10 Bullsh*t Video Game Deaths You Just Had To Live With

Metal Gear Solid isn’t a series to deal in simple notions of heroes and villains. Is Solid Snake an all-out Good Guy™, like Super Mario? Absolutely not.

Multi-faceted characters, shades of grey, anti-heroes and double/triple agents are the Metal Gear Solid way. One of the saddest losses in the series is that of Gray Fox, Snake’s long-time ally/enemy/ally again (Facebook’s ‘It’s Complicated’ relationship status was made for these two).

In the context of the PS1 classic, Snake first sees the mysterious Cyborg Ninja in action after the boss battle with Revolver Ocelot. The player then directly fights him in Otacon’s lab, with Snake only realizing afterwards that it’s Gray Fox.

During the climatic battle with Metal Gear Rex, Fox pops up again, distracting pilot Liquid Snake and damaging the machine. In the process, he confesses that he was the killer of Naomi’s parents and raised her in an attempt to make amends, before finally and slowly perishing at the hands of Rex.

His demise is made all the more painful by the fact that Liquid taunts Snake throughout, trying to goad him into firing a missile that would engulf both Liquid and the mortally wounded Fox.

Even if the player presses the button to fire, Snake cannot do it, expressing emotion that we so rarely see from him. When Liquid finally crushes the stricken warrior beneath Rex’s great metallic foot, we feel Snake’s grief.