Games have allowed us to play from the perspective of small children, willowy teens, strapping men and stacked women. But the long-awaited return of Solid Snake in Hideo Kojima‘s insta-classic Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (not counting Snake’s incongruous appearance as an unlockable brawler in the latest Smash Bros.) is the first time I can recall playing as a senior citizen.

Sure, “Old Snake” has been prematurely aged by some mysterious virus, but it doesn’t change the fact that the dude is Oldie Olson. His hair is grey, skin wrinkled and when engaging in acrobatic feats his aches and pains come out as grunts and groans. Like your grandpa, he often grabs his back in anguish. As the game progresses, so does Snake’s aging—he would apparently be practically immobile without his hi-tech-outfit—and it adds another level of tragedy to this emotional epic.

Which is not to say that Solid Snake has lost any of his trademark badassery—hell, the guy chain smokes like it was 1959—but the decision to make him so vulnerably old brings an over-the-top title back down to earth, much as Bruce Willis’ cut-up feet did in Die Hard.

It also makes his cynicism and world-weariness feel well-earned, which is vital to a game about a near-future that's as cynical as Kojima’s story is convoluted.

MGS4 takes place in 2014, a time where war has become literally “routine.” When you first roll up onscreen, you’re in the company of Middle-Eastern miltia—the exact location may be left blank, but the clear implication is Iraq. When the western-backed guns come out, you bail, stealthily avoiding both sides as much as you can (though this latest edition makes it much more viable to take a run’n’gun approach).

This fight is between insurgents and Blackwater-esque private military companies (PMCs)—plus the odd unmanned bipedal killing machines known as Gekkos—as part of a perpetual war being waged between rebel militias and PMCs at the behest of corporations, politicians and the conspiratorial Patriots who secretly run America (and whose identities will be revealed before game’s end).

Their battle is none of your business—but it is business. There is much cut-scene discussion of the war economy and Metal Gear is essentially a series-long rebuke to the military-industrial complex and the videogame-ness of modern, computer-assisted warfare.

“War has changed,” a disillusioned Snake says repeatedly in his gruff grumble and you can almost picture him back home on his porch, a cantankerous curmudgeon waving his angry old man fist at some persnickety kids who dared to tramp across his lawn.

Of course, Solid Snake would probably sneak up on them with his camouflaged walker and just, y'know, shoot them in the head.