There are few video game series as outright political asMetal Gear. From future wars where conflict is a carefully maintained economy, to discussing the role of language in colonisation, Metal Gear has never shied away from the reality of war, and has consistently had a message of anti-war focused on nuclear non-proliferation.

War has sadly been a constant in most of human history, and the Metal Gear games have tackled it from every angle imaginable. Every game has a unique focus, varied settings, and even a different protagonist. Here’s every game in the series so you can get in on the action.

How Many Mainline Metal Gear Games Are There?

Way back in 1987, gaming leaped into a new generation. Countless major series were created in that year, with Metal gear among them. In its earlier non-Solid games,the series was entirely top-down, though still had aspects of its later 3D incarnations.

1987

1990

1998

2001

2004

2008

2010

2014

2015

PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC

Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3 have all gotten subsequent re-releases titled Integral, Substance, and Subsistence respectively.

Over the years, we’ve gotten quite a few Metal Gear games, witharound nine of them being mainline entries. Some might disagree with the likes of Peace Walker, being a portable entry, and Ground Zeroes seeing as it quite a small-scale game, but both are essential to telling the full story of all other games, so they warrant their place.

Of course, there are countless more Metal Gear games than this. These nine are just scratching the surface of what these games have to offer

How Many Spin-Off And Remake Metal Gear Games Are There?

When it comes to spin-off Metal Gear games, things get a bit funnier.Kojima and his team were not always directly involvedin many of the games, plenty of them made on a whim to meet the demands of Konami. As such, many of them are quite a bit different from the mainline series.

That said, there are a few entries in here still headed by Kojima. For example,The Twin Snakes remake still had plenty of oversightfrom the core team behind the original Metal Gear Solid.

2000

2005

2006

2007

2009

2012

2013

2018

PS4, Xbox One, PC

Portable Ops Plus was a standalone release of Portable Ops thatfocused exclusively on the multiplayer portion of the game, and did not feature a story mode at all.

In total, that gives us12 spin-off titles, or 13 if you want to count Metal Gear Onlineas a dedicated game. It came bundled with Metal Gear Solid 4, though also got a standalone release in Japan.

Of all of those spin-offs, it’s pretty obvious which of those is the most favoured, and it involved very little involvement from Kojima’s team or Konami whatsoever. The PlatinumGames-developed Metal Gear Rising is a capital letter Video Game. It is pure fun, quite literally hacking and slashing your enemies, while still being an incredibly pointed political commentary.

How Many Metal Gear Games Are There In Total?

Having started in 1987 and stalled after Metal Gear Survive in 2018, theMetal Gear series is in an odd place. Very little of the team that made the original series remains at Konami, and all that it has sincerevolves around remakes and compilations. Maybe that is all Metal Gear will remain, and maybe that will be for the best.

Andhow many Metal Gear games does that give usto celebrate? Let’s break it down.

What can we take away from that? Well, it should really be called the Metal Gear series for one, not Metal Gear Solid sinceonly half the games bear that title. But perhaps also that Metal Gear is not really a game that can be milked to death and be memorable. There’s a reason so few of the spin-offs are particularly well-regarded.