Game Over is a traditional message in video games which usually signals the game has ended with a negative outcome, and that the player has failed to satisfy the conditions of a complete game. Usually, the player will be given an option to continue from a former save point, or to quit the game.

Usage in the Metal Gear series

The usage of "Game Over" varies throughout the Metal Gear series. Sometimes a Game Over is accompanied by a cutscene, such as when Solid Snake trips the laser beams in the Tank Hangar on Shadow Moses Island, getting caught by the Marines in the Tanker Holds, and when Naked Snake cannot finish the fight with The Boss in the 10 minute time limit. Most of the time, the player will be given a screen that states "game over" or "Mission Failed", accompanied with a musical cue.

The Metal Gear games developed a running gag where if the player reaches the Game Over screen, the player character's teammates will shout for them get up and continue their mission. The Metal Gear series is notorious for breaking the fourth wall, and has exploited the Game Over screen in several game events.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

• Master Miller tells Solid Snake to not picture the Game Over screen, but to instead visualize how happy he'll be once the mission is complete.

Metal Gear Solid

• If Snake kills Kenneth Baker before/during the boss fight with Revolver Ocelot or if Snake approaches Baker during the fight (causing the C4's to explode, killing the ArmsTech president), Ocelot will shout "You idiot!" to Snake.
• If Meryl Silverburgh is killed by Snake, Colonel Campbell will call Snake and asks what happened to Meryl.
  • If Meryl dies in the Psycho Mantis fight, the latter will call Snake a stupid fool and laughs. Snake then kneels in front of Meryl's corpse, screams her name out in anguish, and the Game Over screen occurs.
• If the player dies in the torture room, Liquid Snake will berate Ocelot for "doing it again" (i.e. accidentally killing Snake like he did the DARPA Chief in the torture room) with Ocelot apologizing to his boss. This is the only time in the game where the player does not have an option to continue, and the only way to do so is to load the player's last save file.
  • If one pays attention carefully, Mei Ling will call Snake after the first Sniper Wolf boss fight and asks Snake that "wouldn't now be a good time to save [his] mission".
• When the bomb explodes while still in Snake's inventory, or he gets caught in the lethal explosion upon throwing it away, Ocelot will laugh maniacally.
• When time runs out in the fistfight between Solid Snake and Liquid atop REX, the whole Supply Route will explode with the latter maniacally laughing himself indicating that Liquid survived the ordeal.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

• Sons of Liberty is unique for having different Game Over screens for Snake and Raiden individually.
• In the Tanker chapter, if Snake dies, the Game Over screen similar to the original Metal Gear Solid appears with Otacon crying out for Snake to get up realizing that Snake is already dead. However, the fonts for "Continue" and "Exit" are different.
• During the Tanker chapter, if Snake gets spotted during the speech about Metal Gear RAY, he will be taken into custody, triggering an automatic Game Over.
• The Snake Tales story External Gazer plays on the idea of failing a mission. Due to parallel universes converging and mixing with the normal world caused by the Koppelthorn Engine, every time the player "restarts" or "quits" a game, an unfathomable number of parallel universes are destroyed in the process.
• In the Plant chapter, if Emma Emmerich dies during Raiden's mission to escort her, the game will instantly end. If she dies by enemy fire or drowning, Otacon (or Raiden) will cry out her name, but if Raiden killed her himself, his allies will be horrified and severely scold Raiden.
• During the unreality segment of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the game will switch to the "Mission Failed" screen during the player's death. However, there will instead be the phrase "Fission Mailed" in the corner. In addition, the window on the screen that normally shows Raiden's dead body will instead have regular gameplay.
  • The Colonel will tell Raiden to turn the game console off at one point, for the reason that the mission is a failure when it is clearly not (a reference to the original Metal Gear).
  • If the player ends up killing Solid Snake during the gameplay sequence after reuniting with the latter, the Colonel will sometimes be heard laughing derisively.^[1]
• Although not an actual game over, if the player calls Emma Emmerich while she's resisting accompanying Raiden due to fear of sea lice, she'll sometimes say "Bug!" in the same manner as the famous game over phrase.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

• A Fake Death Pill is provided for the player to use that, when taken, shows the Game Over screen, though the player can still access items and revive themselves. This can be used to inflict additional damage on unsuspecting enemies that now believe Naked Snake is dead, but can only be used a few times.
  • This, however, does not work on The Boss, as she will demand that Naked Snake wake up, and deals heavy damage to him during their fight to rouse him.
• As Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a prequel, the text of the Game Over screen switches from "Snake is Dead" to "Time Paradox". It can be cancelled by using a Revival Pill after the boss fight with The Sorrow, or after Snake uses the Fake Death Pill. The player must use the Revival Pill before the text switches to Time Paradox, otherwise it will cause actual death in-game.
  • Certain game over conditions such as killing Ocelot or EVA causes Roy Campbell to berate Snake for disrupting the timeline.
  • By killing Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov during the Virtuous Mission, the Game Over screen's text remains "Mission Failed" and Major Zero will call Snake to comment instead.
• When playing the game on the European Extreme difficulty, if Snake is detected by a single enemy, it will result in an instant Game Over, and the Mission Failed screen will appear.
• If any guard sees Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov's corpse during Snake's first time in Groznyj Grad, then the Mission Failed screen will be shown, as Snake will be unable to disguise himself as Raikov due to Raikov's corpse being exposed to the guards.
• During the main encounter with The Sorrow, Naked Snake can call his teammates using his radio, only to hear them shout his name as though he had died.
• In the Shagohod hangar, if any guard or maintenance crew member witnesses Snake planting a C3 explosive on one of the liquid fuel tanks, the PA announcement will announce that C3 explosives were located on the liquid fuel tank and that all non-EOD personnel were called to hangar, thus resulting in the Mission Failed screen to appear.
• If Snake fails to defeat Volgin in the first 5 minutes of the fight, then the C3 explosives will detonate, destroying the hangar, and causing the Game Over screen to appear.
• If Snake fails to defeat The Boss in 10 minutes, then a special cutscene will play, showing the MiGs bombing Rokovoj Bereg, killing both Snake and The Boss, and resulting in the Game Over screen to appear.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

• Continuing after a game over will allow the player to optionally contact Rosemary and tell her about strange feelings he is having of "dying once already", followed by him telling her how he "died" in his mind. Uniquely, if the player died in an explosion, Rosemary tells Snake that she dreamed that he died in that manner.
• If Snake dies while fighting Screaming Mantis, strings appear attached to his body, as if he is a puppet to the player.
• If the player dies during Snake's return to Shadow Moses, the "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" is played in the background.
• If the player gets a game over in Act 5, the "Exit" option will switch between "Exit" and "Exist" whenever the screen flashes with static. If the player selects "Exist," Liquid Ocelot will say "Brother, it's not over, not yet!" instead of sending the player back to the main menu.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

• Besides the characters calling for Snake, there is a small chance several voice actors - such as David Hayter, Tara Strong, Antony Del Rio, or Vanessa Marshall - will hum the Game Over sound.
• Although technically not an actual Game Over, The Boss AI in the climax of Chapter 4 will say Jack's name in a similar manner to the Game Over sequence upon all the memory boards being pulled out mixed with static.
• If the player overhears Miller talking in his sleep in the Extra Ops mission "Date Kaz" in Peace Walker, Miller will say "Snake...answer me, Snake...Snaaake!", although only the first four words are spoken audibly.^[2]
• If Snake fails the missions "Date With Paz" or "Date With Kaz", Paz or Kazuhira Miller (depending on whose date the player is on), the specified character will storm off the beach, and Snake will call out their name during the Mission Failed screen.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

• If Venom Snake kills a Diamond Dog soldier while on Mother Base by throwing them off the platform into the ocean, throwing them off a high enough ledge that kills them or running them over with one of the parked four-wheel drives lying around, a horrified Ocelot will shout "Boss, have you lost your mind?! Maybe you're not the Big Boss we hoped for after all." when the Game Over screen appears.
• If Snake either deliberately kills or destroys a person or object he was assigned to extract safely or otherwise accidentally kills/destroys them due to their being caught in the crossfire of an enemy, Miller will angrily ask what he was thinking.
• In any of the missions that has the [TOTAL STEALTH] handicap, if Snake is detected by an enemy and doesn't subdue them quickly, then the mission will instantly fail. Also, instead of the default game over theme playing, it will play a remixed version of the Game Over theme from Metal Gear Solid.
• If a child soldier is killed at any point during a mission that features them, it will automatically end in failure on the spot, with Miller saying "Boss, you killed a child...? I'm aborting this mission." or "Boss, they're just kids...what did you do? The mission is a failure."
• If Snake either dies during or fails to complete an FOB mission in time, a disappointed Miller will say "Infiltration failed... Are you hurt? Try a little harder next time."
• If Ishmael dies during Prologue: Awakening and Mission 46: [TRUTH] The Man Who Sold The World, the game will end in failure on the spot, with the Game Over screen also reading "Time Paradox".
• In Prologue: Awakening, Mission 20: Voices, and Mission 46: [TRUTH] The Man Who Sold The World, if Snake allows the Man on Fire to grab ahold of him, the Man on Fire will instantly kill Snake by immolating his entire body, causing an instant mission failure.
• In Mission 1: Phantom Limbs, Miller can die in two ways: If Snake kills him himself, or if three in-game days pass before securing him.
  • If Snake kills Miller himself, Ocelot ask Snake if he had a problem with Miller, before declaring the target dead and the mission failed.
  • If three days pass, Miller will be unresponsive when the player reaches him and Snake will scream in anguish, with Ocelot stating that he died from blood loss due to his injuries. In both cases, the Game Over screen will read "Time Paradox" instead.
• In Mission 6: Where Do the Bees Sleep?, if Snake allows the Honey Bee to be taken by the Soviets, then a cutscene shows them loading the Honey Bee inside of a helicopter and flying away, thus failing the mission and Miller disappointingly saying "We've lost the target. Mission failed."
• If Huey Emmerich dies in Mission 12: Hellbound, the mission will end in failure with a Time Paradox.
  • Also, when in the helicopter with Huey Emmerich, if Snake fails to shoot down Sahelanthropus when it makes a giant leap towards them, Sahelanthropus will destroy the helicopter, resulting in an instant mission failure.
• In Mission 16: Traitors' Caravan and its extreme variant in Mission 37, if Snake doesn't extract the transport truck in time, then a cutscene shows it being loaded onto a riverboat as it drives down the Munene River, resulting in a mission failure and Miller saying "Damn it, too late. Mission failed." and "...Mission failed, Boss..." at the Game Over screen.
  • If Snake destroys the transport truck himself, then the mission will fail instantly and Miller will say "Boss, the truck you just destroyed was the target. Mission failed."
• If Eli dies in Mission 23: The White Mamba, the mission will end in failure with a Time Paradox.
• If Code Talker dies in Mission 28: Code Talker and its extreme variant in Mission 48, the mission will end in failure, with Miller saying "Code Talker is dead. Now there's no hope in saving the infected..."
• In Mission 29: Metallic Archaea, after dealing with the Skulls, if the helicopter with Ocelot in it is destroyed, then the mission will end in failure with a Time Paradox, with Miller angrily exclaiming "You just killed Ocelot!"
• In Mission 35: Cursed Legacy, if Snake fails to extract Code Talker's research materials in time, then a helicopter flies in and takes the container containing Code Talker's research materials, resulting in an instant mission failure.
• If Quiet dies in Mission 45: A Quiet Exit, the mission will end in failure, with Ocelot, in a despondent manner, saying "Quiet's dead...we've failed the objective...we failed her."

Other Games and Media

The Metal Gear-style Game Over phrase (screaming Snake's name three times, with the last one being drawn out) has been referenced in at least three other video games.

• In Final Fantasy X-2, where Rikku will say a similar phrase to the above when fighting a recoil or a similar enemy.
• In Metroid: Other M, where Adam Malkovich, if Samus dies, will say Samus' name in a similar style to the Metal Gear game over sequence.
• In Batman: Arkham Knight, where Joker (or rather, a hallucination of him) will have his hand over his ear mirroring the Codec, and then say "Bats? Bats?! BAAATS!!" during one of that game's game over sequences^[3] Coincidentally, Tara Strong, who provided the voices of Elisa and Ursula and Paz Ortega Andrade in the Metal Gear series, provided the voice of Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2 and Harley Quinn in Batman: Arkham Knight.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

• Solid Snake can make Codec calls to one of his three support group members (Roy Campbell, Mei Ling, and Otacon), or Slippy Toad from the Star Fox series, and if he is knocked out during the conversation, they will shout for him to rise again. All of those can be heard in the original Metal Gear Solid series, with the exception of Slippy’s line, for obvious reasons.
• When fighting Luigi, in the middle of the conservation, Roy Campbell will start acting strangely. Snake's response is, "Colonel, snap out of it! Colonel! COOOOOOOOLONEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL!"
• During a conversation about Pit (from the video game series Kid Icarus), Snake and Otacon will talk about Pit's trials and experiences equating to Game Overs and how Snake probably knows all about those situations.
• The audience's in-game cheer for Snake in a match parodies the Game Over screen (i.e. "Snake! Snake! SNAAAAAAAAKKKKEEEEE!!!").

Versus Battle

The Fission Mailed screen from Metal Gear Solid 2 and the typical Game Over sequence were later placed onto Versus Battle, where they fought each other.

References