Metal Gear Solid Main Theme

The Metal Gear Solid Main Theme is a musical "motif" that first appeared in the 1997 E3 Trailer for Metal Gear Solid, and was written by Tappy Iwase who was requested to write the theme by Hideo Kojima.

The theme is one of the most recognizable theme's in video games, and has been considered by many to be one of the greatest songs in video game history. It was later remixed by Harry Gregson-Williams for Sons Of Liberty.

Appearances
It has appeared in every main MGS game in some from or another. In Metal Gear Solid, it appeared in the early trailers for the game, and if the player was playing on his fifth play-through, they would be rewarded with the theme playing in place of The Best Is Yet To Come. In Sons Of Liberty it appeared in early trailers and played during the games opening title sequence, during the track Comradeship (from The Other Side Soundtrack CD) and was also present during Solidus' death scene.

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, the piece was re-done as a "skater-punk" song for the Skateboarding mini-game which was featured in the American and European versions of the game. Also, for the remake of Metal Gear Solid (The Twin Snakes) the piece was once again used in early E3 trailers and was used in-game during certain alert themes, and during the ending chase sequence between Solid Snake and Liquid Snake. However, due to the absence in an official soundtrack for The Twin Snakes, these tracks are un-named (several fan-rips are currently circulating the Internet).

In Snake Eater a new theme was introduced, but the motif appeared at the end of the new piece. The motif appeared in early trailers once again, and appeared in game during the tracks "Fortress Sneaking", "Debriefing" and appeared during the end credit's after Starsailor's "Way To Fall" The theme also appeared in the song "Old Metal Gear" re-done as a lounge piece (which played at the beginning of the cut-scene with Granin.)

Controversy
Shortly before the release of Portable Ops, someone on the Internet discovered a song by Classical Russian composer Georgy Vasilevich Sviridov, named The Winter Road. The Metal Gear community was in an up-roar at how similar the song was to the Metal Gear Solid Main Theme, and requested the song be shown to Hideo Kojima. Eventually, a YouTube video emerged of a group of people showing the song to Hideo, with Hideo giving a very surprised reaction. Since then the Theme Motif was removed from the Portable Ops Main theme (the original, with the Motif, appeared in an E3 Trailer, and the version with no Motif played after "Calling To The Night" during the games ending credits, and appears on the Portable Ops OST as the track "Show Time") and was even removed from the Snake Eater Version of the theme on the Metal Gear 20th Anniversary Music Collection (it was replaced with "The World Needs Only One Big Boss!" from Metal Gear Solid 2). With this in mind, the Motif is not likely to appear in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots.

Soundtrack Appearences

 * Metal Gear Solid Soundtrack
 * Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty OST
 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater OST