Loading Trick

Loading trick, load trick, or LT is a speedrun strategy used exclusively on the PlayStation 3 versions of Metal Gear Solid 2 HD Edition and Metal Gear Solid 3 HD Edition to make the game load faster. By playing the game up to a certain point, getting a game over, and selecting exit from the game over screen, any rooms and cutscenes loaded up to that point will remain in memory and, therefore, those rooms and cutscenes will load faster in any subsequent playthroughs. However, the entire game cannot be load tricked in a single-segment run because, if the player progresses too far in the game, the memory containing the load tricked sections will be cleared. Additionally, if the player soft resets using the soft reset code, selects return to main menu from a node in MGS2 HD or from the options screen in MGS3 HD, or hard resets the game or console, loading trick will be cleared entirely. Multi-segment runs can load trick every room and cutscene in both games because multi-segment runs are allowed to save and load as much as the runner likes.

The overwhelming majority of high-level runners of both MGS2 HD and MGS3 HD highly suggest that new runners not use loading trick until they have a skill level that allows them to compete for high-level times, as the long setup time of loading trick and frequent resets associated with loading trick runs a high risk of burning the runner out faster.

It is unknown exactly why the loading trick works on the PlayStation 3 versions but not on any other versions of the games, or on any other games in the Metal Gear series.

MGS2 HD has the most benefit from loading trick, as most of the game can be load tricked. If the player plays from the beginning of the tanker section to the end of twilight sniping with Emma, then causes a game over and selects exit from the game over screen, all rooms and cutscenes up to that point will load faster. It is not necessary to walk to the Shell 1 core after finishing sniping because all of the sections up to Arsenal Gear are already load tricked. Additionally, players should take care not to enter the elevator in the Shell 1 core leading to Arsenal Gear, as entering that elevator will progress far enough in the game to clear loading trick. If the runner prefers, it is possible to exit immediately upon starting twilight sniping, and the time loss from not having the cutscenes at the end of the sniping section will be relatively minimal, while saving several minutes of real-world setup time. To mitigate setup time further, many players choose to set up loading trick on Very Easy difficulty, regardless of which difficulty they intend to actually run.

Particularly useful for multi-segment runs, any room can be load tricked by just entering the room or rooms, loading any applicable cutscenes, then exiting the game as before and loading the beginning of the runner's segment.

Once loading trick is set up, the player can start a new run as normal, either from a new game or from a save file. If the runner decides to reset the run, simply exit the game as before and start another run as normal. Loading trick saves approximately 1 minute in MGS2 HD on optimal hardware. Generally, the worse a runner's hardware, the more time loading trick saves.

Traditionally, most MGS2 runners chose not to use loading trick in their runs for two primary reasons: the extensive setup time of approximately 50 minutes or more to set up a full loading trick, and the fact that many runners see loading trick as an arbitrary time save, since it only affects how quickly a runner's console loads, rather than being influenced by runner skill. The loading speed and hardware parity of the Xbox Series X|S has mostly eliminated the issues present in running MGS2 on the PlayStation 3, however the Xbox Series X|S has its own issues, as does the port of the game on that system. There is no known difference in loading speed or performance between the Xbox Series S and Series X for MGS2 HD.

In MGS3 HD, about half of the game can be load tricked. If the player plays from the beginning of the Virtuous Mission to Groznyj Grad Southeast after torture, then causes a game over and selects exit from the game over screen, all rooms and cutscenes up to that point will load faster. It is not necessary to load any other rooms in Groznyj Grad because all other rooms except Groznyj Grad Northwest have already been loaded at least once up to this point. Additionally, players should take care not to climb down the ladder leading to the sewers, as climbing down this ladder will progress far enough in the game to clear loading trick. If the player chooses, it is possible to enter Groznyj Grad Northwest to potentially load trick that room as well, however this has caused strange issues in the past, including actually causing the game to take longer to load than having no loading trick at all. If the runner prefers, it is possible to exit before starting torture, and the time loss from not having the cutscenes at the end of torture and the torture room load tricked will be relatively minimal, while saving several minutes of real-world setup time. To mitigate setup time further, many players choose to set up loading trick on Very Easy difficulty, regardless of which difficulty they intend to actually run.

Particularly useful for multi-segment runs, any room can be load tricked by just entering the room or rooms, loading any applicable cutscenes, then exiting the game as before and loading the beginning of the runner's segment.

Once loading trick is set up, the player can start a new run as normal, either from a new game or from a save file. If the runner decides to reset the run, simply exit the game as before and start another run as normal. Loading trick saves approximately 50 seconds in MGS3 HD on optimal hardware. Generally, the worse a runner's hardware, the more time loading trick saves.

Loading trick is considered part of a larger problem surrounding speedruns of the PlayStation 3 versions of MGS2 and MGS3, in which many things affect loading speed, including console model, whether the runner is playing the game from a disc or digital, whether the digital versions of the games are being run on an HDD or an SSD, game version, and even an element of luck in whether or not any specific console will load quickly, even if it's the optimal console model. Because of these factors, many runners have labeled speedrunning on the PlayStation 3 a hardware arms race. It is a combination of these factors and others that led the vast majority of Metal Gear Solid 2 runners to transition to running the PC version of the game in 2019 and 2020, which doesn't count loads towards the in-game time.

In the case of Metal Gear Solid 3, the fact that there is no PC version of the game makes any sort of transition difficult. Both the Xbox Series X|S and Nvidia Shield load the game much faster and those consoles are very comparable to each other, however MGS3 runners prefer to have the boards separated by game version, and a large contributing factor for this decision is the vast difference in loading speed between most consoles. This means that running on Xbox or Shield does not solve the problem that the PS3 has. In addition to this, the Xbox port of MGS3 HD has its own issues that make playing the game less desirable, and the Shield version has issues that make playing the game competently almost impossible.