Fans Are Making The Case For Keanu As Snake
Keanu Reeves is experiencing a resurgence as an actor, blasting back into the spotlight with the John Wick films and, in June, blowing the doors off of E3's Xbox showcase by unveiling his role in Cyberpunk 2077. His comeback has some fans wondering: what other roles should Reeves take on?
More specifically, what other video games should he star in?
A fan mod for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain answers that question in the best way possible: by swapping out Snake for either John Wick or Cyberpunk 2077's Johnny Silverhand. Your choice.
The mod, developed by a NexusMod contributor named JinMarr, is actually quite impressive in the level of detail it's able to achieve. Both Keanu Reeves characters are faithfully recreated in Metal Gear Solid 5, with John Wick donning a killer suit, pun very much intended, and Johnny Silverhand sporting the same shiny prosthetic we've seen in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailers. And the Keanu Reeves model itself is a dead ringer for the man, as his facial features and hair style are right on the money.
With some voice work — perhaps Reeves telling the Diamond Dogs how breathtaking they all are — it would be hard to tell that Keanu Reeves wasn't actually in this game at launch. And as much as we love Jack Bau– er, sorry, Kiefer Sutherland, a full Keanu Reeves script would definitely get us back into playing Metal Gear Solid 5 on a regular basis.
Of course, now that this mod is available for all the world to download and install, other fans of Keanu Reeves have been quick to share their thoughts.
"Well it looks like I'll finally finish Metal Gear Solid V... as Keanu Reeves!" wrote one person on Twitter.
"Considering how few lines this Snake has and how few lines [John] Wick has, this is pretty much perfect," wrote another.
But for some, simply having Keanu Reeves replace Snake in a Metal Gear Solid video game isn't enough. For these fans, the holy grail would be Reeves playing Snake in a Metal Gear Solid film.
"I'd say let him play as Snake in the live action movie," said a commenter on Kotaku.
And believe it or not, some even had that idea before this new mod was published online. Before you could ever import Keanu Reeves into Metal Gear Solid 5, there were fans online who had identified the actor as their top choice to play Snake in a movie.
"[A] Metal Gear Solid film needs to be made with Keanu Reeves playing Snake," wrote one Twitter user all the way back in 2015.
"Alright, hear me out... Keanu Reeves as Solid Snake for the MGS movie," proposed another in September 2018.
To top it all off, popular online artist BossLogic recently altered a screen shot of Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 to instead portray him as Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid 5. And those replying to BossLogic's work were very much on board with seeing the actor take on the role both in video game form and on the big screen.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that Reeves will be doing either anytime soon. As far as anyone's been able to gather, Cyberpunk 2077 is the only video game the John Wick star is currently working on. And as far as a Metal Gear Solid movie is concerned, it appears that Star Wars actor Oscar Issacson has the inside track on landing the role of Snake. Casting is not yet complete on the upcoming Metal Gear Solid film, but the film's director stated on Twitter that "The ball is in Oscar's court" should Issacson want to bring the iconic video game character to life. And that's not good news for Team Keanu.
So Keanu Reeves as Snake is likely a ways off, if it even happens at all. But that doesn't mean you can't at least pass the time by modding Reeves into your copy of Metal Gear Solid 5 today. You can download the mod here and get to work navigating the complex narrative within The Phantom Pain using either John Wick or Johnny Silverhand. It's not the full-on Keanu-slash-Metal Gear experience you might be hoping and praying for, but right now, it's all you've got.