Metal Gear Solid‘s bandana-furrowing Snake is teaming up with Splinter Cell‘s Sam Fisher and the rest of Rainbow Six Siege‘s roster as the tactical shooter’s newest operator. After teasing the collaboration earlier this year, Ubisoft finally pulled back the curtain with a reveal trailer that has the two heavyweights of video game espionage bro-ing out before taking down some baddies.
The Solid Snake Operator arrives in R6 Siege with Operation Silent Hunt in the new season on March 3. One of the big questions facing the crossover was whether David Hayter, the original voice of Konami’s protagonist (created by Hideo Kojima) would be returning for such a weird and unexpected side project. The new trailer reveals that the answer is “yes.” Fans are relieved but wish Sam Fisher could have been voiced by a returning Michael Ironside as well. Still not in the budget, apparently.
Here’s the R6 Siege‘s version of Solid Snake in action:
The reveal trailer shows Snake doing Snake stuff like hiding around corners and taking enemies out with a silenced weapon before sending in a smoke grenade and handing out takedowns. Sam Fisher pops up at the end, the two embrace Predator-style, and Snake quips about “soldiers like us” never getting a moment’s rest as a new alert pops up on his pager.
Rainbow Six Siege currently has over 70 operators with Sam Fisher, codenamed “Zero,” added all the way back in 2020 as part of Operation Shadow Legacy. Outside of playable characters, the shooter’s past crossover collaborations have included everything from Assassin’s Creed and Resident Evil to Tomb Raider and Halo. It’s not Fortnite levels of branded content but, like the people behind all modern live-service games, Siege‘s developers at some point realized how much more money there is in licensed cosmetics than in-universe kits.
Snake’s arrival is perfectly timed to take advantage of excitement over last year’s Snake Eater remake and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 remaster via the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, coming in August. While it’s not clear yet if Konami will ever give Snake a new adventure, the franchise is alive and well on modern platforms. The same can’t necessarily be said for Splinter Cell. A remake is still MIA and it’s been over a decade since Blacklist came out.
