Grey Fox, Metal Gear Cosplay Costume

While every attempt to secure an "Outer Heaven" immediately results in violence, the series balances the argument with politicians continually throwing mercenaries and soldiers to the wind in order to further their own agenda. In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, several protagonists from Metal Gear return as antagonists after being betrayed by their respective governments. In Metal Gear Solid, the game's protagonist is purposely infected with a bio weapon because he was expected to fail as well as repeatedly lied to about the nature of his mission. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the main protagonist was raised as a child soldier and inducted into a non-existent covert ops group complete with artificial intelligence stand-ins for commanding officers and loved ones. The prequel game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater shows Big Boss and his mentor's dialogue over the subject of loyalty to a fickle and temporary government while carrying out missions that only benefit politicians at the cost of a soldier's mind, body, heart, and future. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Solid Snake is shown as an aged war veteran who is dropped in to the middle of a battlefield which consists of numerous PMCs which fight only for profit and have no ideologies.
Characters
The main focus of the first two Metal Gear games for the MSX dealt with rivalry between protagonist Solid Snake, a rookie member of FOXHOUND, and antagonist Big Boss, who is initially introduced as the commanding officer of FOXHOUND in the original Metal Gear, but is later revealed to be the leader of the South African fortress of Outer Heaven. In the following game, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Big Boss is revealed to be the leader of the hostile nation of Zanzibar Land in Central Asia, confronting Snake for the second time. Supporting characters during this period include fellow FOXHOUND agent Gray Fox, the Metal Gear designer Dr. Pettrovich Madnar, and Outer Heaven resistance leader Kyle Schneider, all of whom were on Snake's side during the first game but became antagonists in the sequel.