For my money, Metal Gear Solid 5 remains the watermark for open world action games thanks to its excellent espionage toybox, its mercenary company management systems, and the timeless satisfaction of abducting enemy combatants with a little balloon. 10 years after its launch, it just got even better thanks to Dynamite, a functioning two-player MGS5 co-op mod from modder unknown321.
According to a lengthy “Making Of” memoir included in the Dynamite github repo, unknown321 began researching and modding MGS5 shortly after launch in 2015, eventually reverse engineering how the game handles weapon configurations and unique staff members. Driven by ennui, a yearning for more FOBs to conquer, and apparent resentment over the game’s handling of encrypted JSON files, unknown321’s white whale was the creation of a functioning MGS5 client/server emulator, which would allow the generation of randomized or hand-tuned FOBs to invade.
While unknown321 released an early prototype in 2017, that dream had to be deferred when “life happened” and the modder got a job. So it goes. But in 2023, unknown321 returned to MGS5 modding. Wielding additional years of experience in professional devops employment, they released Fuse, a functioning master server implementation. Meanwhile, other modders had made a critical discovery: the functions responsible for connecting opposing players during FOB invasions.
“I already had the master server to reliably connect two players together on FOB map, so what if we change the map / mission to singleplayer ones?” unknown321 said. “This is how dynamite was born – co-op mod with tendency to crash often.”
That last bit is important: In the readme for Dynamite, unknown321 writes very clearly that “things won’t work like you expect them to.” It’s buggy. The initial configuration is fiddly. Only a handful of missions are (mostly) playable, and your co-op partner will be riding an invisible horse.
But it’s functioning co-op in Metal Gear Solid 5. It’s magical—even if it is a bit of a mess.
After a full 25 minutes of setup and gingerly pushing arcane key combinations without being sure whether or not they were doing anything, my colleague Morgan Park and I successfully deployed together into Afghanistan, Morgan’s own Big Boss materializing out of the desert air like a beautiful mirage to stand beside my own.
And then he choke-slammed me. And fultoned me. And then the game broke.
When you’re staying within the very narrow lines that keep the co-op mod from tearing the game apart, however, it’s delightful. It can be difficult to tell which Big Boss has been spotted and when, and splicing in unsanctioned FOB multiplayer functions leaves the game incapable of deciding whether the UI should treat enemy soldiers as friendly or hostile. But it’s a beautiful kind of busted.
Our mission eventually devolved into a spectacular chaos of tranquilizer rounds and frantic assault rifle fire, where it was never entirely clear when we were or weren’t in active combat. Sure, I was able to rip Morgan out of his victorious helicopter extraction because on my screen his Snake was just standing there for me to chokeslam him back into my reality. That’s probably not right. But the raw joy of seeing our twin Snakes creeping into a cliffside fort in a pair of cardboard boxes has me thrilled to see how Dynamite develops in the years to come.
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