A new speedrunning exploit has been discovered in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, one that allows players to skip the game's first boss fight with Olga Gurlukovich during the Tanker mission. This discovery marks the first-ever recorded boss skip in Metal Gear Solid 2, and makes for a fairly significant shake-up for the speedrunning scene.
Metal Gear Solid 2, unlike subsequent games, relies on quasi-metroidvania elements for progression through its two campaign "maps." The player is introduced to this concept in the opening Tanker mission, which is famously the only part of Metal Gear Solid 2 that sees you playing as Solid Snake himself. As is his MO, Solid begins this mission with minimal gear, not even bothering to bring any weapons beyond an M9 tranquilizer pistol. Unfortunately, he needs a real gun to disable explosives barring his path to Metal Gear Ray, and the only way to obtain an appropriate gun is to defeat Olga, another infiltrator. This showdown serves as Olga's introduction as well as an extended combat tutorial, and is quite time-consuming. But, as proven by speedrunner apel on YouTube, it apparently can be avoided altogether.
To achieve the Olga skip, you have to drag an unconscious guard to an explosives-laden hallway blocking the way to the hold, where Colonel Dolph is making a speech and presenting Metal Gear Ray. Normally, the only way to disable these explosives would be to shoot the consoles powering the motion-sensing lasers, which can only work with Olga's pistol. But if you place the knocked-out guard beneath the lasers, he'll activate the explosives when he wakes up. This will generally result in a game over, but by timing Snake's positioning just right, you can essentially make the game "flag" that the explosives have already been detonated, thus allowing you to progress after reloading the game.
چوونەژوورەوە
بۆ ئەوەی ئیدیعای شوێنی خۆت بکەیت لەسەر لیدەربۆرد!
چوونەژوورەوە
بۆ ئەوەی ئیدیعای شوێنی خۆت بکەیت لەسەر لیدەربۆرد!
The benefits that this discovery will have for the Metal Gear Solid speedrunning community are obvious. Even for experienced players, Olga often serves as a major slowdown point in the Tanker chapter, as Snake's M9 isn't exactly the most effective weapon, and Olga's use of cover means that unloading a clip for a quick victory isn't really feasible. With this newly discovered exploit, you can get past the explosives-rigged hallway and be well on your way to Metal Gear Ray mere minutes after starting the game.
It doesn't appear that this Olga boss skip actually impacts the Metal Gear Solid 2 story at all. The rest of the game unfolds as though Snake and Olga had already met regardless.
Aside from being a win for speedrunners, this new MGS2 discovery helps underscore what makes Metal Gear such a great franchise. Metal Gear Solid 2, in particular, has aged incredibly well, and even first-time players today will remark upon how "good," simply put, it feels to play. A lot of this can be attributed to its numerous interweaving systems, which still lead to surprises more than two decades later. For instance, shortly before this Olga skip was discovered, MGS2 players learned that Raiden can reduce his visibility throughout the Plant mission by wearing the BDU disguise.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/metal-gear-solid-2-olga-boss-skip-speedrun-exploit/
