Metal Gear Solid 2 gets 1st and 3rd-person camera mods

The stealth classic Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was the last AAA stealth game to rely on fixed camera angles, but what if it had a third-person camera like the Subsistence re-release of Metal Gear Solid 3 or future games in the series/genre? Thanks to the MGSHDFix mod pack for the Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection available on Steam, you no longer have to imagine this. The entirety of MGS2 is now playable with modern first or third-person camera controls, albeit with a few legacy fixed camera angle switches kept for specific areas or cutscenes. 

For players turned off by fixed camera angles or those who just like the immersive feel of modern camera controls, though, these new mod features add a lot to the Sons of Liberty experience.

Interestingly, this feature isn't actually 100% fan-made. While the original release of Sons of Liberty and its Substance re-release on PlayStation 2 had no considerations of now-standardized modern camera controls, the Bluepoint-developed HD Collection for PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 upon which The Master Collection is based actually does contain code indicating these features were considered but ultimately scrapped for that release. This information was revealed by a recent leak of Metal Gear Solid 2 HD Edition's source code, which revealed several scrapped pieces of MGS2 from both the original release and Bluepoint's HD Collection remaster. 

Prior to knowledge of the scrapped camera modes in the HD Collection release, a mod for the PC version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance called SoS (Substance of Subsistence) also offered a fully fan-made third-person camera based on MGS3: Subsistence, though unlike the version of the mod via MGSHDFix and the Master Collection, it was fully custom and reverse-engineered instead of being based on official code remnants.

In any case, mods for both PC releases of Sons of Liberty now fully support a third-person camera mode, and the newer MGSHDFix mod pack also allows for the game to be fully played in first-person, which the SoS mod did not include. For series fans eager to revisit MGS2, this mod (and the several other fixes and improvements offered by MGSHDFix) are sure to be a treat.