Metal Gear Solid, the 1998 PlayStation title that required dedicated console hardware, now runs on an ESP32-S3 microcontroller. David Montero Crespo built the port on top of the FoxdieTeam MGS Reversing decompilation project on GitHub, recompiling the game for Espressif's Xtensa core architecture instead of the original PlayStation's MIPS processor.
The MIPS-to-Xtensa translation required targeted fixes to handle processor-specific quirks, details Crespo documents in full on his blog at velxio.dev. The finished hardware is perfboard-level simple: an ESP32-S3 module, an ILI9341 LCD panel, a drone controller analog stick, and a resistor ladder wired to physical buttons.
The full blog post is worth reading for the decompilation-to-recompilation pipeline alone. It shows exactly where the architectural differences between MIPS and Xtensa create friction, and how a single developer bridges that gap without touching the core game logic. If you assumed microcontrollers topped out at retro 8-bit ports, this is the correction.
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