gets a happy ending as opposed to the usual fate of being beaten up or spending their final appearance locked in a toilet.
  • Note the transition point is the exact moment when he removes his face obscuring mask.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Subverted when Raiden throws his katana at Vamp, and at close range too, but Vamp dodges it. It worked when he intentionally convulses during his duel, ejecting the dozen or so knives stuck in his exoskeleton and tearing Vamp to shreds with those same knives.
• Toilet Humor: Johnny (a.k.a. Akiba) continues his long-running streak as the franchise's resident bowel-issue-ridden butt monkey, starting with his very first appearance in the game, where a sentry finds him in the middle of dropping a deuce in a metal barrel. In the very same act, he flat-out craps his pants in the middle of a firefight. Stunningly, even this becomes a plot point in the end: Johnny was never imbued with any nanomachines, so he remained exempt from the System...and his bowel movements were left uncontrolled, as such.
• Tongue-Tied: While it's not very explicitly shown, the Patriots' nanomachines also make sure that no one under their monitoring can even say or hear the word "Patriots", which instead comes out as the nonsensical "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo", five syllables that are impossible to say or write in Japanese (a trait that wound up Lost in Translation).
• Too Awesome to Use: Chaff grenades. The fact that there's many more unmanned weapons in this game, especially in later chapters, makes them doubly useful, especially since they are not available to purchase in Drebin's shop. Naturally, you'll be likely to only find three of them over a normal playthrough.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Raiden, while technically on the same skill level as Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2, has, in this installation, had most of his body replaced with cybernetic parts and turned into something akin to a ninja-themed superhero.
  • Johnny, a.k.a. Akiba, suddenly becomes a lot more competent when Meryl's life is threatened.
• Took a Level in Cynic: The years after the second game has not been good for Raiden. His memories as a child solider begin to resurface which estranged his relationship with Rose and eventually leaving her after finding out of that she suffers from miscarriage. Upon finding out about her marriage with Campbell, Raiden, having no other reason to live, decides to go back to the battlefield and turn himself into the new Cyborg Ninja. Thankfully he gets better upon finding out the truth from Rose and that he has a son all the time.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Meryl is a lot more aggressive in this game than she was in the first one. She yells at Johnny, makes fun of Snake's age, and swears a lot more in combat. Justified in that Johnny is pretty much useless at first, and she was having tough times with the fact that Colonel was married to Rose. Not only that but she was under SOP which controls her emotions to be more useful in combat aka really mad at the right times. She simmers down at the end though.
• Tragic Monster: The members of the Beauty and the Beast Unit are portrayed as this, having been so badly traumatized by the horrors of war that they only way they could cope was by becoming what they are now. Rose even explicitly says she feels sorry for them, but Snake, being himself, doesn't really have time for pity.
• Trailers Always Lie: Deliberately. The trailers featured cutscenes from the later game mocked up in parts of the Middle East setting, to make the multiple environments a surprise. The first major cutscene trailer (featuring the bit where Snake meets the Mk. II and gets his weapons and eyepatch) is generally similar but entirely different in all the little details. It showed off Snake getting and customizing the M4 Carbine (something he'd get from someone else entirely) and lighting a cigarette on a nearby piece of smoldering wood. Funnily enough, even though he doesn't do that in the actual game, you can still see the smoldering wood right next to him.
• Translation Convention: Heavily implied if not outright spoken. No matter where in the world you are, be it the Middle East, South America, or somewhere in Eastern Europe, everyone not only speaks English, but speaks it in the same accent (well, kind of: the Praying Mantis PMC PA announcer and the Pieuvre Armement PMC PA announcer spoke with, respectively, a British and French accent, and the Middle Eastern soldiers are possibly speaking with a Middle Eastern accent).
  • Averted with the Pieuvre Armement PMC TV ad, the female announcer for it is clearly speaking in French.
• Trick Boss: Vamp would be this unless you use the syringe given to you by Naomi to end his nanomachine-enhanced regeneration.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: Well, all of the Metal Gear games are set in more futuristic versions of the present day (excluding prequels set in the sixties, but even those were pretty futuristic, for the sixties). This one explicitly starts off with the words, "In the not too distant future..." We see what looks like your standard Middle East conflict between two groups and then HOLY CRAP GIANT ROBOTS ARE STEPPING ON PEOPLE!
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Surprisingly often. Naomi's escape in Act 2 mixes Zombie Apocalypse and turret gunplay and there's more on-rails shooter stuff with EVA again in Eastern Europe (albeit you're limited to one-handed firearms), mecha combat in Shadow Moses - REX versus RAY, and, as if that wasn't enough, the final battle with Ocelot is an arcade-style fighting game.
  • Speaking of Shadow Moses Island, there's Snake's "dream". You get to replay the first area of the original Metal Gear Solid. The exact same area with the exact same gameplay, same graphics, same controls, everything.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Raiden's Heroic Sacrifice to save Snake on Shadow Moses is given a very definitive air of finality, as he cries out for Rose and remembers their first date as he is being crushed beneath the charging Outer Haven ship, complete with a sad piano interlude and a fade to black as his cyborg body shuts down. Which makes it really jarring when Snake and Otacon are seen not 10 minutes later chatting fairly nonchalantly about the fact that he survived. Also, resident Butt-Monkey Johnny Sasaki falls into the ocean after being launched from a rocket-powered catapult, but later on, he suddenly comes back in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Dr. Madnar, who took multiple rockets to the back while trying to kill Snake in Metal Gear 2, is mentioned to be alive, with Naomi actively seeking him out to help Raiden. Snake doesn't even react to finding out that a man he seemingly "killed" a decade and a half ago is alive.
• Unskippable Cutscene: Although there is in fact an option to skip most of the rather long cutscenes in this game, the fact many of them are interactive and the game rewards the player with "Drebin point" currency for triggering flashbacks when prompted within the cutscenes, it pretty much forces you to sit through them, even though some of them last 20 minutes or more (it takes forever for the actual gameplay of Act 3 to begin).
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Averted, even though this game has just about the strongest justification to use this trope of any video game ever made.
  • The game's chronological predecessor, Metal Gear Solid 2, used the same explanation for why you can't use enemy equipment: They're all using lockout technology that prevents unregistered users from using the gun. In Metal Gear Solid 4, however, early into the game we meet Drebin, the gun launderer, who happily removes those locks, and gives us credit at his store for every spare gun we pick up off of enemies.
• Unwitting Pawn: Snake, in the plan to destroy the Patriots. He delivers Naomi's virus to the GW server room thinking it's only going to release Liquid's control of the system, when it's actually designed to wipe out the Patriots altogether.
  • Not to mention Snake became vector of new FOXDIE, and Meryl's team, Rat PT. 01.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Snake and Liquid face off inside Metal Gears; Snake is in the original REX mecha, while Liquid's in the RAY mecha designed to hunt down REX.
• Useless Protagonist: Snake. In the end, most of what he tries to accomplish ends up failing and when he does succeed, it's only because someone else planned it and did all the actual heroics, reducing Snake to be nothing but a glorified delivery boy.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: During the knife-fight between Raiden and Vamp in Act 4, Vamp attempts to Raiden with his own katana which discarded at the start of the fight since Vamp requested a duel with knives only. Raiden counters this by launching several of Vamp's own knives out of his body, allowing him to reclaim his katana and use it to land the finishing blow on Vamp instead.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • The first two major areas of the game have a unique twist for the Metal Gear Solid games: You're sneaking through a battlefield between opposing factions, either of which will shoot you if they see you running around. But if you help out the locals against the mercenaries, the locals will take a shine to you, accept food from you, and compliment you when you shoot a PMC mercenary (plus there's the added bonus that you don't need to sneak by them and/or tranq or kill them all the time). It's particularly heartwarming if you help them push through one area and clear out all enemies, because they'll cheer and yell "We did it! Yeah!"
  • You are rewarded with Drebin points for weapons based on the status of the owner of the gun you retrieve. You only get 1/10th the value if the owner is dead, and 2/10th the value if they're unconscious, as Drebin has to work harder to scrub such weapons from SOP control. If you hold up a soldier and get his gun that way (non-lethally), you get the full value instead. Of course, once you HAVE the points, you're free to do anything you'd like to that poor sap.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can kill everyone you come across, regardless of side or their stance towards you, and you can get really mean with how you dispose of them, given all the tools available to you. You can even turn on your allies if you want.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you go on a mindless killing spree (kill about 50 people in a short period of time), Snake will flash back to Liquid accusing him of enjoying the killing, and he'll lose a lot of Psyche, keel over, and vomit. Also, as per usual, touch a FROG the wrong way, and she will fight back.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In an optional Codec call, Snake bemoans that, now that the files regarding Operation Snake Eater have been declassified, Big Boss is once again viewed as a hero by the general public.
• Visual Pun: When Jonathan (The Big Guy) gets up from his couch, we see an exclamation point shaved in his head in the form of his mowhawk. The "!" sound plays.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: As mentioned above, go above and beyond in killing soldiers and Snake will have a flash back and Heel Realization, causing him to messily empty his stomach right in the middle of the battlefield.
• Voodoo Shark: The explanation offered for Ocelot's "ghost arm" makes that particular plot point better or exponentially more ridiculous.
• Vulnerable Civilians: The Marketplace at the end of Act 2 feature civilians (which cannot be scanned with the Solid Eye) who will start to flee when the Gekkos show at their doorstep. The Gekkos that chase Snake have zero problems crushing any unfortunate civilians on their path when they land.
• Wallpaper Camouflage: Snake's OctoCamo suit perfectly mimics any surface he's touching, including carpet patterns and, in one cutscene, a watermelon.
• War for Fun and Profit: The "war economy" featured in this game is an extreme case: The entire world economy is dependant on war, whether it's the PMCs who fight to make a living, arms dealers who keep them supplied, or gun launderers like Drebin, who all make their daily bread on war. And it's portrayed realistically; as investing in war doesn't create new resources, the world is falling ever deeper into a depression where "oil and gasoline are as precious as diamonds." Drebin remarks that if the situation continues, eventually everyone on Earth is going to be a green-collar worker in one way or another - but if war were to simply disappear overnight, all those investments would become worthless and a massive economic collapse would ensue. Which is exactly what happens with Liquid takes over Sons of the Patriots. It's pretty much the Aesop Kojima is trying to convey: war isn't about right and wrong, it just is.
• War Is Hell: Snake explains that the rise of disposal, augmented mercenaries and unmanned technology make killing even easier. You don't even need a reason to fight anymore, as war itself is propping up the world's economies. And when all you have is a hammer...
• Warrior Heaven: Big Boss and Liquid Snake try to make this ideal on Earth by making the world into "Outer Heaven," a world where warriors will always be needed, honored and respected, although it appears that Big Boss' true motive may have been to create a world free from the Patriots... that was certainly why Liquid Ocelot claimed to have had Outer Haven, at least.
• We All Die Someday: Big Boss notes this during the final cutscene, while trying to convince Snake to spend what little time he has left in peace and not to waste it fighting.
  Snake: Am I going to die?
  Big Boss: Everyone dies. You can't stop it. You can't run away from it.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Gekko can be tranquilized.
• A Wizard Did It: Nanomachines for everything.
• Weapon Jr.: At the end of the game, Raiden meets his son who uses a toy sword to perform the same moves he does.
• Weddings for Everyone: You are cordially invited to the Silverburgh - Sasaki nuptials.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ocelot and Naomi.
• We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: Nanomachines are used to treat all sorts of illnesses.
• Wham Line:
  • Liquid Ocelot's last words: "You're pretty good..."
  • BIG BOSS: Richard Doyle
• What the Hell, Player?: If you kill a very large amount of people in a single Act, you will suddenly get a flashback of Liquid Snake taunting Solid Snake, saying "You enjoy all the killing, that's why!" which will cause Snake to vomit and lose some of his psyche.
  • Par for the course in this series, Otacon will also be disgusted with you if you kill any of the wolves in Shadow Moses, or let Meryl die in combat. "You're no hero!", indeed. In the case of the wolves, Rose explicitly warns Snake that he will be subjected to extreme psychological profiling after the mission.
  • Also invoked in that when any female soldiers are killed, they don't just drop dead like male soldiers do, but rather cry out and appear to expire painfully with clear intent to make the player feel guilty about killing her (even though they otherwise attack without mercy).
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Largely averted, with some exceptions: Several scenes clearly showed Arlington National Cemetary in Virginia (the flashback in the beginning of Liquid Sun, and parts of the ending). In addition, the locations in Solid Sun and Third Sun are all but stated to take place in Peru and Prague, Czech Republic, respectively, the former from the strong implications of it being near the Andes Mountains (Muna is seen growing there), and it being within driving distance from the El Dorado International Airport, and the latter from various places that strongly resembled locales at Prague, not to mention the not-so-subtle hints at their use of Czech as the official language. Shadow Moses Island's location was already made obvious from Metal Gear Solid, and the location of Outer Haven during "Old Sun" was stated to be 494 nautical miles South of the Bering Strait. The only locations not elaborated on are the Middle Eastern country from Act 1 ^note The credits state that the country was based on Morocco, but we don't really know if that was the intended country, as there's nothing specifically identifying it, unlike the Muna in Act 2 or the locales and language in Act 3, the Hospital area that Raiden was undergoing surgery for a more normal Cyborg body in the ending^note The novelization for this game stated that it was in Maryland, however., and the location where Meryl and Johnny had their military wedding.
• With This Herring: Defying past games' convention, Snake now picks up the AK-102 assault rifle at the start of the first act, and then gains the obligatory pistol and tranquilizer gun afterwards, instead of the other way around as in the past.
• Wring Every Last Drop out of Him: Solid Snake starts off already rapidly aging and coughing, proceeds to get the shit kicked out of him at the end of every mission, gets fried, shot, blown up, beaten, injected repeatedly for self-medication, and doesn't quit smoking. It's admirable how much punishment he can take, but Hideo Kojima is definitely punishing Snake in as many ways as humanly possible.
• Xanatos Gambit: Ocelot's plan is practically foolproof for ensuring a victory of some sort. If Snake had failed to infect GW and the other A.I.s with FOXALIVE, Ocelot could've still destroyed JD with the railgun. If destroying the satellite had failed, he would've still had the Guns of the Patriots to guarantee him almost total monopoly in military affairs. Even if Snake could've stopped him from activating Guns of the Patriots in the first place, Ocelot would still retain control of his vast military conglomerate.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The Patriots are behind everything, but we don't even hear them speak like we did in Metal Gear Solid 2. We know what they are, technically, but they're still a faceless, voiceless organization. There's a reason why their leader is called "JD." It's short for "John Doe."
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Meryl says a variant of this Stock Phrase when Snake reveals that it was Colonel Campbell that sent him to the scene, followed by a brief temper tantrum.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Meryl, Johnny, and Raiden hold their ground against hundreds of FROGS in order to buy time for Snake to destroy the GW AI.
• Your Son All Along: At the end, in a Throw the Dog a Bone moment, it's reveal that Rose's son is Raiden's (her marriage to Campbell was a sham to prevent the Patriots coming after the kid to get leverage over Raiden). He then hammers it in by doing the same moves Raiden does with a toy sword.
• Zombie Apocalypse: One of Liquid's tests in messing around with the System that influences all nano-enhanced soldiers more or less results in this; if you use the Solid Eye, you can see that the soldiers in the area are experiencing emotional highs (overwhelming anger, sadness, and fear) far beyond normal limits. In fact, they're brain-damaged; they now no longer feel pain and stumble toward your escape vehicle grasping onto it in crowds, clambering onto it while moaning and hitting you in a very zombie-like manner, very similar to scenes in some zombie movies.

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"This is good, isn't it?"

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