Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is Hideo Kojima‘s magnum opus. It’s my personal favourite, and is the standout title in a series of expertly made video games. Like other games in the series, Metal Gear Solid 3 has its own set of memorable bosses – but how do they rank against each other?
The iconic boss battles are a defining feature of the Metal Gear series. Each game has its own squad of elite enemies, and each one of those has their own unique traits and abilities.
Snake Eater takes place during the Cold War, at the height of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. After his mentor, The Boss, defects to the USSR, Snake must venture into the Russian jungle to avert an international conflict.
In Metal Gear Solid 3, most of the bosses are members of the Cobra Unit, a legendary team of soldiers that were formed and led by The Boss during World War II. They are named after the emotions they experience on the battlefield: The Pain, The Fear, The End, The Fury, and The Sorrow.
Aside from the Cobras, there is a young Ocelot, the game’s iteration of Metal Gear – the Shagohod – and Volgin, the main antagonist.
But how do they all stack up against each other? With the release of the remake, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater coming this year, there’s no better time to take a look. While none are bad, some certainly stand out as the best of a great bunch.
So, let’s get on with ranking the bosses of Metal Gear Solid 3…
Ranking the bosses of Metal Gear Solid 3
9. The Pain
He’s the first boss on this list and the first of the Cobra Unit that Naked Snake fights in Operation Snake Eater. Known for his love of hornets, The Pain can control the viscous stinging insects at will.
While he resembles a giant bumble bee, The Pain spearheads one of the most brutal sequences in the game when he commands his hornets to mercilessly sting members of the Ocelot unit to death.
He himself is no stranger to their stings, though, with his face bearing the scars of hundreds of hornet stings. It was terrified me as a child.
The boss fight itself takes place inside an underground cave with rocky platforms poking out from a pool of water. You must use the water to avoid fire from The Pain’s Tommy Gun and his hornets, which he can spit out of his mouth like bullets.
What’s more, The Pain can use his hornets as armour. This requires you to think outside of the box when it comes to inflicting damage.
While not the most interesting of the Cobra’s, The Pain is a fitting introduction for the unit.
8. The Fear
Stealth camouflage is one of Metal Gear Solid‘s most iconic devices; however, it’s used against you in a number of boss fights throughout the series, including The Fear in Snake Eater.
Stealth camo renders the user almost invisible and The Fear uses it to hide amongst the dense jungle of Tselinoyarsk. He likes to instil fear in his enemies with his contorted movements, poisoned crossbow bolts and invisibility.
The fight against The Fear is one of the game’s challenging boss battles and it’s made even harder by the game’s fixed camera. Had it not been for that, the fight against The Fear might’ve been higher on this list – but searching for an invisible enemy with clunky camera controls isn’t particularly ideal.
To its credit, the battle makes use of MGS3′s innovative healing and stamina mechanics. Snake has to remove crossbow bolts that become embedded in his body while The Fear has to regularly replenish his stamina with food after it is drained by the bio-electric Stealth camo.
7. Ocelot
Ocelot is one of the most important characters in the Metal Gear series. He appears in all main games other than Peace Walker after first appearing as a grizzled veteran in the original Metal Gear Solid as a member of the FOXHOUND unit.
A young Ocelot appears in Metal Gear Solid 3 as one of the game’s main antagonists. At this time, he’s inexperienced but commands a group of soldiers known as the Ocelot Unit. He also loves fancy revolvers and doing tricks with them, which Snake is wholly unimpressed by.
The fight with Ocelot is notable for his sharpshooting abilities, which includes the tactic of rebounding his shots of nearby walls to hit Snake round corners.
While it’s not the most interesting boss battle in the game, it’s just cool to fight a younger version of the man Solid Snake later fights on Shadow Moses island.
6. The Fury
The Fury went to space and came back a different man. Now he wears a space suit, uses a jetpack, and sets people on fire with his flamethrower.
A pyromaniac, The Fury ambushes Snake in the underground tunnel leading to Groznyj Grad. There, the two face off in a fight that culminates with The Fury reminiscing about his ill-fated trip to space before propelling himself into the tunnel’s roof.
The battle is particularly difficult because Snake must avoid The Fury’s far-reaching flame thrower and out manoeuvre his jetpack. What’s more, the tunnel is dark which makes him difficult to see.
Of all the Cobra’s, The Fury is up there as a personal favourite of mine. His backstory and aesthetic make him one of the most memorable in the game.
5. Colonel Volgin
At the start of Snake Eater, The Boss defects to the side of the USSR’s Colonel Volgin, who himself is aligned with the Brezhnev faction. His aim is to seize power by bringing down soviet leader, Nikita Krushchev.
Volgin is known as Thunderbolt thanks to his ability to control electricity. Not only can he absorb it, but he can use it as a weapon not dissimilar to Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars.
After being tortured by Volgin and witnessing the extent of his brutality with the murder of Granin, this boss fight is Snake’s chance to exact some revenge.
Volgin is incredibly strong and can resist many of Snake’s attacks. He can also use electricity to fire bullets held between his fingers. It’s a climactic fight that exemplifies the fearsome character that the Colonel embodies.
Even after defeating him, it’s not over. Volgin soon assumes control of the Shagohod setting the stage for the next boss fight on our list…
4. Shagohod
The Shagohod is not a conventional Metal Gear. It’s a screw-propelled mobile nuclear ballistic missile system. It was designed by Sokolov, a scientist who defected to the United States during the Cold War.
MGS3 kicks off with the Virtuous Mission, which involved Naked Snake deploying into the Soviet Union to rescue Sokolov who’s being forced to continue his work on the Shagohod.
After Stage 2 of the Shagohod was complete and Naked Snake’s failure to destroy it, Volgin would pilot the armoured tank in pursuit of Snake and Eva. He also destroyed much of his own fortress, Groznyj Grad, in the process.
It’s then up to Snake to take down the tank himself, setting the stage for one of the best Metal Gear battles in the series. Things heat up (literally) even further when Snake disables the tank only for Volgin to wire himself directly into its circuits.
After defeating Volgin and the Shagohod for good, the former ignites atop the tank and seemingly burns alive. Those who’ve played Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will know that the Colonel later returns as the Man on Fire after being resurrected by none other than Psycho Mantis… Because Metal Gear.
3. The Sorrow
The Sorrow is already dead at the start of MGS3. Despite that, his spirit provides one of the most distinctive boss battles in gaming history.
After escaping The Fury and falling into a river, Snake wakes up in the spirit realm where The Sorrow escorts him down a seemingly endless river populated by the soldiers he has killed.
What’s so incredible is that The Sorrow shows you exactly how many soldiers you killed in the game up to that point and how you killed them. So, if you did a non-lethal run, there won’t be any soldiers there. If you killed everyone you encountered, it can go on for a VERY long time.
The sequence is both profound and haunting in a way that I’ve not encountered since.
Like Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, The Sorrow fight is a point at which many players found themselves stuck. That’s because Snake dies after reaching the end of the river. The only option then is to seemingly restart the boss sequence.
In actuality, players needed to use the Revive pill to bring Snake back to life. It’s also possible to drown Snake at the start and use the Revive pill, thus skipping the entire sequence.
Overall, The Sorrow boss sequence is one of the reasons that Hideo Kojima is considered to be among the best video game developers in the world. The only reason that it doesn’t rank higher on this list is that it’s not a boss fight in the traditional sense.
2. The Boss
Operation Snake Eater kicks off with The Boss’ defection to the Soviet Union during the Virtuous Mission. She’s the leader of the Cobras and Snake’s mentor, who he regards as his mother.
Throughout the game, Snake’s encounters with The Boss culminate with him coming up short. However, after Snake and Eva make their escape, he encounters his mentor one final time in a field of grass lilies by a lake.
At this stage, it’s up to Snake to defeat The Boss to avert a crisis between the United States and the USSR.
The fight against The Boss is one of the most heartfelt and iconic in gaming history. The final trigger pull is gut-wrenching and it remains lodged in the minds of fans everywhere.
In the end, it emerges that The Boss didn’t defect to the Soviet Union. Instead, she went undercover to retrieve the Philosopher’s Legacy from Volgin. She was then to hand it to Snake who would return it to the United States and kill her to prevent conflict between the two superpowers.
This means that The Boss ultimately let Snake win to complete her mission. But this knowledge doesn’t make pulling the trigger any easier.
1. The End
Ask any Metal Gear fan what the best boss fight in the series is and they’ll say one of two things: Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, or The End in Metal Gear Solid 3.
The End is a legendary sniper aged over 100. He fought in both World Wars and pioneered many sniping techniques. To make things even more interesting, his body is infected with a parasitic organism that extends his life and allows him to photosynthesise (like a plant), ideal for a sniper who spends long periods of time in the same place.
The boss battle against The End takes place over a number of different areas as he snipes at Snake from a distance using his Mosin Nagant tranquilliser rifle. Finding him can be extremely difficult thanks to his excellent camouflage abilities. This leaves the glare from his sniper scope as the only reliable way to spot him.
A test of endurance, the battle is up there as one of the greatest boss fight in gaming history. However, in what can only be considered as meticulous attention to detail, it is also possible to skip the fight entirely.
Earlier in the game, The End can be spotted in his wheelchair as Snake spies on Volgin, The Boss and Tatiana. At this point, you can snipe The End in his chair, killing him. When you reach the boss battle location, you are instead faced with 27 members of the Ocelot unit.
But that’s not all. It’s also possible for The End to die of old age. To do this, players had to save the game during the fight and wait 8 days (or set their PS2’s clock forward). When reloading the game, The End will have died of natural causes.
Hideo Kojima actually wanted the battle to take place over 1-2 weeks with the player slowly taking advantage; however, after tests, he was told it was impossible and not recommended.
Ultimately, The End ends up as the best boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 and one of the greatest ever. He embodies everything that makes Kojima’s boss battles so great while giving players one of the toughest tests in the series.
Do you agree with my ranking? Who’s your favourite Metal Gear Solid 3 boss? Let us know in the comment section below and don’t forget to check out our other gaming articles.
