Modder oct0xor has been working on a mod that adds a third-person camera to Metal Gear Solid 2 and finally released it in time for the 20th anniversary of the 2002 expansion re-release Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance.
When the Metal Gear series was made 3D with Metal Gear Solid, it originally retained an overhead camera like previous 2D games. It wasn’t until the Metal Gear Solid 3 expansion called Subsistence that a full 3D camera was added, although it was modernized a bit with additions such as a first-person aiming mode. It is this camera that oct0xor modified for his MGS2. Substance Of Subsistence (SOS) Mod (opens in new tab).
oct0xor wrote, “The code for using the normal 3rd person camera wasn’t present in the game at all.” Apparently there are thousands of lines of new code added by mods.Click here if you want to know the difficulty of production Development diary video (opens in new tab).
To install the mod, download release.zip from: github (opens in new tab) Unzip it to the \bin folder in your Metal Gear Solid 2 directory and run solid_mods_loader.exe. You can enable or disable the third person camera at any time during play.
Unfortunately, Metal Gear Solid 2 is not currently available for PC. Along with Metal Gear Solid 3, it was delisted by Konami in late 2021 for issues regarding news footage of US President John F. Kennedy and licensing footage of cutscenes involving his missile crisis in Cuba. On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Metal Gear series on July 13, Konami explained that it was working on relisting the game, stating, “Preparations are underway to make the temporarily removed titles available again. Appropriately, they kept us waiting when it came to Metal Gear.