There’s lots of reasons to remake a game, but for Konami, its choice to make Metal Gear Solid Delta comes from a concern about young people.

Kids these days – can they even tell you which one is Big Boss, The Boss, Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, or Venom Snake by looking at pictures of them anymore? Okay, most people probably can’t do that, let alone young people, but with the Metal Gear Solid series having been essentially dead since 2018’s Metal Gear Survive, a game without creator Hideo Kojima’s involvement, interest in the series hasn’t exactly been at an all time high. There are plenty of fans, of course, but most of them probably grew up with them, and in a recent interview with Play magazine (via GamesRadar), series producer Noriaki Okamura spoke about the fact that a lot of younger games just don’t know much about Metal Gear.

“One of the things that really sparked us to do the remake in general is because we realised that a lot of the newer, younger generation of gamers aren’t familiar with the Metal Gear series anymore,” Okamura explained. Ignoring Survive, which didn’t do all that well, there hasn’t been a new game since 2015’s Metal Gear Solid 5, a whole decade of time in which plenty of new gamers won’t have been around to see a new main series title coming out.

“It was basically our mission, our duty, to kind of continue making sure that the series lives on for future generations,” Okamura continued. “After all, we leave behind much more than just DNA, as Solid Snake would say – but again, who is Solid Snake?” It’s a good question, and genuinely not one that’s easy to answer.

Fans will also obviously know that Metal Gear Solid 3 is chronologically the earliest in the series, which is also partly why they chose to remake that one. While Metal Gear Solid Delta was originally meant to be released this year, it’s now likely to be released in 2025, though it’s still yet to get a release date.