Metal Gear Solid Delta opening cinematic debuts new version of the Snake Eater theme

Konami has released the opening cinematic for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, in which it debuts a new version of the game’s iconic Snake Eater theme.

The cinematic, which can be viewed below, features clips from throughout the game, and should perhaps be avoided by players who’ve never played the original.

What’s most notable about the cinematic is that it includes a new version of Snake Eater, the game’s theme, performed by Cynthia Harrell. While the composition of the song remains similar to the original version, Harrell has provided a new vocal for the recording.

Cynthia Harrell will appear at this Summer’s Metal Gear concert in London. 

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Konami‘s remake of the third game in the series, is planned to release on August 28 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC.

The new version of the theme song is one of many ways in which Metal Gear Solid Delta’s developer is trying to freshen up the PS2 original. Last year, VGC went hands-on with the game and discussed the changes that had been made with producer Noriaki Okamura.

“This is a 20-year-old game,” producer Okamura told VGC. “So when we decided to bring it to modern platforms, we didn’t want to make it feel like an old game. We did refine a lot of things to make sure that for those who didn’t play the original, it still feels like a game that came out in this day and age.”

In a separate interview last year, creative producer Yuji Korekado explained in an interview with Famitsu last year how Metal Gear Solid Delta’s difficulty will change depending on whether players use its new modern perspective – which makes the game play more like Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain – or the original, fixed perspective.

“We had originally planned to make it possible to switch between the two viewpoints at any time during gameplay, but we decided against it,” Korekado explained. “The difficulty level changes drastically depending on the viewpoint.

“The ‘New Style’ has a wider, more linear field of view, and you can shoot your gun while moving, so the difficulty level was lower than we had expected. However, if we adjusted it to match the ‘New Style’, the ‘Legacy Style’ would become too difficult, so we decided to split the play style in two. The ‘Legacy Style’ is close to the difficulty level of the original version, and we are adjusting the ‘New Style’ from scratch.”