Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers for War Machine below. If you’ve yet to watch the new Netflix movie, please exercise extreme caution.
When I pressed play on War Machine shortly after it landed on the 2026 movie schedule, I had no idea the popular Alan Ritchson action flick would have me thinking about my favorite video game of all time: Metal Gear Solid. Yet, there I was, telling my wife how the mysterious alien robot hellbent on destroying everything in its path looked just like the titular nuclear-armed bipedal tank from the classic “Tactical Espionage Action” game I’ve beaten dozens of times over the years.
Well, it turns out I’m not alone in thinking about Hideo Kojima’s epic game series after War Machine became available with a Netflix subscription.
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Though there are some key differences between War Machine and Metal Gear Solid, with the former being about aliens invading Colorado and the latter being about two cloned twins battling each other in Alaska, the brunt of the action is basically the same. I mean, both follow a soldier with some serious trauma finding unique ways to take on a bipedal killing machine, for crying out loud.
From various Reddit forums to online articles from our sister site, Space.com, to discussions all over social media in the days since War Machine dropped on Netflix and became one of the streamer’s biggest hits of the year, fans are going crazy and having a ton of fun. I even stumbled upon a fan-edited video where someone added the iconic Metal Gear Solid theme song and the Metal Gear sound effects to the movie, and it actually works. The sound of the lasers, the rockets, the stomps, the codec, they’re all there and they don’t sound out of place. All it’s missing is Colonel Campbell yelling “SNAAAAAAAAKE!”, and it would be perfect.
Even Hideo Kojima Is Talking About War Machine
It’s not just Metal Gear Solid fans who are going crazy about War Machine having so much in common with the beloved stealth action franchise, as Hideo Kojima himself is singing the movie’s praises. In a post on X calling Patrick Hughes’ sci-fi action flick a “geek-pleasing film,” the cinephile and video game creator essentially gave it his stamp of approval by saying “it’s basically Predator x Metal Gear:”
After seeing the trailer, I had been curious about Patrick Hughes’ “War Machine.” Tonight I was actually planning to watch “Xtro,” since I just bought the Blu-ray, but the other film started streaming today, so I decided to watch this one first. Wow, it was quite entertaining.… pic.twitter.com/bBdjvJPCBVMarch 6, 2026
You know, Kojima isn’t off base in basically saying the new action movie is a combination of Predator and the Metal Gear series, as there are so many comparisons. You have the shift from a standard military action thriller to an alien invasion film halfway through, you have an unstoppable killing machine preying on some of the toughest SOBs on the planet, and you have a hero who resorts to archaic yet crafty ways to defeat a superior enemy. I can’t argue with his thoughts.
Considering the long-planned Metal Gear Solid movie is still in development hell, where it’s been for years, this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a Solid Snake movie. I guess I’ll have to be okay with that.