Myth: The US flag orientation in the Shell 1 Core, B1 Hall is intentional
Fact: There is no reason that flag should look like that in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
By Ravi Singh, Posted on October 31, 2023
We’re talking about a 20+ year old game here, so hey, incoming spoiler for a 20+ year-old game:
Ah yes, the location with the hostages. Mr. X also refers to this room as a conference hall.
It’s clear what this location is normally intended for. Anyone who has worked in an office has likely even sat or stood in one of these places for a meeting, presentation, or a company-wide “town hall” meeting or panel. It’s also where press and public-facing events are usually be held. There was a major VIP tour of the Big Shell happening on April 29, 2009 with James Johnson, the President of the United States, in attendance. It’s possible the room was scheduled for an event on that day, internally or even open to the press, perhaps with Johnson himself giving the employees a motivating speech.
How the room could have been used on that day is all speculative of course and honestly doesn’t really matter. The point is the purpose of the room checks out, even as you enter the room. I’ve never had my eyeballs scanned in order to enter a place like this, but hey, I also never visited or worked on a weird offshore facility that was actually hiding a giant nuclear vessel. The raised platform with a giant screen, a podium, and a flag of the United States of America is pretty expected though. But the flag itself is curious. At first glance, it appears like it’s upside down. It has looked this way since the original 2001 PlayStation 2 release, and hasn’t been changed since.
People have sparingly discussed it online and we’ve even shitposted about it.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) | Shell 1 Core, B1 Hall https://t.co/dEiPyHVk3W
— The Snake Soup (@thesnakesoup) August 11, 2022
With the release of Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 on modern platforms, Nitroid of the Kojima Frequency made a tiny little mod for the PC version that fixes the flag. While some joked that Nitroid was fixing something that’s not broken, some have unironically argued that it was, indeed, an intentional choice from Hideo Kojima or the rest of the KCEJ development team to have the flag look like that.
Despite what some of these people claim though, the flag isn’t upside down. It’s mirror-imaged. I don’t mean it’s reversed either, which is common on 2D depictions of the flag on military uniforms and even space vessels to visually mimic the flag flying in the wind. In fact, the Shell 1 Core flag should be reversed as it hangs to the left of the pole it’s attached to (to anyone looking at the raised platform). As it is in the game, the flag literally has attachments on the wrong side of the flag. Here’s a shitty mockup of how the flag would theoretically look if it was blowing in the wind:
Like the flag in the shitty mockup above, the flag in the Shell 1 Core uses ropes to keep it’s top and bottom corners secured to the pole. So whatever it’s using to be secured to the rope—header and grommets, D-rings, thimbles, or whatever—is on the wrong side of the flag. If we accept this as an intentional choice, you are saying a mirror-imaged American flag is something easily obtainable. This isn’t like asking your dad to bring home Coke and he instead brings Diet Coke, it’s more like him bringing home an 8-ball of cocaine he accidentally picked up in the soda aisle of a family-friendly grocery store. It would have to be a deliberate purchase, if one is even possible outside of someone getting a custom job or movie prop made. Realistically, you’d have to go out of your way to get an American flag you can attach the wrong way, and someone is gonna notice before, y’know, the President shows up. There’s no symbolic meaning behind the flag being like this except that you made a mistake.
But wait, you say. Maybe this is a fuck up because the flag is supposed to be upside down. That they intended it to be upside down, messed up the texture, but didn’t think anything of it because it kinda looks upside down. Sure, there is a meaning to flying the US flag upside down, one possibly intended by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in our shitpost above.
Some total “freaks” (hey, just quoting Ocelot here) led by a guy who looks like the disgraced former President claiming he’s a dead ecoterrorist who hired an entire Russian PMC hijacks the Big Shell, has hostages among which includes the current President, and is threatening to cause another large ecological event in the New York Harbor. Yeah, that’s for sure “dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” Fair enough, buddy.
But what are you saying Kojima intended here, then? To suggest that a brave soul reattached the flag upside down before they got captured (or shot)? Okay, but for what purpose? This isn’t a flag flying outside for others to see. It’s in a basement that has intentionally been isolated from the outside world. The only people who would be able to see the flag are the terrorists, the other hostages, and anyone trying to make a rescue attempt. All of these people would be more than aware of what’s going on. Maybe someone from Dead Cell or a Gurlukovich soldier did it, but why would they? It makes no sense.
What did Kojima mean by not having full collision detention with first person aiming and enemies? Is it a commentary on the emptiness of NPC minds as opposed to the concrete walls in the game? Genius!Mistakes happen. A lot of people have played Sons of Liberty without even realizing the US flag in the Shell 1 Core is messed up, especially with the original SD resolution or the fact that you don’t really need to be near the podium to get past that part of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers and testers never noticed it, nor Bluepoint when other errors like the “Smithsonian” typo were fixed for the HD Edition. And who knows, maybe they noticed it but thought it was upside down, intentionally so, and left it as-is.
But if you think this myth is still possible, you’re suggesting that there’s some lore here Kojima or his team intended, involving a Big Shell employee getting a mirror imaged flag OR going out of their way to fly the flag upside down even though it wouldn’t help anyone or serve any purpose. To which I shrug and say, “Cool head canon, bro.”