Game news Metal Gear Solid 2: the legendary E3 2000 trailer remastered in 4K thanks to artificial intelligence
It goes without saying that Metal Gear Solid has played a very large part in developing the video game, and in particular the genre of infiltration. A great series led by a certain Hideo Kojima, whose second opus had marked many minds at the time: while it had not yet been released, it was entitled to a trailer during its participation at… E3 2000. It is precisely this same trailer that interests us today, 21 years later.
A cult trailer that spans the ages
Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty is a cult title for many reasons: not only because it surprised all the players who tried it with a legendary twist as soon as the prologue was over, and also because it took the genre of infiltration even further than the first one had done. MGS. It was also an app that praised the performance of the PlayStation 2, at a time when the Sony machine had yet to prove itself despite the growing popularity of the famous Japanese brand. To excite the community, Konami had therefore released a long trailer during E3 2000, which quickly established itself as one of the cult trailers in the video game industry.
This then illustrated the game with many gameplay extracts: It was both a technical showcase, showing off the game’s engine and the capabilities of the PS2, and a staging demonstration. Kojima having always been a proclaimed fan of cinema, we then found elements directly inspired by the great action and spy films of the Seventh Art, all in-engine. In addition, Metal Gear Solid 2 then displayed its countless gameplay possibilities, very impressive at the time, in addition to a solid history still based on the nuclear conflict with the maturity that can be found there.
A trailer available in 4K… thanks to artificial intelligence
More than two decades later, it is Digital foundry which lent itself to an original exercise: remaster this legendary video… in 4K. The problem is that it was not, at the time, disseminated on the internet and was mainly propagated by physical means, in particular with the discs provided by the various paper magazines. The site therefore first of all sought the best possible quality of the trailer, which was found on a DVD in Japan with a 60 FPS file and 480i stream… Or 240 lines only.
In other words, to upgrade this anthological video to 4K (so 2,160 lines, that is to say!), It was necessary to use a very powerful tool. Digital Foundry therefore relied on Topaz Video Enhance AI, software backed up by solid artificial intelligence which includes an option to rework images from DVDs. The result is final since the trailer is then sublimated and, although some elements are not intended to be displayed with such clarity, the whole is more than satisfactory.
Note that two days ago, Hideo Kojima himself Express on the potential of these AIs, which he considers as a part of the future for remastering. According to him, over time, there are better and better algorithms and always more reliable to considerably improve content, improving the quality of textures, increasing the rate of frames per second and faithfully restoring colors. “There wouldn’t even be a need for developers to remake games”says the man behind Death Stranding.
The trailer in question for Metal Gear Solid 2 is available below, from 6 minutes and 38 seconds: do not forget to activate the resolution in 4K, if your screen and your internet connection allow it.
