MySnakeSolid
Iron
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- Aug 4, 2026
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Metal Gear Solid 2 came out in 2001, right on the verge of the digital age, when information was beginning to spread at a exponential rate, one that the world has never seen before. The main motivation behind the Patriots in MGS2 is their desire to control and place the flow of information into a filter that they can control. They believe that the internet and the sheer amount of information available to people allow misinformation, unimportant slop, and contradictory ideas to basically bloat/overwhelm the information that really matters. through the S3 plan and their manipulation of the events surrounding raiden and solidus snake, they try to make a system where they can control what information society receives and in the end, guide humanity’s development by deciding what should/shouldn’t be passed on to future generations.
What i want people to think about with this thread, is that if all of our information becomes digital, (which is most likely to be true in the near future, a great example being that playstation announced that their games will be going full digital by 2028, and Nintendo turning game cards for the switch 2 only into a game key in order to download the game instead of placing the game itself inside the game card) then that means all of our information can be manipulated, which is exactly the fear that hideo kojima (the writer and director of the metal gear solid series) was writing about 25 years ago. Which makes it super interesting that the same hideo kojima has repeatedly talked about holding onto more physical media, mostly blu rays, as more and more media becomes digital.
The patriots’ control over information in can be compared to some aspects the last 3 presidencies. obamas presidency raised concerns about surveillance and how much information the government could collect. trumps presidency showed how social media could create a shit ton of conflicting information and misinformation. and bidens presidency brought more debate over how governments and social media companies should deal with misinformation.
This connects to metal gear solid 2 because the patriots believe that controlling information can influence how society thinks and behaves. (Like with Invite in Watch dogs 2, and how they collect user information to then manipulate their users) The game’s bigger question is that if somebody/group of people controls what information people can and can’t see, how much can they control society itself?
What i want people to think about with this thread, is that if all of our information becomes digital, (which is most likely to be true in the near future, a great example being that playstation announced that their games will be going full digital by 2028, and Nintendo turning game cards for the switch 2 only into a game key in order to download the game instead of placing the game itself inside the game card) then that means all of our information can be manipulated, which is exactly the fear that hideo kojima (the writer and director of the metal gear solid series) was writing about 25 years ago. Which makes it super interesting that the same hideo kojima has repeatedly talked about holding onto more physical media, mostly blu rays, as more and more media becomes digital.
The patriots’ control over information in can be compared to some aspects the last 3 presidencies. obamas presidency raised concerns about surveillance and how much information the government could collect. trumps presidency showed how social media could create a shit ton of conflicting information and misinformation. and bidens presidency brought more debate over how governments and social media companies should deal with misinformation.
This connects to metal gear solid 2 because the patriots believe that controlling information can influence how society thinks and behaves. (Like with Invite in Watch dogs 2, and how they collect user information to then manipulate their users) The game’s bigger question is that if somebody/group of people controls what information people can and can’t see, how much can they control society itself?
