Sniper Wolf

Sniper Wolf was one of the renegade members of FOXHOUND who participated in the 2005 revolt on Shadow Moses Island, along with the Next-Generation Special Forces. She was a Kurdish sharpshooter who had a great love for wolves and dogs.

Early life and career
"I was born on a battlefield. Raised on a battlefield. Gunfire, sirens and screams... They were my lullabies..."

- Sniper Wolf to Solid Snake

Sniper Wolf was born in Iraqi Kurdistan sometime after the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War, yet she grew up in a zone of military conflict. She was constantly being hunted and always had to move from one shelter to another on a regular basis, hiding from the Iraqi regime. When she would wake up from sleep, she would often find one of her friends or family dead beside her, and prayed that she would make it through each day. The international community did nothing to help her or stop the fighting, which made her hate the political world.

Wolf was rescued from her harsh upbringing by Big Boss, who raised her as a soldier. She eventually came to look up to Big Boss, whom she called "Saladin." Wolf also trained under the Gurkhas of Nepal, regarded as the world's finest marksmen. Specializing as a lone sniper, she felt that she could watch and wait, and see war from the outside rather than from the inside. After the presumed death of Big Boss, Wolf was later recruited into FOXHOUND, to get her revenge on the world.

"I finally understand. I wasn't waiting to kill people... I was waiting for someone to kill me. A man like you... You're a hero. Please... Set me free."

- Sniper Wolf to Solid Snake

FOXHOUND, led by Liquid Snake, carried out an armed revolt on Shadow Moses, assisted by the Genome Army. Sniper Wolf participated in the revolt due to her desire to exact revenge on the world's governments for not caring enough about the Kurds' suffering during their Rebellion. After taking over the island's nuclear weapons disposal facility, the group planned on killing the resident wolf dogs. Wolf refused to let this happen. Hal Emmerich believed that she was a good person due to her love for the dogs and eventually fell in love with her. Although she did not display the same feelings, she did feel a measure of friendship and sympathy for Emmerich while he was held prisoner on the island, allowing him to feed the dogs whenever he asked, and even giving him her handkerchief as a small gift.

As Solid Snake and Meryl Silverburgh made their way through Shadow Moses, Wolf managed to wound Meryl in order to lure Snake out, which then resulted in his capture. It became apparent that she had a sadistic obsession with Snake when she told him that he was all she would think about until she killed him. While in captivity, Emmerich provided Snake some materials to escape, including the handkerchief Wolf had given him. After Snake escaped his holding cell, and after he battled Liquid in his Hind, he encountered Wolf again. After a silent yet deadly battle across the expansive snowfield, Sniper Wolf was bested by Snake, shot in the lung.

After crossing the snowfield, Snake found Wolf lying down and coughing up blood. As she lay dying, Wolf told Snake of her past, how she was born and raised on the battlefield, how "Saladin" had helped her, who Snake correctly assumed was Big Boss. Wolf then asked Snake if he was Saladin but he ignored her question. She then revealed to Snake that she had shamed herself and her people by joining Liquid's plot "to take (her) revenge on the world." Distraught, she referred to herself as a dog, but Snake assured her that she was wild, untamed, and solitary, hence a wolf. She also revealed that she never intended to kill Meryl. Before asking Snake to kill her, she said she had not been waiting to kill people but rather had been waiting for someone to kill her.

Just before Snake was about to kill her, a distraught Emmerich appeared and openly expressed his feelings for her before handing Wolf her PSG1 at her request. Before Snake finished her off, she said her final words: "OK hero. Set me free." Snake killed her with a single shot of his SOCOM with the suppressor removed. After killing her, Snake wrapped her handkerchief over her face. Otacon inquired why he did this, to which Snake replied that he was returning it to its owner, and that he himself had no more tears to shed, a statement that would later be echoed by Emmerich himself after the death of Naomi Hunter during Liquid Ocelot's Insurrection.

Wolf often took Diazepam so she could keep her hands still while aiming. Liquid Snake speculated if that was the reason why she had not been infected with FOXDIE.

After death
Even after the Shadow Moses Incident, Wolf's death continued to haunt Hal. In 2009, when his estranged stepsister Emma Emmerich ended up dying from a wound inflicted by Vamp during the Big Shell Incident, he briefly mentioned Wolf's death while breaking down into intense sorrow over Emma's demise.

Personality and traits
Sniper Wolf was a highly skilled sharpshooter, capable of waiting for her targets for days, even weeks, without eating or moving. She typically formed an emotional connection with her targets before killing them. Her favored weapon, was the Heckler & Koch PSG1, and she used mercury bullets to poison the victims. She was addicted to diazepam, a drug that relieves anxiety and stop muscle spasms. She didn't kill for sport, and she did not like harming women and children.

Because of Big Boss' earlier actions for her, Wolf held a deep amount of respect and loyalty to him in return, affectionately referring to him as "Saladin." Indeed, she once mistook Snake for Big Boss when dying from her injuries.

She was also a dog lover. She spared the wolf dogs on Shadow Moses, and fed them, sometimes even allowing Otacon to feed the dogs as well while the latter was a prisoner.

Wolf also held some misandrist views, claiming that women made better soldiers than men. She taunted Snake for being an example of "men [who were] weak," who "[could] never finish what [they started]," as well as pointing out that "...two thirds of the world's greatest assassins [were] women" when they first met.

Sniper Wolf had blonde hair and blue eyes.

Unconfirmed history
During the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign in the Iran-Iraq War, Sniper Wolf witnessed the gassing of her friends and family at the hands of Iraqi soldiers. Afterwards, Wolf was kidnapped and brainwashed by the Iraqi Ministry of Internal Affairs, where she was trained rigorously. Later on, Wolf was discovered by Big Boss in a Kurdish refugee camp in 1991, during the internal fighting in Iraq after the Gulf War. Big Boss took her to the U.S., where she received counseling and deprogramming.

However, after the U.S. sanctioned bombings of Iraq in 1996 caused a major refugee crisis, similar to the one experienced during the Gulf War, Wolf became disgusted by the incident and at the Pentagon, and moved to join Big Boss with whatever plans he decided to hatch. During the Shadow Moses Incident, Wolf came to care about Otacon due to the effects of Lima Syndrome.

Metal Gear Solid
Sniper Wolf (スナイパー・ウルフ) appears in Metal Gear Solid and is fought by the player during a boss battle. According to an IGN interview with Yoji Shinkawa, Sniper Wolf was originally intended to be a man, but when Shinkawa suggested to director Hideo Kojima that Wolf should be a young lady, Kojima thought it to be a much better idea. A subsequent interview with Shinkawa revealed that Sniper Wolf is still popular amongst the staff at Konami. Another example of her popularity was that during an online critics poll, she was named the "12th greatest video game boss of all time", amongst her FOXHOUND peers. At least one concept art depicted Sniper Wolf fully nude, barring her coat, gloves, and one of her boots.

According to Kojima, the scene where Sniper Wolf shot Meryl with several rounds from a sniper rifle was based on the film Full Metal Jacket. Similarly, one of her lines (more specifically, "Well I'm going to send you a love letter, my dear. Do you know what that is? It's a bullet straight from my gun to your heart.") was a direct lift from the film Blue Velvet.

Sniper Wolf's handkerchief can be used by the player to ward off attacking wolf dogs, due to her scent. While the use of a handkerchief to wipe one's nose is made obsolete by tissue paper, in some countries, such as Japan, it's seen as "fancy" and respectable. The Metal Gear Solid 4 Database erroneously refers to it as a scarf.

The Metal Gear Solid: Official Mission Handbook elaborates on Sniper Wolf's experiences during and after the Al-Anfal Campaign, prior to meeting Big Boss, though the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database does not contain any of this additional information.

In the 2004 remake of Metal Gear Solid, The Twin Snakes, the player can shake her body to retrieve her dog tag, shortly after she is defeated in the second battle.

Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4
In the original game plan for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the Cyborg Ninja was to be a machine that would use Sniper Wolf's voice to taunt Otacon, and Meryl Silverburgh's voice to taunt Solid Snake. In the actual game itself, aside from Otacon's reference to her death shortly after Emma's passing, the Colonel also briefly mentioned Sniper Wolf while infected with Emma's worm cluster, specifically the Codec conversation that occurred when finding the PSG1.

The codename "Wolf" is later used by the member of the Beauty and the Beast Unit, Crying Wolf, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Her ghost can also be photographed with the camera, if the player takes a picture of a door to the right of the Boiler Room entrance, following the defeat of Crying Wolf.

References in other games
In the video game Army of Two, there is a barrel for the MSG-90 called "MGS Sniper Wulf Mk. II." The spelling is most likely to avoid legal issues; since a figure of her was released, the name "Sniper Wolf" may have been trademarked by Konami.

In the DLC add-on for the PlayStation 3 version of The Godfather II, one of the 5 new weapons is named "MG-S1 Sniper Wolfe."

A random quote assigned to a female MSF recruit in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is: "Did you know that 65% of the world's top assassins are women?" This is a reference to Wolf's statement to Solid Snake during their first encounter.

Sniper Wolf appeared as a participant in the Konami-sponsored event E3 Battle, where she defeated Mimi and Nyami from Pop'n Music for the first round. She then faced off against and defeated Cybil Bennet in the second round. Sniper Wolf then faced off against Bomberman in the third round and defeated him. Sniper Wolf proceeded to fight against Metal Gear REX in the fourth round, where she ended up defeated.

"SNIPER WOLF FIRST APPEARED IN Metal Gear Solid (1998) Iraqi-Kurdish sharpshooter of FOXHOUND unit. An expert shot with the PSG-1."

- Sniper Wolf's bio from E3 Battle

She later appeared as a participant in Versus Battle on the series official site, where she fought against Crying Wolf and later The End. Other than Sniper Wolf herself, her death as well as one of her famous lines were also contenders in the same contest, where they competed against Psycho Mantis's death and Gray Fox's dialogue about a fight to the death with Snake, respectively.

"STRENGTHS: Absolutely Deadly with a PSG-1 WEAKNESSES: Addiction to meds FEATURED FACT: Tough as nails: “I was born on a battlefield. Raised on a battlefield. Gunfire, sirens and screams… They were my lullabies…” –Sniper Wolf to Snake FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- Sniper Wolf's bio in Versus Battle; when fighting Crying Wolf

"STRENGTHS: Skilled, Sexy, Superior in Sand & Snow WEAKNESSES: Despair, Sorrow, Loneliness…The End? FEATURED FACT: Trained by the Big Boss himself, Sniper Wolf was an exceptional sniper with superb stalking skills and could wait weeks for the perfect shot FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- Sniper Wolf's bio in Versus Battle; when fighting The End

"STRENGTHS: Unforgettable Faceoff WEAKNESSES: Bittersweet Outcome FEATURED FACT: Sniper Wolf is one of the most beloved and memorable METAL GEAR SOLID characters ever, as voted by YOU, our treasured fans FEATURED GAME: METAL GEAR SOLID: THE LEGACY COLLECTION"

- "Love Letter" in Versus Battle

Although Sniper Wolf herself does not actually appear in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, her likeness is used for an unlockable costume for the character Quiet. Furthermore, many fans theorized that Sniper Wolf and Quiet might somehow be related, some even suggesting that Quiet might even be Wolf's own mother, although this theory has been all but debunked.

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (mentioned and flashbacks; also mentioned via In the Darkness of Shadow Moses)
 * Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (mentioned, flashbacks, ghost and painting; ghost and painting are non-canon)
 * Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (costume only)

Notes and references