Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is a re-vamped and revised edition of the original Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, in which Solid Snake must recover the stolen Metal Gear Ray from a group of terrorists bent…

80 4 November 2002

Adventure Shooter Tactical Action Stealth

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is an adventure developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, released 4 November 2002 on PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC (Microsoft Windows).

Verified 21 Aug 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is an adventure game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and released in 2002. It was published by Konami. It is available on PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC (Microsoft Windows).

The premise, in the publisher's words

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is a 2001 action-adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation 2. Directed, produced, designed, and written by Hideo Kojima, it is the fourth mainline game in the Metal Gear series, the eighth chronologically, and the sequel to Metal Gear Solid (1998). The game was originally released in November 2001 for North America and Japan and March 2002 for Europe, while an expanded edition, titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance was released the following year for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows.

Description from Wikipedia · source

How it plays

It is played from a third person perspective. Its themes are action and stealth. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component.

Where it sits in the Metal Gear series

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance is the 14th of 70 entries we hold in the Metal Gear series. The next entry was DreamMix TV World Fighters in 2003. Its critic score of 80 is almost exactly the series average of 81. The highest-rated entry is Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence at 98.

See all 70 Metal Gear games in release order →

How it was received

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance holds a critic score of 80 out of 100. That places it above 64% of the 7,525 rated adventure games in our database, which average 72. Games released in 2002 averaged 68, so it scored 12 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 84, across 168 votes.

What it launched against

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance launched on 4 November 2002, within three weeks of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Metroid Prime, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Metroid Fusion. All of them reviewed better.

Released around the same time: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Metroid Prime, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Metroid Fusion.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

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