SNK · 1996 to 2026 · Arcade history
The history of Metal Slug
Thirty years of tiny tanks and spectacular trouble
An enemy drops his lunch, spots you and panics. A prisoner pulls a weapon from his beard. The little tank jumps like it’s pleased to see you. Metal Slug makes a battlefield feel alive, and that’s why it still belongs in an arcade thirty years later. My four-slot Neo Geo MVS has Metal Slug 5 in the collection. Following the whole family takes us much further: handheld adventures, a 3D detour, phone games and tactical battles.
Metal Slug 5: choose your soldier
A quick look at the intro and character select in Metal Slug 5. Marco, Eri, Tarma or Fio: who’s your first pick?
Video description
The Metal Slug 5 title reveal leads into Soldier Select, cycling through Marco, Eri, Tarma and Fio. Fio is selected, followed by a brief start to the action. Original game music and effects accompany the footage.
How the soldiers took over
Metal Slug began at Nazca, formed by former Irem developers. Games such as In the Hunt help explain the family resemblance: wonderfully complicated machinery, substantial explosions and little vehicles with personality. The early design put you in the tank full-time. Poor location-test feedback prompted a rethink, and soldiers became the main playable characters. Suddenly you could run, scramble into a vehicle, wreck it and escape. The developers deliberately included little animations with no practical purpose: a soldier taking a break helped make him feel like somebody who lived there. That mix of convincing machinery and ridiculous behavior became the series’ signature.
The arcade years
Metal Slug 1996
Marco and Tarma storm General Morden’s forces in the original Neo Geo game. Three actions do most of the work: shoot, jump and throw a grenade. Rescued prisoners bring rewards, hidden bonuses reward curiosity, and the SV-001 tank supplies the name. The appeal is immediate, but learning the stages and protecting a good scoring run keeps the cabinet interesting long after the first clear. With two players, there’s also somebody to share the rescue operation and argue over the weapon pickups.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 1996
Metal Slug 2 1998
Eri and Fio join the cast as the adventure expands into deserts, mummies and alien trouble. The armed camel is perfectly Metal Slug: useful, absurd and beautifully animated. The developers wanted a journey with worldwide scope. Unfortunately, the busy action also brought pronounced slowdown, setting up the series’ first major revision.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 2 1998
Metal Slug X 1999
X reworks Metal Slug 2 with rearranged enemies and bosses, extra weapons and less slowdown. Familiar stages change atmosphere and throw surprises at returning players. It’s much more than a performance patch. And the X is a name, not the number ten.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug X 1999
Metal Slug 3 2000
Branching routes make the five missions much bigger than they sound. Giant crabs, zombies, underwater journeys and an enormous alien finale turn the campaign into a creature feature. A single playthrough leaves whole stretches unseen. The transforming characters are more than sight gags: becoming a zombie changes what you can do. The finale keeps changing the action until the opening beach feels a long way behind you.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 3 2000
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Metal Slug 4 2002
After the original SNK collapsed, Mega Enterprise and Noise Factory helped continue the series. Trevor and Nadia join Marco and Fio. The Metalish system puts extra attention on score chasing, with emblem collection and timed scoring opportunities. This installment records a change of hands as well as another mission.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 4 2002
Metal Slug 5 2003
The final new MVS installment restores the familiar four-person cast, introduces the Ptolemaic Army and adds a slide. Down and jump lets you get underneath danger, with a sliding shot for good measure. The Slug Gunner is another gloriously excessive machine. This is the one represented by the cartridge in my collection.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 5 2003
Metal Slug 6 2006
The arcade series moves to Sammy’s Atomiswave hardware. Ralf and Clark join the team, character abilities matter more, and you can carry two special weapons. Rush Blaster rewards sustained attacking. One catch: Easy ends after four stages; Hard contains the full five. Official MVS releases stop at 5, regardless of what a bootleg multicart menu claims.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug 6 2006
Metal Slug 7 2008 and XX 2009
7 takes the numbered series to Nintendo DS as a single-player adventure. XX expands it for PSP, restoring two-player cooperation and adding branching routes while retaining Combat School challenges. Keep both on the checklist, but remember they’re closely related. Leona was PSP downloadable content; the later PS4 and PC editions include her.
Handheld missions and a 3D detour
The Pocket missions 1999 and 2000
1st Mission and 2nd Mission are original Neo Geo Pocket Color adventures. Their compact sprites and stages were designed around handheld play. The second game expands the mission structure and offers two leads. Both returned in the 2021 Double Pack and Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol 1.
Official galleries: Pocket Double Pack
Metal Slug Advance 2004
Walter and Tyra lead a separate Game Boy Advance adventure. A life gauge lets you survive hits, while collectible cards encourage exploration and return visits. Advance deserves its own place beside the arcade games, rather than being filed away as a miniature port.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug Advance 2004
Metal Slug in 3D 2006
The Japan-only PlayStation 2 game, titled simply Metal Slug, turns the battlefield into a polygonal world. Usually called Metal Slug 3D to avoid confusion, it is a separate experiment from both the 1996 original and the PS2 conversion of Metal Slug 6.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug in 3D 2006
From phone screens to new adventures
Building an army on your phone
Defense in 2014 and Attack in 2016 turn familiar troops into units you deploy against an enemy base. Earlier feature phones had already hosted a surprising catalog of their own adventures. Mobile services can disappear: Attack closed in January 2023, and Defense’s mobile editions followed that April. Attack Reloaded brought a revised version to PC and consoles in 2024.
Official galleries: Defense · Attack Reloaded
Awakening 2023 and 2024
Awakening brings modern 3D visuals and character progression to side-scrolling action. Its rollout began in China in 2023, with broader international release in 2024. Those dates mark different regional launches of the same game.
Official screenshots: Awakening 2023 and 2024
Metal Slug Tactics 2024
Leikir Studio and Dotemu move the cast onto turn-based tactical battlefields. Positioning and coordinated attacks replace quick trigger reactions, while the pixel art keeps the family resemblance. A completely different feature-phone game had already used the Tactics name in 2009.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug Tactics 2024
Metal Slug Rush 2026
The officially licensed RingGames mobile release adds survival-style action and roguelike upgrades. It’s the newest released branch covered here. Thirty years on, Metal Slug can still find another use for a screen full of wonderfully troublesome little characters.
Official screenshots: Metal Slug Rush 2026
Taking the arcade home
Anthology, also called Complete, gathers 1, 2, X, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The announced Ultimate Collection is due in 2027: those seven, Advance and 7, plus the first game’s location-test build. That early tank-focused design finally brings the story full circle. Until then, the cabinet’s invitation remains simple: take the other controls and see how far we can get.
The other versions at a glance
The main adventures appear above. This checklist keeps the smaller releases and rereleases in view. “Metal Slug” is omitted from some names for space. Dates reflect first or regional availability, not every handset build or retail edition.
| Years | Titles |
|---|---|
| 2004–05 | Metal Slug Mobile / Japanese Metal Slug · STG · Mobile Impact |
| 2005–06 | Allen’s Battle Chronicles Parts 1 and 2 |
| 2006 | Survivors · Soldiers |
| 2007 | Fighters · Warriors · Mobile 3 |
| 2008–09 | Marspanic / Mars Panic · Mobile 4 |
| 2009 | Tactics · M1 |
| 2010 | M2 · Team Mission |
Mobile 3 reworks Allen’s adventure; Mobile 4 reworks Survivors and Soldiers. The exact first Mobile 4 regional date remains uncertain.
| Years | Titles |
|---|---|
| 2009 | Touch |
| 2010–11 | Online for Windows |
| 2013 | Wars |
| 2014–16 | Defense · Revolution · Attack · OL |
| 2017 | Standalone Version 合金弹头单机版 · XX Online |
| 2019–21 | Infinity · Commander |
| 2023–26 | Awakening · Attack Reloaded · Tactics · Rush |
Online reached public availability after the Zero Online redesign, then closed. Wars had a limited Canadian launch. OL and XX Online are separate Chinese mobile games. Attack’s Chinese edition uses the title 合金弹头反击.
Ports and collections
- Home conversions
- AES and Neo Geo CD · Saturn, PlayStation, PS2 and Xbox. Selected titles; the lineup and extras differ by platform.
- Collections
- Metal Slug 4 and 5 · Anthology / Complete · Collection PC / Complete PC · SNK Arcade Classics Vol 1. The 4 and 5 package pairs those games. Anthology and Collection PC contain 1, 2, X, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
- Digital rereleases
- Virtual Console · Neo Geo Station · smartphone ports · ACA NEOGEO. Also PS1 Classics, Xbox Live Arcade and individual PC editions. ACA covers the six MVS games.
- Pocket collections
- Selection Vol 1 · 1st and 2nd Mission Double Pack. Both include the two Pocket adventures.
- Physical rereleases
- ACA NEOGEO Selection · Evercade Neo Geo Arcade. ACA volumes 1/X, 2/4, 4/original, 7/5, 8/2 and 10/3. Evercade’s announced Arcade 1–4 lineup pairs those collections with Metal Slug 1–4 respectively.
- Hardware libraries
- Neo Geo mini · Arcade Stick Pro · Super Pocket Neo Geo · Neo Geo X · MVSX. Existing games packaged with hardware; regional contents vary.
- Announced for 2027
- Ultimate Collection · Neo Geo AES plus. Ultimate adds Advance, 7 and the location-test build to Anthology’s seven. AES+ is currently dated September 16, 2027.
The stranger corners
Pachislot machines include Metal Slug / Type A (2004), SV-001 (2010) and Metal Slug 3 (2013), with simulator editions. Machine history · Metal Slug 3
Cancelled projects include the GBA ports of 1, 2, X and 3, and the World War Toons Metal Slug VR collaboration. Evolution became the PS2 game; Code J became Awakening. GBA · VR
A Chinese game titled 合金弹头：指挥官 was still in testing in 2026; its relationship to 2021’s Commander remains unclear. Project listing
Reported Chinese aliases include Universal Metal Slug Landing / Login, Conspiracy / Tank Conspiracy, Fierce Battle and Triumph. These and Metal Slug 2013 lack securely verified licensing records here, so they are not counted as confirmed originals. Preservation catalog
Source notes
Nazca developers · Kujo on the prototype · SNK chronology · Metal Slug 2 interview · X comparison · Metal Slug 3 · Metal Slug 4 system · Metal Slug 5 controls · Metal Slug 6 systems · Metal Slug 7 · XX editions · Advance · PS2 3D · Attack closure · Defense closure · Tactics · Rush · Ultimate Collection
Sources checked October 12, 2026. Photographs and official press images are credited individually. The official Marco Rossi cover and SNK press images appear under the PR TIMES reporting-use terms; additional gameplay galleries are linked above.