Summary
Metal Gearis a strange series. It has a convoluted plot with many issues and retcons and plays fast and loose with history. Yet, it also has a keen attention to detail that even die-hard fans may be unaware of. Those floating platforms the Soviets had inMetal Gear Solid 3were real, as was the Arsenal Ship project mentioned inMetal Gear Solid 2’s backstory.
Real people from historyplayed their part in the series, albeit largely off-screen. The games also use real historical events to drive the plot forward or flesh out a character’s role in the story. Obviously, the World Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., are part of the series, but less famous events also played a part in Metal Gear’s history.
Updated July 21, 2025 by David Heath:Metal Gear’s timeline is bizarre enough without weaving real historical events into it. They could’ve made up similar but different events to shape its plot and characters, but the way it uses history helps add to its strange blending of reality and fiction. Giant, nuke-launching, walking mechs aren’t viable in a military setting (Sigint in MGS3 even mocks the idea), but the real organizations connected to them, like DARPA, and the strange but actually real tech that was made almost make it believable.
So, this list has been updated with more events that have affected both Metal Gear and the real world, along with how they differ. As meticulous as creator Hideo Kojima and his team were, they still took artistic license with the details. Otherwise, the games wouldn’t be as bombastic and dramatic as they are.
1The Bykivnia Graves, Kurapaty Graves, & Katyn Forest Massacre
1937-1943, Soviet Union
Using real atrocities as dressing for acackling villain’s backstoryfeels gauche, but sinceMGS3’s Colonel Volgin was a part of the NKVD, it’s inescapable. The NKVD was the Soviet Union’s secret police and a predecessor to the more notorious KGB. They were responsible for Josef Stalin’s great purge, and killing off suspected anti-communist parties for the USSR.
TheBykivnia Gravesin Ukraine commemorate the 30,000 killed in its nearby woods. Meanwhile, theKurapaty Gravesis a memorial for the 250,000+ killed in the Belarusian forest from 1937 to 1941. The most infamous is theKatyn Forest Massacrewhen the Nazis discovered 22,000 bodies in mass graves when pressing through Polish territory in 1943. TheMetal Gearseries doesn’t go in-depth on their horrors, beyond mentioning that a young Volgin developed his sadism by taking part in the killings.
2The Manhattan Project
1942-1946, United States
This list aims to avoid large-scale events like the World Wars since they’re rather obvious inclusions. Yetthe Manhattan Projecthas played such a huge part in the series that it’s unavoidable. The project saw the US develop the first atomic bombs, ending World War 2 and ushering in the nuclear age. Within theMGScanon, the Boss tried to assassinate one of its key leads, John von Neumann, based on bad intel. But she was stopped in her tracks by a bullet to the head.
She survived, and her recovery inspired the Peace Walker project, where one of its AI brains could take over for the other if it was damaged. Otacon’s grandfather also worked on the bomb, and his father was born on the day of the Hiroshima bombing, disabled from a birth defect produced by radiation exposure. ThenMGS5revealed some of its uranium was mined by Code Talker’s fellow Navajo, and some were taken from Shikolobwe Mine in the Congo, where CIPHER got its yellowcake. Name anMGgame, and there will be some details linking it back to this project.
3The Kyshtym Disaster
1957, Soviet Union
Before Chernobyl,the Kyshtym Disasterwas the worst radioactive disaster in history. The area around Ozersk (now Ozyorsk) was already heavily irradiated thanks to pollution from the Mayak plutonium plant. But an explosion at the plant in 1957 covered the whole city in radioactive elements. As a result, most of Ozersk’s population was evacuated over the following two years.
But that didn’t save them from suffering from radiation sickness, birth defects, and more. InMGS: Portable Ops, this disaster was the reason Elisa developed psychic powers as her family evacuated. However, it was further experimentation in East Germany that produced ‘Ursula,’ her second personality that has stronger powers at the cost of her emotions.
4ARPA/DARPA
1958, United States
The Cold War was called such because the two superpowers, the US and USSR, didn’t outright start bombing each other. The fear of mutually assured destruction from nuclear weapons kept them in a decades-long struggle of passive aggression and espionage, with tensions occasionally rising to threaten a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the early 1980s. But the battle between the two sides caused sparks on other fronts.
In the wake of the USSR launching Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, the US established the Advanced Research Projects Agency, orARPA. It later gained a “D” for “Defense” in 1972 to becomeDARPA. They developed the earliest form of the internet in ARPANET and played a part in developing weather satellites, drones, voice recognition software, etc.They’re also directly and indirectly behind much of the tech in theMGSseries, from Metal Gear REX to Bladewolf, and Dr. Strangelove’s start in AI to Code Talker’s parasite research.
5The Sandinistas
1961-Present, Nicaragua
The Sandinistas National Liberation Front, orSandinistasfor short, were far-left, eventually successful revolutionaries. Named after August Sandino, who rebelled against the US occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s, they did the same with the US-backed conservative Somoza regime. Amanda led a group of them inPW, where they were hounded by the US Peace Sentinels and supported by the KGB until they met Big Boss.
In both history andMGS, the Sandinistas overthrew the last Somoza president, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and took control of Nicaragua. They spent the following years fighting off the Iran-Contras, working against (and committing) electoral interference, and killing the nation’s native tribes alongside suspected dissidents. Whether Amanda took part in that isn’t known.
6The Rhodesian Bush War
1964-1979, Zimbabwe, Southeast Africa
In 1960, UK Prime Minister Harold McMillan declared the country would grant their African colonies independence if the majority of their people voted for it. The largely white Rhodesian government, fearing it would lead to chaos, declared independence. This set them at odds with rival African Nationalist groups, like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), who sought political reform on their own terms. This three-way conflict has since become known asthe Rhodesian Bush War.
InMGS, Grey Fox entered the conflict shortly before its end in 1979, where he killed a pair of civilians, but couldn’t bring himself to finish off their child too. Finding her half-starved by the Zambezi River, he adopted her as his little sister in a bid to soothe his guilty conscience. But he still cut her off from her past. As a result, she grew up to become Naomi Hunter, a geneticist who got into the subject in a bid to rediscover her roots.
7Yukio Mishima’s Failed Coup D’Etat
1970, Japan
Famous for writingThe Temple of the Golden Pavilionand theSea of Fertilitytetralogy, and for being a right-wing reactionary,Yukio Mishimais one of Japan’s most iconic literary geniuses. Yet, he’s more infamous for trying to overthrow the Japanese government by taking the commandant of Camp Ichigaya hostage and attempting to rally its troops to his side. When they heckled him instead, he committed seppuku.
According toMGS: Peace Walker,one of the troopers in the crowd was Kazuhira Miller. Already disillusioned with the Japanese Self-Defense Force, Mishima’s remarks about the troop’s loss of their “samurai spirit” were the last straw. He left the JSDF and became a mercenary, where he met Big Boss two years later.
8Angolan Civil War
1975-2002, Angola, Southern Africa
Some wars in history aren’t continual states of conflict. They can be a series of skirmishes that get lumped together because the “peacetime” between them was too short and too tense. TheAngolan Civil Warhad the occasional truce before its end. The two sides, the MPLA and UNITA, had fought together for Angola’s independence in the past but had different views on how to run the nation afterward.
The MPLA government had Marxist-Leninist views and was backed by the USSR and Cuba. UNITA became anti-communist conservatives backed by the US and Apartheid South Africa. It wasn’t until after the fall of the Soviet Union that the war incorporated PMCs (private military companies), butMetal Gear Solid 5saw its own fictional PMCs popping up to support one side or another in 1984.
9The Mozambican Civil War
1977-1992, Mozambique, Southeast Africa
Following the end of the Rhodesian Bush War, leading to the establishment of modern-day Zimbabwe, Grey Fox and Naomi crossed over the border into Mozambique, where he got work fighting inthe Mozambican Civil War. He fought for the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), which opposed the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) and their attempts to establish a socialist one-party state. The conflict ended in 1992, but tensions between the two sides remained high.
At some point, Fox was caught by FRELIMO forces and tortured, where his ears and nose were cut off in the process. He was rescued by Big Boss, who took him and Naomi back to the US for treatment. Once Fox underwent reconstructive surgery, he and Big Boss went back to continue the fight. There isn’t a set date for these events beyond it being in the 1980s, but Fox was back in North America by 1988. It would be nice to think this happened in 1984, showing what Big Boss was doing while his doppelgänger was on the other side of the continent in Angola.
10Soviet-Afghan War
1979-1989, Soviet Union & Afghanistan
Fans will be familiar withthe Soviet-Afghan Warsince it’s whereMGS5truly starts. Initially meant to back the country’s DRA regime, the Soviets’ war against the Mujahideen rebels essentially became their equivalent of Vietnam. They spent over a decade in the country fighting to back a government friendly to their interests, only to be beaten by guerrillas who knew the terrain better. Only here, the Mujahideen were backed by the CIA, with even Hollywood movies likeThe Living DaylightsandRambo 3promoting their cause.
This would bite the US back though. Many rebels would eventually become part of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, leading to America’s own messy campaign in the War on Terror decades later.MGS5isn’t any different, as the Diamond Dogs’ missions frequently aid the rebels against the Russians. Before that game’s release, it was where Revolver Ocelot gained his ‘Shalashaska’ nickname, and whereMetal Gear 2’s Holly White began her reporting career.
