Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid soundtrack gets its first vinyl pressing via Mondo. Metal Gear Solid was released for the Sony Playstation on September 3, 1998. It was designed to be an epic, a game that looks at the world through the prism of alternate history, blending real events and characters into its fictional geopolitics. The game’s success is one that marked Kojima’s personal ascent from game designer to video game industry megastar.

The game features a truly great soundtrack that lives up to the game and is nothing short of amazing. Most of the music here is upbeat with techno touches added to it, and some of the tunes wouldn’t be out of place on a feature-length movie soundtrack. The music played in-game also had a synthetic feel with increased pace and introduction of strings during tense moments, with a looping style endemic to video games. Overtly cinematic music, with stronger orchestral and choral elements, appears in cutscenes. Fans of the game will instantly recognise tracks such as “Encounter” (which plays when you’re discovered by the enemy), the soothing, melodramatic piano of “Enclosure”, which plays out during the death of character Sniper Wolf, and “Rex’s Lair”, which plays out near the climax of the game.

The score for the 1998 game was mainly composed by Konami’s in-house sound team (comprising Takanari Ishiyama, Gigi Meroni, Kazuki Muraoka, Lee Jeon Myung, and Hiroyuki Togo) besides the main theme, which was composed by Tappi Iwase, and ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’, a song by composer and lyricist Rika Muranaka.

The limited-edition Metal Gear Solid soundtrack package includes two LPs pressed onto 180g “Green Smoke colored vinyl” paired together with original artwork by Randy Ortiz. It is Expected to Ship in September 2019, head here for more info and check out the artwork below.