Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 removed from digital sale (for now)

If you were planning to grab Metal Gear Solid 2 or 3 on a digital storefront, you’ll have to wait — they’ve been temporarily removed from sale. This affects multiple versions of the games across a variety of platforms.

As announced by Konami, a “temporary decision” was made to remove the pair of stealth games. This is apparently due to their use of historical footage, for which Konami is “currently working on renewing the licenses.” As such, many versions of MGS 2 and 3 are unavailable as of November 8. There’s no word on when they’ll make a return, but Konami will surely announce that in time as well. Physical editions are unaffected by this suspension of sale, although those may be hard to find right now.

The full list of games removed from sale is quite long. PlayStation 3 and PS Vita are losing MGS 2: Sons of Liberty HD Edition, MGS 3: Snake Eater HD Edition, and MGS 1 HD Edition. The MGS HD Collection is being dropped from PlayStation Now. Xbox 360 is losing MGS HD Edition: 2 & 3, while the 3DS version of Snake Eater is also going away. GOG.com will de-list MGS 2 Subsistence, and the Nvidia Shield will lose MGS 2 HD and MGS 3 HD.

It’s unclear how this will affect the rumored Metal Gear Solid 3 remake, especially since that game has yet to be officially announced. Hopefully, any official reveal isn’t delayed by this process.