< Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid/Characters


This page is for characters that debuted in Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation in 1998, not the entire series.

For other characters see:

Characters that debuted in Metal Gear Solid


Naomi Hunter

Voiced by: Hiromi Tsuru (JP), Jennifer Hale (EN)

A geneticist with a past even she's not completely sure of, Naomi was chosen to support Snake during the Shadow Moses mission to provide feedback on the Genome Soldiers. She had her own agendas, which included injecting Snake with the biological weapon FOXDIE to kill the FOXHOUND members, which would then kill Snake himself later. It turns out she did it because she was Gray Fox's adopted sister and she wanted revenge (although Liquid also mentions that the Pentagon ordering her to do so had something to do with it).

Naomi returns and redeems herself in the fourth game where she helps Old Snake deal with Liquid Ocelot and forms a close relationship with Hal and Sunny.

  • Absolute Cleavage: In MGS4.
  • Face Heel Revolving Door
  • Hot Scientist
  • Ill Girl: She is revealed to have cancer in the fourth game. The only reason she's alive is because of specialized Nanomachines keeping it in check.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Sunny in MGS4.
  • Inconsistent Dub: In the original English version of Metal Gear Solid, Naomi was given a vaguely British sounding accent. When the dialogue was redubbed for the GameCube remake, Naomi was given a more neutral accent which was also used for Metal Gear Solid 4. Actually, she's from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.[1]
  • Ironic Hell: Her tampering with the FOXDIE virus injected into Snake to have a wildcard activation to which even she won't know when it will activate, in revenge for Snake indirectly subjugating her brother, Gray Fox, through the Cyborg Ninja project / gene therapy project, ironically saves Snake from the intended fate of being killed by FOXDIE at the end of the mission. The Patriots also took note of this, as they had her imprisoned for doing that action.
  • Just Following Orders / Not in This For Your Revolution: The other reason for injecting Snake with FOXDIE was because the Pentagon ordered her to, as they wanted a way to both get rid of the Sons of Big Boss, and at the same time retrieve REX and the Genome bodies without risk of them being damaged. Of course, her listing Snake as one of the targets of the virus, or at the very least modifying the virus to activate as a wildcard value in Snake's case, was certainly not done under their orders or even the Patriots orders.
  • Known Only By Their Nickname: It is strongly implied that she is not actually named "Naomi Hunter" (Miller/Liquid mentioned that she stole the identity papers of the "Real Naomi Hunter" at one point). Likewise, even she doesn't know her real name.
  • Redemption Equals Death
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
  • TV Genius: She's a geneticist, but she still knows a lot about computers and hacking if the fourth game is to be believed...
  • What the Hell, Hero?: She calls out Snake for his role in Gray Fox's situation, which also acted as one of the reasons for injecting Snake with FOXDIE.


Mei Ling

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (JP), Kim Mai Guest (EN)

A girl on Snake's Mission Control, she is a teenage prodigy and tech wiz who developed the Soliton Radar and the Codec. She frequently quotes proverbs to lift Snake's spirits up. She later becomes a Naval officer in the fourth game.


FOXHOUND

A special forces group formed by Big Boss following the downfall of the original FOX unit. Both Solid Snake and Gray Fox were members of this unit. After Big Boss's Face Heel Turn in the first Metal Gear, the unit's co-founder and Executive Officer Roy Campbell becomes the new Commanding Officer in Metal Gear 2. The most well-known incarnation of the team is featured in Metal Gear Solid, where FOXHOUND has turned renegade after Solid Snake and Campbell left the unit. This incarnation of the team is composed of Solid Snake's Evil Twin Liquid Snake, his Dragon Revolver Ocelot, Ax Crazy Psycho Mantis, Defrosting Ice Queen Sniper Wolf, Magical Native American Vulcan Raven, and Replicant Snatcher (but not actual Snatcher) Decoy Octopus.

  • Animal Motifs
  • Blood Knight: Most of the FOXHOUND members, or at least Vulcan Raven and Liquid Snake, qualify as such.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Liquid's combination of Well Done Son Guyism and homicidal resentment towards his father, Wolf's tragic past and Stalker with a Crush tendencies towards people she intends to kill, Ocelot's torture fetish, Mantis' violent misanthropy... Raven comes across as the most stable of the lot (at least of the members who get in-game character development), and he's an unapologetic Blood Knight.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: Consists of an old Russian gunslinger, an asexual Russian psychic, a university-educated Native Alaskan shaman/heavy weapons enthusiast, an indestructible British-American cloned super warrior, a female Kurdish sniper, and Decoy Octopus.
  • Five-Bad Band: See the complete Video Game Five Bad index for the full breakdown.
  • Five-Token Band: A British-American, a Russian-American, an Iraqi, a Russian, an Inuit Shaman, and a Caucasian who can make himself look like any ethnicity.


Liquid Snake

Voiced by: Banjo Ginga (JP), Cam Clarke (EN)

The leader of FOXHOUND and Shadow Moses Island, Liquid is the second of the "Sons of Big Boss" introduced. He has a major complex about Solid Snake, and was told for his entire life that he inherited Big Boss' recessive genes in order that Solid Snake could get the dominant ones, when in fact the reverse was true.

  • You Fail Biology Forever: Doesn't know very much about genetics.
  • Badass Normal: Although he may arguably fall under Badass Abnormal due to being a clone.
  • Big Bad: One of the series' most famous.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: As stated above, he wasn't originally blond, but the blond hair resulted from being under the hot sun as a POW in Iraq. though Eli, his younger self in MGSV, contradicts this, as he is naturally blond then.
  • Blood Knight: Happily accepts it, unlike his brother.
  • Cain and Abel: To Snake.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: He hates Big Boss because he thinks Big Boss knowingly made him the inferior one during the Les Enfants Terribles project, and he implies that one of the main reasons for wanting to continue Big Boss's dream of a world of conflict is so he would further tarnish Big Boss's reputation ("Now I'll finish the work that father began. I will surpass him...I will destroy him!")
  • Child Soldier: He was raised within the British Military, and assuming what the Official Missions Handbook stated about him is canon, he may have done some mercenary work as early as Age 13. As The White Mamba in MGSV.
  • Disney Villain Death: Averted so hard. At one point when fighting Snake, he fights him on top of the ruined Metal Gear REX mech, a mech that is over ten meters and to which he claimed that the fall would kill even Solid Snake. Despite being knocked off the mech, he still manages to survive and drive a Jeep, chasing Snake.
  • Engineered Public Confession: Subverted in Nastasha Romanenko's novel. He (and presumably the other terrorists) actually knew all along that they had planted a radio bug on Snake and was recording everything he and his soldiers were stating, and his codec calls, but allowed for it to happen anyways.
  • Evil Brit: Liquid was given to the British government as an infant and was raised as a national.
  • Evil Counterpart: Although he was the definite villain in the game, it was also implied to be inverted, as Psycho Mantis remarked that Solid Snake was actually worse than Liquid in his dying speech.
  • Evil Twin: Though Psycho Mantis has implied that Solid Snake may actually be the true Evil Twin. Liquid is fighting for a cause, the restoration of Outer Heaven. Snake is fighting because he, on a subconscious level, needs war to feel alive. Although he later finds other reasons to keep on living.
  • He Who Must Not Be Named: According to Campbell, Liquid's real name was highly classified to the extent that not even someone within the highest ranks of the military (such as himself) are allowed to know it.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Strongly implied to be such by Vulcan Raven:

Vulcan Raven: You are a snake which was not created by Nature. You and the Boss... you are from another world... a world that I do not wish to know.

  • Implacable Man: It's insane what the guy can survive.
  • Improbable Piloting Skills: He was fully capable of piloting a Hind D in the middle of a blizzard as well as shooting down two F-16s arriving from the Galena Air Force Base, and also pilot it while operating the weapons operator seat.
  • Large Ham
  • Light Is Not Good / Dark Is Evil: Liquid referred to himself and Snake as "the brother of light" and "the brother of dark", although of whom he was specifically referring to in regards to the titles is never actually specified.
  • Master of Disguise: Strongly implied to be such, seeing how he effectively disguised himself as Master Miller after arranging for the latter's death.
  • Military Brat: Was the clone of Big Boss as well as raised within the British Military, as implied in Peace Walker.
  • My Hair Came Out Blond: According to Yoji Shinkawa, Liquid Snake was originally dark-haired, just like Solid Snake. However, it ended up bleached to blond as a consequence of his time as a Prisoner of War, because of the sun's intense rays within the Iraqi desert. This has been contradicted by Liquid's younger depiction in MGSV.
  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Liquid Snake figures that he might as well do what his genes tell him, since otherwise, he's nothing. Justified, in that there's little else he ever had other than war, being created for the purpose of it.
  • No Shirt, Long Jacket
  • The Pawn
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Assuming Ocelot's fake possession portrayal of Liquid is valid, Liquid seems to qualify under this trope.
  • Psycho Prototype: Although it is heavily implied that Liquid Snake was created first, and the superior genes were used from him to create Solid Snake, The Stinger subverts this by revealing that he had the superior genes all along.
  • Rasputinian Death: He survived having his Hind D shot down by Solid Snake, being hit with multiple Stinger missiles, being caught directly within the explosion of Metal Gear REX, surviving a four story fall from Metal Gear REX, was hit with several bullets by a turreted machine gun onboard a Jeep, was caught within a Jeep crash, and he was still ticking up until he succumbed to FOXDIE. Even then, with the last one, he lasted longer against it in the remake, initially collapsing out of agony, but then attempting to grab Snake twice before staring him down and finally passing away, in what was about a few minutes. Only his father and Vamp surpassed him.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Kind of. Although he never actually killed Big Boss, nor was Big Boss actually dead, anyway, Liquid Snake made it very clear in his Motive Rant that he certainly would have murdered Big Boss himself had Solid Snake not done the deed himself, and in fact hated Snake partially because Snake "stole that chance."
  • Shadow Archetype
  • Social Darwinist: He believes that peoples' genes are all that matter in regards to fate or their future. Ironically, this actually has little to do with his actual plot (it was closer to a Warriors Heaven.)
  • Super Soldier
  • Walking Shirtless Scene
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: A large part of his Evil Plot was actually improvised by Psycho Mantis, since acquiring the PAL code from Baker and Anderson failed due to the latter dying under a supposedly botched torture session courtesy of Ocelot before he could divulge it.

Revolver Ocelot/Major Ocelot/Liquid Ocelot

Young Voice: Takumi Yamazaki (JP), Josh Keaton (EN)
Old Voice: Koji Totani (JP, MGS1-MGS2), Banjo Ginga (JP, MGS4), Patrick Zimmerman (EN)

Ocelot is A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside An Enigma, known for his distinctive style of shooting a Single Action Army pistol (which he loves to reload), love of cowboy movies, love of torture, and ridiculous hand gestures. He also apparently works for FOXHOUND, the Sons of Liberty, and the Patriots, but for all we know he actually has an entirely different agenda. He is a major fixture of the series, being the only character to appear in five of the six PlayStation games released as of yet.

In Metal Gear Solid 3 we find out that Ocelot was originally an agent of the GRU. In MGS4, Ocelot is possessed by Liquid Snake and goes by the name Liquid Ocelot.


Psycho Mantis

Voiced By: Kazuyuki Sogabe (JP), Doug Stone (EN)

FOXHOUND's psychic member, Psycho Mantis was driven insane when he went to deep into a psychopath's mind. Famous for reading the player's memory card and commenting on the games saved on it.

  • Asexuality: Psycho Mantis has a particular distaste for the biologically universal "need for breed."
  • Ax Crazy: Of all the members of Liquid's FOXHOUND unit, Mantis was shown to be the most insane and depraved.
  • Badass Longcoat
  • Compelling Voice: It is implied that this is how Psycho Mantis applies his psychic abilities to place people under mind control (as his theme "Mantis' Hymn" often plays in the background of Meryl being brainwashed by Mantis, with Naomi also referring to it as his "mind control music").
  • Crucified Hero Shot: Inverted. Some official artworks as well as a certain attack of his have him in a pose similar to that of Jesus's crucifixion, and he's a villain.
  • Facial Horror: His usually hidden facial features are horribly disfigured and scarred as a result of being caught in a fire he started that burned his village to the ground.
  • For the Evulz: He reveals that he joined Liquid's little coup just to kill as many people as possible during his death speech.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a huge scar running around his cranium and across the top of it, as well as a jagged Glasgow Grin.
  • Laughing Mad: Most times, his laughter reeks of this.
  • Lean and Mean
  • Leitmotif: Mantis' Hymn
  • Meaningful Name: The "Psycho" part of his codename has two meanings: One is in reference to his psychic abilities. The other is also short for "Psychopath" or "Psychotic", referring to Mantis' evident insanity.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: One of Psycho Mantis' many problems.
  • No Fourth Wall: Probably the most obvious Fourth Wall Observer on the team, if not in the franchise.
  • Psychic Static: He wears the gasmask to keep it out.
  • Vader Breath: Naturally, he's wearing a gasmask, so the trope would apply.
  • Virtual Ghost: He is able to posses Screaming Mantis's armor after her defeat, and show off the fact that he knows jack about the Play Station 3's controller or save system.
  • Where I Was Born and Razed
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He saw little point in the "selfish desire of passing their genes on." The (questionably canon) Official Missions Handbook seems to heighten his stance, where it claims that he actually wants to end up dying because a parasite (a byproduct of those with genuine psychic powers) was making him do bad things despite his best efforts to control it, because when he is dying, it will be gone, and then he'll at least briefly experience a peace in mind.


Sniper Wolf

Voiced By: Naoko Nakamura (JP), Tasia Valenza (EN)

FOXHOUND's sniper. Normally a cold woman, she nonetheless was kind to the Shadow Moses' dogs and Hal, resulting in Hal's infatuation.


Vulcan Raven

Voiced By: Yukitoshi Hori (JP), Peter Lurie (EN)

FOXHOUND's shaman. He first fights Solid Snake in a tank, then in cold storage with a minigun.

  • Adaptation Expansion: His character is heavily expanded on in the MGS comic, him being the one who informs Liquid of the deaths of Mantis and Wolf, and giving away the secret of FOXDIE, along with some scope of Liquid's plot during his confrontation against Snake, as opposed to his simple hint in the game.
  • Ammunition Backpack: Vulcan Raven wears a massive ammo tank for his minigun on his back.
  • BFG: His eponymous 20mm M61-A1 Vulcan. In the GC version, it's said he he ripped it off one of the F-16's Liquid shot down.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Vulcan Raven's main power is "being really, really big." This apparently allows him to use a ~600 pound-plus-ammo M61 Vulcan cannon.
    • It is implied in the game that Vulcan, being a shaman, has mystical powers as well as physical strength.
  • Gatling Good
  • Genius Bruiser: He's a giant who is more than capable of lifting and using a M 63 A 1 Vulcan cannon, yet was also educated at the University of Alaska, and shown to be somewhat of a strategist.
  • Made of Iron: He carries a Vulcan cannon, and ammo, shirtless. In the Alaskan permafrost.
  • Ravens and Crows
  • Tank Goodness: Vulcan Raven uses a tank during his first boss fight.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene


Decoy Octopus

FOXHOUND's impersonation expert. Solid Snake and the player never actually see what he looks like ingame. Instead Snake sees him when he is impersonating Donald Anderson, who dies shortly after.


Meryl Silverburgh

Voiced by: Kyoko Terase (JP), Debi Mae West (EN)

The niece of Roy Campbell (later revealed to be his daughter), Meryl always dreamt of being in the military and living up to her heroes in FOXHOUND, but proves to be less than competent.

She later makes a comeback in MGS4, a lot more competent and tougher.

  • Action Girl
  • Amazonian Beauty: Meryl is a lot sturdier looking by MGS4, compared to her appearance in Metal Gear Solid. When you see her in her wedding dress, her arms are very noticeable... especially when she arm wrestles one of her teammates.
  • Cry Cute: In the ending of Act 1, after Ocelot's attempt at shutting down/hijacking the SOP system failed due to his using the wrong DNA (It Makes Sense in Context), Meryl is seen breaking down into tears due to her supressed emotions being unexpectedly released from the lockdown, strongly suggesting that, although she is certainly not a rookie anymore, she certainly hasn't gotten over her sorrow and reluctance to fire a weapon at living targets.
  • Debi Mae West: The role that made her famous.
  • Daddy's Girl: Averted, her legal father died while she was very young, and she never actually knew that her birthfather was actually her uncle until after the events of Metal Gear Solid. Even after that, Meryl ends up having an estranged, non-talking relationship with her father both because he married a brunette woman who was young enough to be his daughter by the time of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (not knowing that the marriage was actually a sham to protect the woman and her kid from the Patriots, as they won't use them as leverage for Raiden) and from the fact that she was conceived by her uncle in an extra-marital affair with her mom that she learned from Roy Campbell. It wasn't until the ending where Meryl marries Johnny Sasaki/Akiba that she and Campbell even start having a decent conversation.
  • Faux Action Girl: At least in the first game, though at least they admit it.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Subverted: Meryl and Snake break up shortly after Shadow Moses.
  • Heroic Bastard: Meryl Silverburgh was conceived in an extramarital affair between her uncle, Roy Campbell, and her mother. It's also hinted that this is one of the reasons for her sore relations with her father in MGS4.
  • Hot Amazon: Her action girl status certainly seems to be a plus for Johnny.
  • Military Brat
  • Ms. Fanservice: In MGS. In addition to her being rather cute, a lot of emphasis is put on her rump (which actually becomes a plot point in the game when you have to identify her distinct hip-shaking walk when she's in disguise) and she even gets a couple scenes in her underwear.
  • Plucky Girl
  • Prison Rape: Implied at the end of Solid.
  • Took a Level in Badass
  • Tsundere
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment


Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich

Voiced by: Hideyuki Tanaka (JP), Christopher Randolf (EN)

An Anime fanboy (so much so that his codename is based off an anime convention) Otacon is the designer of Metal Gear Rex, though he had no idea it was going to be used to launch nukes. After learning the truth, he vows to help Snake stop Metal Gear at all costs, and really becomes an Ascended Fanboy.


Johnny "Akiba" Sasaki

Voiced by: Naoki Imamura (JP, 1st voice), Jun Fukuyama (JP, 2nd voice), Dean Scofield (EN, 1st voice), Beng Spies (EN, 2nd voice)

Johnny first appeara in Metal Gear Solid as a guard with stomach problems whom Meryl strips and uses his clothes for her escape. His grandfather also served as a guard during the Cold War.

In Guns of the Patriots, he becomes a member of Meryl's Rat Patrol 01. He loved Meryl ever since she stripped him in Shadow Moses, and ends up marrying her after admitting his love for her.


Kenneth Baker

Voiced By: Yuzuru Fujimoto (JP), Allan Lurie (EN)

Former president of Arms Tech, the developer of Metal Gear REX. Solid Snake tries to rescue Baker after he is taken hostage in Shadow Moses, but Baker is killed by the FOXDIE virus before he can divulge any information about REX.

  • Asshole Victim: Probably: The ability to have the stealth nuke on a railgun on REX to basically break retaliation theory is strongly implied to have been Baker's idea, and if the alluded to rumors of Boorda's true cause of death and the timing of the death and REX's development is anything to go by, he may have also had Boorda killed specifically because he wasn't able to get into the pentagon's black budget before Boorda.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive
  • Sacrificial Lamb
  • The Stool Pigeon: Lacerated Larry Type: He divulged his half of the PAL code from having his arm broken by Ocelot, as he wasn't trained in physical interrogation. He was the only one to divulge his code, as Anderson died before he could divulge the other half thanks to Ocelot.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: He developed REX as a means to keep his company from going under as a result of SDI and his loss of the Generation X fighter plane to another stealth manufacturing company.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The implied reason for why he was targeted for FOXDIE despite not being affiliated with the Terrorists.


Next-Generation Special Forces

Also known as the Genome soldiers, they are soldiers enhanced genetically that rebelled and joined up with FOXHOUND.

  • Genius Bruiser/Informed Ability: According to Naomi and Campbell, the Genome Soldiers, in addition to being skilled warriors, also have an IQ of 180. However, its hard to believe that they possess such intelligence when they end up missing Snake a few times.
  • Super Soldier: They were genetically enhanced with Big Boss's soldier genes.
    • Flawed Prototype: Every single one of the soldiers ended up undergoing an illness thanks to their having asymmetry theory. That's also not going into the Gulf War, where the Gulf War Syndrome and the Gulf War Babies that resulted in it were apparently side-effects of the procedure.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Despite being intelligent soldiers, they apparently fail in spotting Snake even when he's only a few yards away from their line of vision. Probably justified regarding the outdoor soldiers, at least, since there was a blizzard at the time of the mission, which would cause a poor amount of visibility on their end. That's also not getting into the implication that they deliberately avoided spotting Snake in order to trick Snake into activating REX.
  1. ↑ which was originally a British colony before they declared independence during the Cold War.
  2. ↑ The player has to survive the third torture round without submitting to learn it
  3. ↑ He's a Genome Soldier in the first game, a Gurlukovich mercenary in the second, and a member of Rat Patrol 01 in the fourth
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