List of characters in the Metal Gear series

The following is a list of recurring fictional characters that appeared throughout the Metal Gear series in more than one canonical installment. The series' canon comprises (not including re-releases and remakes) Metal Gear (MG) and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MG2) for the MSX2, Metal Gear Solid (MGS) for the PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (MGS2) and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (MGS3) for the PlayStation 2, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (MPO) for the PSP and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS4) for the PlayStation 3.

Codename "Snake"
Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake center around the rivalry between protagonist Solid Snake and his commanding officer-turned-nemesis Big Boss. This rivalry served as the basis of the Les Enfants Terribles storyline introduced in Metal Gear Solid, where Solid Snake is revealed to be a clone/son of Big Boss, along with his two brothers: Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake. In Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden is initially introduced with the codename "Snake" before being given the codename "Raiden". In Metal Gear Solid 3, it is revealed that Big Boss's former codename was "Naked Snake".

Solid Snake
Solid Snake (voiced by Akio Ohtsuka in Japanese and David Hayter in English) is the series' primary protagonist and the player's character in Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid. In Metal Gear Solid, his real name is revealed to be David. In Metal Gear Solid 2, he is playable only in the main game's prologue sequence, while Snake Eater and Portable Ops are prequels set before his birth. In Guns of the Patriots due to his aging process being quickened and gaining the appearance of an old man he is given the nickname Old Snake and is the playable character once more.

Big Boss
Big Boss (voiced as a young man by Akio Ohtsuka in Japanese and David Hayter in English, and as an elder man by Chikao Ohtsuka in Japanese and Richard Doyle in English), also known as the greatest soldier that ever lived. Big Boss is introduced as Solid Snake's commanding officer in Metal Gear, but reveals himself to be the enemy leader at the end of the game. He fights Snake a second time in Metal Gear 2, apparently killed. In Metal Gear Solid, his remains are part of a terrorist group's ransom demand. He appears as the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops under the identity of Naked Snake. In Metal Gear Solid 3, his real name is revealed to be Jack. Big Boss makes his final appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4.

Raiden
Raiden (real name Jack) was the surprise protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2, who substituted Solid Snake as the player's character in the main portion of the game. He is initially introduced with the codename Snake before being given the codename Raiden. In MGS2, he reveals he was a child soldier in the Liberian Civil War, and that Solidus Snake is technically his adoptive father. Raiden was romantically involved with Rose who served as Raiden's mission support in MGS2. He returns in Metal Gear Solid 4 as a near-indestructible cyborg ninja who supports Old Snake. He will return as the protagonist of the next game in the series, Metal Gear Solid: Rising.

Liquid Snake
Liquid Snake (voiced by Banjo Ginga in Japanese and Cam Clarke in English) is introduced in Metal Gear Solid as the main antagonist. He is the twin brother of Solid Snake and the second of Big Boss' clones, a creation of the Les Enfants Terribles project. Moved and raised in the United Kingdom following his birth, Liquid served as an operative for the British SAS and later became the field commander of FOXHOUND (after Snake's and Campbell's retirement) prior to the events of the game. Liquid resembles Snake in terms of facial appearance and physique, with the primary differences being his different skin tone and medium-length blond hair, as well as a tattoo of a snake entwined around a sword on his left arm.

He battles Snake numerous times throughout the events of the game; inside a Hind D helicopter, inside Metal Gear REX (after he used Snake to activate the PAL for REX's ability to launch nukes), and on top of a destroyed REX. Towards the conclusion of the game, Liquid corners a trapped Snake, but dies of a heart attack, having been exposed to the FOXDIE virus implanted within his brother.

One of Liquid's motivations is his hatred towards Solid Snake, as Liquid believes that Solid received all of Big Boss' dominant genes, and that he, Liquid, was destined to be inferior. It is revealed after the credits, that Liquid was intentionally deceived in order to drive him to carry on Big Boss' legacy. This is in line with the game's interpretation of the nature versus nurture debate. As the greater experience that Solid has on the battlefield enables him to defeat Liquid, despite his supposed "genetic dominance" and his personal grudge with Solid, due to him thinking Solid is in fact the dominant one.

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Liquid's essence still exists, returning as a dormant personality that would possess his former ally, Revolver Ocelot, following an arm transplant where Ocelot replaces his own severed arm with one taken from the corpse of Liquid. Liquid would possess Ocelot via the right arm whenever Solid Snake was in the vicinity. His first appearance is when he hijacks Metal Gear RAY during the Tanker Chapter. During the Plant Chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2, Liquid again possessed Ocelot towards the end, revealing that he was the one who sent the data of Arsenal Gear to Otacon and lured Snake out to the Big Shell, claiming Snake was "the only one who can free [him]". He then set off in RAY to hunt the Patriots, claiming he chose Ocelot as his "host" due his knowledge of the group.

In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, we learn that Ocelot artificially (through nanomachines, hypnotherapy etc.) had become Liquid to fool The Patriots. The personality and mind of Liquid was transplanted into Ocelot's body. Liquid Ocelot then prepared a new plan to destroy The Patriots. Finally, Liquid fought against Snake on the top of Outer Haven, but as he did so, Ocelot began to reappear. Eventually, Liquid's personality was expelled by Ocelot's.

Solidus Snake
Solidus Snake (voiced by Akio Otsuka in Japanese and John Cygan in English) is first mentioned by name in the post-credits codec conversation of Metal Gear Solid, where he is revealed to be a third clone of Big Boss, as well as the President of the United States during the events of the game, George Sears. He appears as the antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2, where he is revealed to be the adoptive father of the protagonist Raiden after dropping his charade of impersonating Solid Snake. After he is killed in the events of that game, Solidus' body is used as a decoy for Big Boss's in Metal Gear Solid 4 as the two are genetically identical, due to Solidus being an exact copy of Big Boss.

Gray Fox
Gray Fox (グレイ・フォックス) first appears in the original Metal Gear as a high-ranking agent of FOXHOUND (the "Fox" codename being the highest commemoration within the unit) who goes missing during a mission prior to the events of the game, his last transmission being a cryptic message simply saying "Metal Gear". Solid Snake's initial objective in the game is to rescue Gray Fox, who reveals the true nature of Metal Gear to the player.

Fox returns in Metal Gear 2, having left FOXHOUND and defected to Zanzibar Land to join Big Boss' side. Fox pilots the new Metal Gear model, Metal Gear D, and confronts Snake a few times, while secretly assisting him as an anonymous informant. Snake destroys Metal Gear D and ends up being challenged by Fox to a fistfight in the middle of a minefield. Fox's past is fleshed out in this game and his civilian identity is revealed to be Frank Jaeger (フランク・イェーガー). His face portrait in the MSX2 version was modeled after actor Tom Berenger.

In Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox appears under the identity of the Cyborg Ninja (サイボーグ忍者), an assassin in a powered exoskeleton and armed with a high-frequency blade, who challenges Solid Snake to a fist fight, even though his ultimate goal is to help him. He also provides Snake cryptic advice via CODEC as a faceless contact named Deepthroat. Gray Fox is later killed by Liquid Snake, piloting Metal Gear REX, after Fox destroys the vehicle's radome with the use of a prototype rail gun attached to his arm.

Despite Gray Fox's death in Metal Gear Solid, the Cyborg Ninja incarnation of the character would still appear in subsequent games in some form or another. The Ninja appears as a hidden character in the Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions expansion as a playable character for three special missions; and the character's exoskeleton is used as an alternate outfit for Raiden in the extra missions mode of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, the expanded version of Sons of Liberty. Outside the Metal Gear games, the Cyborg Ninja appears as a race car driver in Konami Krazy Racers and as an assistant fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The role of the Cyborg Ninja is assumed by other characters in the subsequent Metal Gear Solid sequels, namely Olga Gurlukovich in Sons of Liberty and Raiden in Guns of the Patriots.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a prequel set two decades before the events of the first Metal Gear, features a teenage Gray Fox as a masked machete-wielding assassin named Null (ヌル), one of the members of FOX the player faces in the game. Null is a teenage assassin subjected to a secret CIA project to be the "Perfect Soldier".

Pettrovich Madnar
Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar - The Eastern engineer responsible for creating the TX-55 Metal Gear mecha in the original Metal Gear, as well the TX-11 Arnold (Bloody Brad) androids. Dr. Pettrovich is one of the hostages Snake must rescue along with his daughter Ellen. In Metal Gear 2, Dr. Pettrovich bitterly defects to Zanzibar Land and develops Metal Gear D after being rejected by the scientific community. He comes in contact with Snake in the game while posing as a hostage, but attacks him after the truth is revealed. He somehow survives and is mentioned in Metal Gear Solid 4 as the scientist who saved Raiden's life after he was turned into a cyborg by The Patriots. A character bearing Dr. Pettrovich's namesake appears in Snatcher.

The character was simply called "Dr. Pettrovich" in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear, with his daughter being referred as "Elen Pettrovich" in the Japanese version's manual, suggesting that Pettrovich was meant the character's surname. He was given the full name of "Petrovich Madnar" in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2, a name that was originally used in Snatcher. In the later revisions of both games, he is referred by the full name of "Drago Pettrovich Madnar", with his daughter now referred as "Ellen Madnar".

Kyle Schneider
Kyle Schneider - The leader of a resistance movement in Metal Gear, who helps Snake as a radio contact. He discovers the identity of the Outer Heaven leader, but is silenced before he can mention his name. In Metal Gear 2, Schneider appears under the guise of "Black Color" ("Black Ninja" in the re-releases), a high-tech ninja under the service of Zanzibar Land and the first boss in the game. Solid Snake kills him during a battle but doesn't find out Black Ninja's true identity until he collapses. He then reveals to Snake that NATO led a bombing raid against Outer Heaven, not caring about the war orphans and/or war refugees. He also tells Snake that Big Boss had forgiven the Resistance for being against him, and rescued as many of them as he could from the bombings, both Outer Heaven personnel and Resistance members.

Roy Campbell
Cpl. Roy Campbell (ロイ・キャンベル大佐), is introduced in Metal Gear 2 as the new commanding officer of FOXHOUND. He serves as Snake's primary radio contact in the game and gives information about his mission objective and general gameplay tips. Colonel Campbell's speaking portrait in the MSX2 version was modeled after Richard Crenna, who is known for the role of Col. Sam Trautman in the Rambo films.

In Metal Gear Solid, Campbell comes out of retirement to command Solid Snake once again. Campbell has more of a personal stake in this mission, as his niece,(secretly his daughter) Meryl Silverburgh, is held captive by the revolutionary force Snake is battling. While Campbell is initially forced to keep a number of secrets from Snake, he gradually reveals more and more of them as the story continues, until, finally, Campbell is briefly arrested. However, he is exonerated after Solid Snake defeats Liquid Snake. He reveals in the alternate ending of the game that Meryl is actually his biological daughter.

In Metal Gear Solid 2, a man who appears to be Col. Campbell (but simply identified as "Colonel") serves as Raiden ' s commanding officer, supporting him via codec. When a computer virus starts taking effect on Arsenal Gear, however, the Colonel begins acting erratically (engaging in such non-sequitur behaviors as reading the stations on the Nose Electric Railway and saying "I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with a tuning fork does a raw blink in hara-kiri rock. I need scissors, 61" in communications with Raiden), revealing its true nature: "the Colonel" is, in fact, not the real Roy Campbell, but an elaborate A.I. constructed by GW, a supercomputer, and based on Raiden's perceptions and expectations from his VR Training. The Colonel's advice to "turn off the game console" parallels Big Boss' final radio transmission in the original Metal Gear ordering Snake to abort his mission and "switch off (the) MSX computer".

Although he is not involved in the main story, Campbell makes a voice only cameo in Metal Gear Solid 3 during the game over screen scolding Snake for causing a time paradox if the player kills certain supporting characters (namely Sokolov, Ocelot or EVA). He also appears in the Ape Escape crossover minigame "Snake vs. Monkey".

In Portable Ops, a young Roy Campbell appears as one of Naked Snake's (Big Boss) comrades in the game. When the story begins, Naked Snake finds himself imprisoned by the FOX unit in South America with Campbell, a captured Green Beret whose unit was wiped out, in the cell next to him. The two escape and begins to recruit disfranchised enemy soldiers and other allies to their cause. In the original version of Portable Ops, Campbell is the only main character who cannot be added as a member of Snake's squad, due to the fact that he had a broken leg at the time: instead he only communicates with the player via the radio and drives the truck which transports captured enemy soldiers. Campbell can only be added to the player's squad in the Portable Ops Plus expansion.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Campbell works for a UN Security Council advisory body that monitors PMC activities. He sends Solid Snake on an unofficial mission to assassinate Liquid in order to put a stop to his plans. He provides the means of transportation Snake uses to complete his mission. He is married to Raiden's former girlfriend, Rosemary, which causes a rift between him and Meryl (who is now aware that Campbell is her father) and which Snake opposes, stating that he is old enough to be Rose's father. However, the marriage is a sham used to fool the Patriots in order to protect Raiden's son, John.

Outside the main series, Campbell reprises his role as Snake's reluctant commanding officer in the Game Boy Color game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, a side-story which serves as an alternate sequel to the events of the original Metal Gear. Campbell, along with Otacon and Mei Ling (and Slippy Toad from the Star Fox series), serves as one of Snake's codec contacts in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He also makes a brief codec appearance in a minigame in Ape Escape 3.

Master Miller
McDonnell Benedict Miller, also known as Master Miller, Kazuhira Miller and Sean Miller (in Australia), is a drill instructor and survival coach introduced in Metal Gear 2 as a member of FOXHOUND and one of Snake's radio contacts. In Metal Gear Solid, Master is murdered prior to the events of the game and a disguised Liquid assumes his identity, tricking Snake to unknowingly do his bidding. Master Miller was originally depicted as an Asian-looking man with black hair in the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2. In Metal Gear Solid, the character is depicted with blond hair and sunglasses. Revisions of Metal Gear 2 following the mobile phone version depicted Miller in this design. Miller will play a role in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Hal Emmerich
Dr. Hal Emmerich (ハル・エメリッヒ博士), nicknamed Otacon (オタコン) due to his fondness of anime, first appears in Metal Gear Solid as an ArmsTech employee who designed Metal Gear REX. He is also a highly accomplished hacker. After being rescued by Snake from the Ninja, and after wetting his pants, he begins to assist him after he realizes that REX is being used by the terrorists to launch a new type of nuclear warhead. His assistance is instrumental to Snake's victory, but at a cost: he is forced to watch Snake execute Sniper Wolf, a woman he had developed a crush on. Otacon's family has a rather dark history with nuclear weapons: his grandfather was part of the Manhattan Project, and his father was born on the same day as the Hiroshima bomb. Kojima states that he created Otacon as his way of glorifying the otaku stereotype by having a character who fights the terrorists with his intellect rather than his brawn. According to Kojima, the original idea of Otacon was to make him "heavier, wearing a cap, and programming while eating a chocolate bar". However, the design Shinkawa did for the character was a slender one instead.

In Metal Gear Solid 2, Otacon and Solid Snake form Philanthropy, an anti-proliferation organization dedicated to the eradication of all Metal Gears. During the Tanker chapter, Otacon once again supports Snake via the codec and is in charge of saving the player's progress. He later appears in the Plant chapter, having infiltrated the Big Shell facility with Snake to save his stepsister Emma, who is among the hostages. Tragically, Emma is grievously wounded by Vamp and later dies in Otacon's arms. He later transports the surviving hostages to safety and then provides support to Raiden via codec for the remainder of the game. Lead character designer Yoji Shinkawa stated in an interview that Otacon was designed to look somewhat "tougher" than he did in Metal Gear Solid.

Though Otacon himself does not appear in Metal Gear Solid 3 (the game being set in the 1960s), his grandfather (who was part of the Manhattan project) is mentioned in a radio call between Naked Snake and Sigint (although Sigint is unable to remember his name correctly) and he appears in a photograph alongside Russian weapons designer Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin.

Otacon appears in Metal Gear Solid 4, still lending his support to Snake. He and Sunny (Olga's daughter) build a robotic companion to Snake called Metal Gear Mk. II, which he controls remotely. The Mk. II is taken from a robotic character of the same name in Snatcher. He becomes romantically involved with Naomi Hunter through the course of the story although he once again loses her to circumstances beyond his control, thus forcing him yet again to witness the death of a woman he cared about. In the codec of MGS4, Otacon tells Snake that he and Sunny will live with Snake for the remainder of his life, to serve as witnesses of his existence.

Revolver Ocelot
Revolver Ocelot appears in Metal Gear Solid as a member of FOXHOUND secretly working as a spy for Solidus Snake, also the U.S. President. He becomes a recurring antagonist in subsequent games, appearing in Metal Gear Solid 2 as an agent of the Patriots who gets possessed by Liquid Snake as the result of an arm transplant, and appears in Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops as his young self, Major Ocelot.

Meryl Silverburgh
Meryl Silverburgh (メリル・シルバーバーグ) is introduced as the teenage niece of Solid Snake's commander, Roy Campbell, in Metal Gear Solid, where she serves as Snake's rookie sidekick. Meryl is also Snake's love interest in the story. , Prior to the events of the game, she gets assigned to Shadow Moses for a field exercise, but refuses to join the rebellion led by Liquid Snake and is imprisoned. Her cell guard opens the wrong door in confusion and accidentally releases her. She then subdues him, stealing his uniform afterwards. She comes in contact with Snake via the Codec (140.15) and then meets up with him afterwards. Snake rescues her from Psycho Mantis's mind control, but she is later shot and captured by Sniper Wolf. Her ultimate fate depends on the player's actions during the Torture sequence afterwards: if the player succeeds in resisting Revolver Ocelot's torture, Meryl is then rescued by Snake after his fistfight with Liquid and the two escape together from the Shadow Moses base; if the player submits, then an alternate ending is played where Snake finds Meryl dead and Campbell reveals to Snake that Meryl was Campbell's biological daughter.

When character designer Yoji Shinkawa was asked about Meryl's omission in Metal Gear Solid 2, he stated that they purposely avoided mentioning her directly in the game, so that the sequel could follow either of the two endings from the first game. Despite this, the character's survival is mentioned in the fictional publication featured in the game, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses. In addition near the end of the game Snake mentions to Raiden that he has infinite ammo and touches his bandanna. The infinite ammo bandanna was an item only given to the player if they were successful in saving Meryl. Meryl appears in the expanded version of the game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, in a few of the supplemental game modes unrelated to the main story.

Disproving Shinkawa's comments and proving that the canon storyline is the one in which she survives, Meryl appears in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as the commander of "Rat Patrol Team One" (RAT PT 01), a fictional division of the US Army's CID sent to investigate Liquid Ocelot's PMC activities. She wears a military outfit decked with the FOXHOUND logo, along with a bandanna of the style worn by Snake and a bullet for an earring. She is now aware that Roy Campbell is her true father, but openly resents him due to his marriage with Rosemary, who is her own age. She reconciles with him at the end of the game. At first, Meryl dislikes her subordinate Johnny due to his clumsiness and stomach problems, but forgives him after learning he doesn't have nanomachines in his body and falls in love with him after he saves her life on their missions in the Middle East, Europe and the Outer Haven Assualt, and ends up marrying him at the end of the story.

Kojima Productions' representative Ryan Payton acknowledged criticism that her romance with Johnny felt forced, stating that fans were expecting the character to be paired with Snake following the announcement of her appearance in the game, but then went on to state that he did not expect Snake and Meryl to be romantically paired while reading an early script.

Meryl Silverburgh originally appeared as a character in Hideo Kojima's 1994 adventure game Policenauts (released only in Japan). In this game, set in the year 2040, Meryl is a former FOXHOUND operative who works in the space colony Beyond Coast as an officer in the Police Department's vice unit. She works with a partner named Dave Forrest. According to a commentary on the official site of the PSone Books reissue of Policenauts, while the Meryl from Policenauts has the same name, the same Japanese voice actress, and a similar appearance, they are not meant to be the same individual. Meryl from Metal Gear Solid's canon would be in her 50s at the time Policenauts takes place. Her Rat Patrol teammates Ed and Jonathan are named after the protagonists of Policenauts, Ed Brown and Jonathan Ingram. She also wears a bullet-shaped earring in Guns of the Patriots, similar to the one worn by her counterpart in Policenauts.

Meryl is a member of the United States Army throughout the MGS franchise. In the first game, she is a rookie with little field experience, and admits that she chose to be a soldier more as a dream than out of real desire. By the final game, however, she has matured significantly as a warrior as well as a woman, and leads her own team. Her weapon of choice in both installments is the IMI Desert Eagle.

Naomi Hunter
Dr. Naomi Hunter (ナオミ・ハンター博士) is the chief of FOXHOUND's medical staff, and part of the support crew assembled to assist Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid, providing the player with information on the FOXHOUND members Snake faces. A geneticist by practice, she specializes in nanotechnology-based gene therapy. Revealed to be Gray Fox's adopted sister, Naomi seeks revenge on Snake for attempting to kill her brother, though she realizes that some of her original perceptions of him were wrong as the game progresses. When instructed to inject Snake with the FOXDIE virus, she illegally modifies it so that it will kill Snake in addition to FOXHOUND. However, Naomi chooses to set FOXDIE to a "wildcard" value, leaving him vulnerable at a later time. Uncertain of when exactly the FOXDIE would kill Snake, Naomi merely told him to live his life to the fullest in whatever time he had left.

In The Darkness of Shadow Moses, Nastasha's account of the previous game in Metal Gear Solid 2, reveals that Naomi was arrested following the Shadow Moses Island incident. She escaped from detainment three weeks later; it was heavily implied that Snake assisted her in doing so. , However, in Metal Gear Solid 4, it is revealed that it was Liquid Ocelot who helped her escape.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Naomi is working with Liquid Ocelot in order to hijack the SOP battlefield control system. She becomes romantically involved with Otacon and forms a friendship with Sunny. She also revealed that Snake and Liquid have different DNA patterns, which is why the FOXDIE did not kill Snake during Shadow Moses, and also that Snake's premature aging was planned when he was cloned and that he has only six months left before the FOXDIE finally kills him. When they return to Shadow Moses, Naomi reveals that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer that has been kept in check by nanomachines and, guilt-ridden over her past mistakes, commits suicide by disabling them. Naomi dies in the same place Gray Fox was killed in Metal Gear Solid.

Mei Ling
Mei Ling (美玲 or メイ・リン) is a Chinese-American data analyst in charge of saving the player's progress in Metal Gear Solid. She is the one who invented Snake's wireless communication equipment, the codec radio, as well the Soliton Radar, which detects the positions and field of vision of nearby enemy soldiers. Every time Snake saves his data, Mei Ling provides him with advice through Chinese proverbs, as well as quotations from Western authors. In the Japanese version, Mei Ling only quoted Chinese proverbs: she would cite the original proverb in Chinese and then explain its meaning to Snake in Japanese. According to Kojima, this made some of the proverbs redundant after translating them to English, since Mei Ling would be saying the same thing twice. The western quotes were added under Jeremy Blaustein's (the game's translator) suggestion. Her design was based on actress Shinobu Nakayama.

In Metal Gear Solid 2, Mei Ling is part of Philanthropy, an anti-Metal Gear organization, but assists Snake and Otacon off-screen, attempting to steal equipment from the SSCEN. She makes a voice only cameo in the game as an easter egg during the Tanker chapter, after the player has saved their progress 13 times.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Mei Ling commands the museum-turned-training vessel USS Missouri and provides Snake and Otacon with backup, courtesy of her connections from the SSCEN. Due to her position on the USS Missouri, she is dressed in a Navy uniform with the rank of Captain. At the end of the game, she acts as Meryl Silverburgh's bridesmaid at her wedding.

Mei Ling has made a few appearances outside the main series of Metal Gear games. She is a central character in the radio drama version of Metal Gear Solid (set after the events of the original game) and appears in the Game Boy Color version of Metal Gear Solid (a side story unrelated to the main series). Mei Ling is also one of Snake's support crew in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. She is apparently a fan of the Pokémon series, in particular the character Pikachu.

Johnny
Johnny (ジョニー), nicknamed Akiba (アキバ) in Metal Gear Solid 4 is a recurring comic relief character who first appears as an enemy guard in Metal Gear Solid whose uniform is stolen by Meryl, and again later in the game whilst Snake is being held in-between torture sessions with Revolver Ocelot while suffering from a cold and diarrhea. Johnny's character is never named in the game and is listed only in the ending credits as Johnny Sasaki (ジョニー 佐々木). The surname Sasaki comes from the game's character model designer, Hideki Sasaki. According to the developers' commentary in Metal Gear Solid: Integral, Hideki was known among the staff for his slackoff behavior and the character was included in the game as an in-joke. This surname was only used in the first two Metal Gear Solid games.

Johnny returns for a pair of voice-over cameos in Metal Gear Solid 2. In an early version of the MGS2 story, his full name was to be Johnny Sasaki Slater (ジョニー・佐々木・スレイター) and originally had a minor role in the story in which his character, a Patriot spy, would die from a pacemaker malfunction after coming in contact with Raiden (the scene was retained in the final game, but Ames took said place). During Raiden's talk with Ames, where he uses the Directional Mic to listen in on Solidus' and Ocelot's conversation, if the player points the mic at the bathroom door in the corner, he can hear Johnny talking to himself whilst on the toilet. Johnny talks about how his life has gone since Shadow Moses as well how Olga reminds him of Meryl (in the Japanese version they share the same voice actress, hence the joke) while fighting his trademark diarrhea. Johnny's monologue ends with him realizing there is no toilet paper. Johnny can be found again during Raiden's sniper trial at the bottom of the Big Shell's Struts. When guarding Emma's advance with sniper fire, using the directional microphone while she is behind the second strut will trigger a conversation. Emma gets caught by Johnny, but lowers his gun when he sees that she is a woman and unarmed. Johnny then reflects on the danger of associating with beautiful women during a mission. He tells Emma that it will cause diarrhea, right before being hit with a bout. Johnny is then forced to release Emma and run off to find the bathroom. Emma then comments, "what a weird guy."

In Metal Gear Solid 3, Johnny's grandfather, also named Johnny (who explains that all of the first-born sons in his family are given this name) appears as a cell guard who befriends Naked Snake after he is captured by Colonel Volgin. He wears a Balaclava with the letter J on his forehead. This same character appears as a recruitable character in Portable Ops Plus.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Johnny is a member of Meryl's Rat Patrol Team 01, his face being revealed for the first time in the series. Johnny's nickname given by his teammates is Akiba, shortened from Akihabara, due to his fascination with high-tech gadgets. He, along with Meryl, assist Snake in Outer Haven by allowing him time to reach the server room. It is revealed that he had been in love with Meryl since he first saw her at Shadow Moses, and he marries her in the epilogue. Also, unlike all of the other soldiers in the Army and the PMCs, Johnny does not have nanomachines since he always avoided the injections due to his trypanophobia; the lack of such explains his frequent spells of colds and diarrhea. While this gives him poor combat performance in comparison to his squad mates, he is completely immune to Liquid Ocelot's ability to directly attack soldiers' nanomachines and Screaming Mantis' ability to directly control people with nanomachines in their bodies (his trump card throughout the game). He admits to Meryl that he fell in love with her the first time they met in Shadow Moses (referencing the moment in MGS1 where Meryl knocked him out and stole his clothes). At first Meryl seems to be utterly annoyed of Johnny since he seemed undisciplined and out of sync with the team but later becomes more forgiving after learning he lacked nanomachines and returned his romantic feelings in the end.

Vamp
Vamp (ヴァンプ) first appears in Metal Gear Solid 2 as a member of Dead Cell from Romania who forms part of the "Sons of Liberty" terrorist group during the Plant chapter. He is a knife-throwing specialist endowed with numerous vampire-like abilities and attributes, such as a taste for blood, superhuman strength, speed, and agility, the ability to walk/stand vertical walls, and apparent immortality (being able to simply shrug off what would typically be a mortal wound, such as a bullet to the head). His taste for blood is described in a Codec call between Snake and Raiden after Raiden defeats Solidus's harrier: as a child, his entire family was killed when a church they were attending was bombed, and he was trapped under rubble, along with being impaled by a crucifix, for two days before he was rescued, and he survived by drinking the blood of his dead family members, which is where he got his bloodlust. It is implied that Snake and Vamp have met before the events of the Big Shell incident. Vamp confronts Raiden several times throughout the course of the game, before being, apparently, killed by Raiden's sniper fire and lost to the seas (but not before inflicting a mortal wound on Otacon's stepsister, Emma). Despite his apparent death, he somehow manages to survive and appears among the crowd that forms in the streets of Manhattan after Arsenal Gear crashes into Federal Hall. Vamp was originally designed as a woman, but when the character of Fortune was introduced, the design was changed to that of a man, although the long black hair was retained. His moniker has dual meanings, being a short form of the English word vampire as well as referring to his bisexual orientation. Vamp's appearance is based on Spanish dancer Joaquín Cortés.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Vamp appears as a member of Liquid Ocelot's private army and as Raiden's rival. His "immortality" is revealed to be caused by nanomachines in his body that heal all of his wounds at an extraordinarily fast rate (Naomi describes it as augmenting his natural healing abilities). Using a syringe designed by Naomi Hunter to destabilize the functionality of nanomachines, Snake disables Vamp's nanomachines, allowing Raiden to mortally wound him at Shadow Moses Island. The nanomachines still barely functioning keep Vamp in a painful near death state (keeping him alive but not healing his wounds). Naomi uses the syringe on him, before using it on herself, to completely shut down the nanomachines and allowing him to die.

Rosemary
Rosemary (ローズマリー) is introduced as Raiden's girlfriend in the Plant chapter portion of Metal Gear Solid 2. She is employed by the army as a data analyst, and saves the player's progress over Codec. Rosemary also supports Raiden by providing information about the Big Shell facilities and the other characters Raiden encounters in the game. Raiden and Rose spend most of their conversations talking about their relationship. By the end of the game, Rosemary reveals herself to be a spy for The Patriots. She is then taken off the mission and replaced by an A.I. duplicate of her who openly mocks Raiden. After the final battle, Raiden is reunited with the real Rose, pregnant with his child, in front of Federal Hall.

In an early version of MGS2 story, Rosemary dies in the game; in this version, Rosemary and Raiden never meet in person, as she's a supposed hostage in the Big Shell who communicates with Raiden via the Codec, which would lead the player to wonder whether she was real or just an AI construct.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Rosemary appears as a psychological counselor in a combat stress platoon, offering Snake tips on dealing with stress. Though she became engaged to Raiden after the events of Metal Gear Solid 2, their relationship ended after Rosemary purportedly miscarried their child. Rosemary later marries Campbell, causing a rift between Campbell and Meryl. In reality, Rosemary did give birth to Raiden's child, a boy named John; her marriage is a ploy to protect the boy from The Patriots, by having Campbell pose as John's father. After she reveals the truth to Raiden, the couple reconciles.

EVA
EVA first appears in Metal Gear Solid 3 as a female spy in the service of the People's Republic of China sent to retrieve the Philosophers' Legacy. EVA uses her charm and good looks to win over the trust of Snake and his enemies. During the events of Snake Eater, she infiltrates Colonel Volgin's base through the disguise of being Sokolov's lover named Tatyana and assists Naked Snake through the alternative disguise of a KGB spy, to help him reach the Philosophers' Legacy so that she can later steal it from him, even seeming to fall in love with him. After the mission is completed, EVA fails to carry out the order of assassinating Snake as she promised The Boss she would not, and flees with what she believes to be the Philosophers' Legacy (later revealed to be a fake). The epilogue prior to the credits goes on to state that EVA disappeared in Hanoi, Vietnam in 1968. EVA's presence in MGS3 has been compared to that of the Bond Girls in the 007 film series. EVA reappears in Portable Ops as a recruitable character by completing a series of non-canon optional missions.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, which is set 50 years after the events of MGS3, she appears under the identity of Big Mama as the leader of a resistance movement against The Patriots. It's revealed that she was fired from her job as a spy by PLA Intelligence after the microfilm she brought to her superiors turned out to be a fake. She was expelled from China and spent years on the run. She met Big Boss again in 1971 when he rescued her in Hanoi, Vietnam, and he invited her to become part of the Patriots. She later became the surrogate mother who gave birth to Solid Snake and Liquid Snake, and though she was not his true biological mother, she nonetheless thought of Snake as her own son. She assists Solid Snake in Eastern Europe, ultimately dying due to coming into contact with the FOXDIE virus carried in Snake's body.

Major Zero
Major Zero, also known as Major Tom, is introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3 as the commanding officer of the FOX unit, who communicates with Naked Snake (Big Boss) via the radio. In Portable Ops, he is supposedly arrested by the Pentagon after being convicted for the FOX unit's revolt, but is "exonerated" after the events of the game.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, he is revealed to be the founder of The Patriots along with Big Boss. However, a fallout between the two causes Zero to plot Big Boss's demise through the use of his clone son, Solid Snake. He appears in the ending as a 105-year-old vegetable in a wheelchair. He dies in the final scene of the game after Big Boss cuts off his oxygen supply.

N. S. Sokolov
Dr. Nicholai Stephanovich Sokolov is the rocket scientist who develops the Shagohod, the featured tank in Metal Gear Solid 3. He is captured by Colonel Volgin, who forced him to complete the weapon, and seemingly dies off-screen after he is tortured for trying to escape. Despite his apparent death, he appears in Portable Ops as an informant named Ghost, revealing that he survived Volgin's torture and escaped to the U.S. with the help of the new FOX unit commander Gene. He builds the first Metal Gear model, the ICBMG, a quadrupedal model.

FOXHOUND
High-Tech Special Forces Unit FOXHOUND (ハイテク特殊部隊フォックスハウンド) is a US Army elite special forces unit that has appeared in numerous forms throughout the Metal Gear series. FOXHOUND was formed during the 1990s according to the original Metal Gear (later revised to 1971 in Metal Gear Solid 3) to cope with local revolutions, regional complications, and global terrorist activities. This unit specializes in black ops, carrying out top-secret operations within "unauthorized" combat zones which are too politically-sensitive to intervene in through conventional means. In the original Metal Gear, FOXHOUND is led by Big Boss (the team's commanding officer), with Solid Snake and Gray Fox serving as field operatives, although Big Boss betrays the unit in the end of the game. Roy Campbell, the unit's executive officer, becomes the new commanding officer in Metal Gear 2, with him, drill instructor Master Miller and military strategist George Kasler forming part of Snake's support crew in the game.

In Metal Gear Solid, Snake and Campbell are already retired from FOXHOUND and the unit turns rogue under the leadership of Liquid Snake, with five other members involved in the terrorist activity. Although the unit is disbanded by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden is led to believe that he is serving a newly-reinstated FOXHOUND under the command of "The Colonel" (an A.I. representation of Colonel Campbell controlled by The Patriots).

The FOX unit, a precursor to FOXHOUND led by Major Zero, is introduced in Metal Gear Solid 3 as the special forces unit Naked Snake (Big Boss) belonged to prior to forming FOXHOUND. The FOX unit turns renegade in Portable Ops under the leadership of Gene, leading to Naked Snake and his new partner Roy Campbell to form their own team of specialists, which forms the foundation of FOXHOUND.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Meryl's squad, Rat Patrol Team 01 sport the FOXHOUND logo as a team emblem. The emblem is used purely out of nostalgia as the squad has no official attachment with FOXHOUND.

Outside the Metal Gear canon, FOXHOUND is mentioned in Snatcher as a military unit that JUNKER Chief Benson Cunningham previously served; and in Policenauts as Meryl's former unit (the character being the basis for the Meryl in Metal Gear Solid, has a paint tattoo of the team's original logo).

The Patriots
The Patriots (愛国者達),are a secret cabal, revealed in Metal Gear Solid 2, that control the United States of America. The group is initially revealed as an inner circle consisting of twelve people known as the The Wisemen's Committee (賢人会議). After Snake becomes a public hero in the aftermath of the Shadow Moses incident, the Patriots begin a smear campaign against him and frame him for blowing up an oil tanker in New York, and, according to Emma Emmerich, were responsible for fixing the Y2K problem. They initiate the construction of Arsenal Gear, and its A.I. GW, in order to censor the flow of digital information, and manipulate the events of the story through their trusted agent Revolver Ocelot. At the game's end, Snake acquires a disk containing the identities of the Wisemen's Committee and in the post-credits ending, Otacon examines the disk, stating that one of their number was a major supporter of Philanthropy, and that all twelve had been dead for "about a hundred years."

In Metal Gear Solid 3, the Wisemen's Committee are actually the founding members of The Philosophers (賢者達), a preceding organization which was formed at the end of World War II when the leaders of the United States, China and Bolshevik Russia entered a secret pact with a stated purpose of pooling money to rebuild countries affected by the war. After the original Wisemen died during the 1930s, their followers began fighting amongst themselves to inherit "The Philosophers' Legacy", a fund left by the original members, which becomes the central plot of MGS3. In the ending timeline, it is mentioned that the Patriots was formed by the American branch of The Philosophers after accumulating the missing fund.

Nevertheless, the ending of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops reveals that Ocelot was ordered by a mysterious man to "end" the American Philosophers. Ocelot kills his former employer, the DCI, and obtains documents containing the identities of the Philosophers, as well as the locations of their funds. The mysterious man contacts Ocelot and invites him to form part of his new organization, the Patriots. Ocelot agrees under the condition that Big Boss joins the organization as well.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, the mysterious man is identified as Major Zero, who formed the organization with Big Boss and Ocelot, along with EVA, Sigint and Para-Medic. The organization was formed to fulfill The Boss's ideal of a unified world. However, Zero, Para-Medic and Sigint eventually grew too powerful and greedy. A fallout between Zero and Big Boss occurred due to each of them interpreting The Boss's will differently. Zero took the concept to mean control of the entire world by a group, to ensure unification. Big Boss believed that The Boss wanted a world where soldiers were not used as tools by the government. These differences led to the group being split into two factions: with Ocelot and EVA on Big Boss's side; and Sigint and Para-Medic working for Zero. Para-Medic is revealed to be Dr. Clark (although in Metal Gear Solid, Naomi refers to Dr. Clark as "he", but this was as a result of a translation error from the original Japanese. In the MGS database, this is rectified by stating that Naomi never met Dr. Clark, nor knew her gender), a character mentioned in Metal Gear Solid, who was killed by the Cyborg Ninja prior to the events of that game. Sigint became the DARPA Chief, a minor character in Metal Gear Solid who was killed by Ocelot. (According to EVA—later called Big Mama—both killings were intentionally done for the "pro-Big Boss" faction.) By the time of Metal Gear Solid 4, Zero is in a vegetative state, and the Patriots now consist of four computer AIs: GW, TJ, TR and AL (named after the U.S. Presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln), all controlled by a fifth proxy AI named JD (John Doe). Zero created these AIs to carry out his own will, due to his increasing age and his skepticism that human subordinates would be unable to do so. During the events of MGS2, the fourth AI, GW is completed. Over time, the system evolved from simply maintaining economic and political systems into creating an entirely new world order, one which is based on war economies, something not even Zero himself envisioned.

The Patriots' network is shut down by a computer worm that used GW as a conduit to access the others created by Naomi and Sunny. With the deaths of Zero and Big Boss during the game's surprise epilogue (from the FoxDie virus), the Patriots' demise is ensured and Big Boss realized that The Boss's dream was meant as words of wisdom as opposed to Zero's or Big Boss's original interpretations.