Editor’s Note: If you’re looking for our thoughts on the individual releases within the Collection, then check out our reviews of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which you can buy individually on the Switch eShop.

When Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 was released in 2023, Nintendo fans were finally treated to an excellent collection of stealth classics that, while flawed upon release, have since been updated significantly. But creator Hideo Kojima didn’t stop with the original MGS trilogy (despite apparently really wanting to), concluding Solid Snake’s story with MGS4: Guns of the Patriots and exploring Big Boss’ journey after Snake Eater with the PSP title Peace Walker.

These titles make up the bulk of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2, which also includes the non-canon Ghost Babel for Game Boy Color and a smattering of extra content. If you get the collection in one go, each game will be added to your library in its own bespoke app, much like the first release. Ghost Babel is included in a separate ‘Bonus Content’ app, but I don’t think this was necessary – Konami could have easily included it with either MGS4 or Peace Walker.

The other bonus content includes separate Master Books for each main title, which are essentially glorified manuals that showcase a bunch of lore and character information, while MGS4 specifically includes a screenplay book and a staggeringly dense database. So, you’ve got an encyclopaedia of pretty much every MGS character, organisation, and location you can possibly think of, a complete timeline of important events, and a relationship chart that shows which characters were involved in each timeline event and how they relate to each other.

It’s seriously impressive stuff if you’re keen to delve deep into MGS lore and understand how everything fits together. Each encyclopaedia entry includes multiple hyperlinks to related topics, so it’s incredibly easy to get lost as you work your way through, like when you’re browsing Wikipedia at 2am when you’re struggling to sleep.

As for the games themselves, while it’s tempting to think of this collection as a lesser successor to Vol. 1, MGS4 and Peace Walker are both essential if you enjoyed the first selection of games – the former for its epic concluding story and the latter for its addictive gameplay.

With MGS4 specifically, I was utterly convinced that it would remain trapped on the PS3 for all time thanks to the direct references to Sony hardware. Yet Konami has done an admirable job in addressing this, replacing all references with more generic content. Even before booting the game up for the first time, seeing the icon on my home screen was a surreal moment that, prior to the release of Vol. 1, I had thought impossible.