A modder has added resolution support to Metal Gear games that Konami would not on PC.
Now, let’s get one thing straight. When Konami first announced the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Volume 1, they claimed that the games would run at 1080p, 60 FPS on all platforms, except for the Nintendo Switch. While the Switch certainly has its limitations, it turns out that Konami was not true to their word.
Steam users discovered quickly that Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Guns of the Patriots only output up to 720p on PC. That might be OK if you were playing the game on a handheld gaming PC, like a Steam Deck or ROG Ally. But if you were outputting the game on a QHD or 4K screen, you would be dealing with a stretched out and poorly optimized resolution.
In comes modder Sergeneaur. As reported by PC Gamer, Sergeneaur had quickly created a mod to add not only the 1080p support that Konami promised and failed to deliver, but even a proper 4K mod. The mod is only 64.5 kilobytes, though it may take intermediate to advanced users to properly implement the mod.
Sergeneaur uploaded the mod onto Github, and shared what seems to be simple instructions to get the mod going. The hazard here is if the mod doesn’t work for a particular user – assuming it just works immediately for most players, those who can’t get it to work will have to find support from Sergeneaur or other devs or gamers with some degree of programming knowledge.
PCGamer found that installing and using the patch was straightforward, but they had noted that using it causes changes in Metal Gear Solid 2: Guns of the Patriots. Some of those changes may be accounted for by the porting work done by Bluepoint Games in 2012 on this game, that was originally programmed in Konami in 2001. Konami was up front about this being essentially the same build, ported with little to no changes, to new platforms.
However, the mod also makes some changes to the UI, that aren’t accounted for by Bluepoint Games’ mod, and may cause problems when you play the game using the mod. PCGamer believes that the community will address those issues in time, but therein lies the rub.
None of this uncertainty and after market hacking should be necessary, if Konami invested even just a little bit more for 1080p and 4K support for these games on this PC rerelease. As we know, they didn’t even plan to release this with mouse and keyboard support.
While this collection was one that gamers felt compelled to buy, it’s a disservice to the games themselves. Konami can still invest to add such things after this collection’s launch, so let’s hope that that is what they do as a proper response to this customer uproar.
