Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is primarily set in 1964.
The game follows Naked Snake during Operation Snake Eater, a Cold War mission in the Soviet Union. Snake must rescue the scientist Nikolai Sokolov, stop the defection of his former mentor The Boss, and prevent the experimental Shagohod from becoming a strategic weapon.
Its 1964 setting makes Snake Eater a prequel to the earlier games. It explains formative events involving Naked Snake, The Boss, Major Zero, Ocelot, and the Philosophers. The jungle setting also changes the series’ usual urban and industrial stealth formula: camouflage, hunger, injuries, and wildlife become important parts of survival. The story’s historical backdrop is fictionalized, but it deliberately draws on Cold War tensions and the space-race era.