The rogues’ gallery of over-the-top boss encounters is a trademark element of each game in the Metal Gear Solid series, which is something that Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater clearly understands. While the content of the game is practically identical to that of the original Metal Gear Solid 3, there’s some extra attention and care paid to how these encounters play out in the remake, which helps make already iconic boss fights even better thanks to Delta‘s subtle quality of life additions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fight against The End.
One of the most unique boss fights in the entirety of the Metal Gear canon and a high point of Snake Eater‘s story, the battle against The End is a pivotal moment for both Naked Snake and the Metal Gear series’ legacy. Should players choose to do so, they could use any number of tricks that manipulate the game’s systems to exploit some of Snake Eater‘s trademark Kojima strangeness and “cheese” the fight, but they could also pit Naked Snake against The End in an arduous battle of endurance and mastery over the jungle before reaching the plot’s turning point of Groznyj Grad. MGS Delta makes either approach feel worthwhile thanks to its achievements accompanying the legacy in-game rewards.
When it plays out using normal methods, the battle against The End is a tense game of cat-and-mouse between Naked Snake and a legendary sniper, where players have to use their wits and a familiarity with the arena to stay quiet, stay hidden, and get the drop on the boss before he can take Snake out. Notably, The End’s Mosin Nagant sniper rifle doesn’t fire lethal rounds but instead tranquilizer darts, making the consequence for failure a trip to a jail cell — far more irritating than a simple Game Over screen. But with the changes made to Snake Eater‘s mechanics in Delta, the margin for error is much wider than it used to be.
The addition of a new control scheme that makes aiming easier, plus the ability to crouch-walk and quietly sneak up on The End in one of his many sniper perches, takes what was previously a pretty challenging boss encounter and makes it much more enjoyable. In both the original version of Snake Eater and the Metal Gear Solid Delta remake, Naked Snake will draw The End’s attention immediately if he happens to be in the same part of the map and makes the slightest sound, necessitating silent movement and swift, precise aiming when attempting to land a shot. Both of these are now easier than ever to pull off, and the fight against The End is all the better for it.
Rewards and Achievements Make it Worthwhile to Complete Every Version of The End’s Encounter
The icing on the cake is how Metal Gear Solid Delta incentivizes players to tackle the fight against The End using any of the many available strategies by giving them both in-game rewards and achievements/trophies for each. Just like in the original version of Snake Eater, players can choose to approach the battle against The End using traditional lethal or non-lethal means, but there are also several “trick” ways to end the encounter, most of which either provide some valuable in-game reward or, in Delta‘s case, an achievement/trophy to track players’ progress toward completing each method.
Players can now earn achievements/trophies for killing The End early after the fight against The Pain (which requires having the SVD sniper rifle and playing on New Game+), as well as for sneaking up on The End and holding him at gunpoint to get the Moss Camo. But there’s also the tried-and-true method to manipulate the in-game clock and simply allow The End’s natural end to occur, or to tranquilize his parrot and use it to track him throughout the jungle. The fact that each of these methods is as viable as the next, as well as fun to pull off, hammers home that The End’s boss fight is as much a high point of Metal Gear Solid Delta as it was in the original Metal Gear Solid 3.
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