Metal Gear Solid is the sequel to Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. After his tragic confrontation with Big Boss, the hero, Special Agent Solid Snake, decided to retire and has been living in a remote area of Alaska ever since. But the US government recruits him again for a dangerous mission. Members of Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit, threaten to use a devastating nuclear weapon if the government does not hand over the remains of Big Boss, their former commander. Foxhound is now run by a talented and ambitious young man codenamed Liquid Snake. Knowing that the visual resemblance between this new terrorist mastermind and himself cannot be a coincidence, Solid Snake agrees to infiltrate Foxhound's new base, destroy the unknown nuclear weapon, and find the truth about his own identity. .

The gameplay of Metal Gear Solid follows the prototype established in the previous two Metal Gear games. Solid Snake has a limited arsenal of weapons and cannot afford to clear the way by killing all enemies. He has to stay unnoticed, hide, crawl, wait for the right moment, sneak around and use various gadgets that will prevent him from alerting the enemy. Boss battles and some other sequences play out like action-driven plays, with the player having to discover the enemy's weakness in order to succeed.

The game uses the traditional top-down view, but the graphics in this part are 3D. Conversations with Snake's allies and cutscenes are heavily used to advance the plot and get a better sense of it.