Metal Slug
“METAL SLUG ”, the very first title in SNK’s legendary 2D run & gun action shooting game series where all began, returns to the missions on the Steam gaming platform!
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 1996
- Developer
- Nazca Corporation
- Platforms
- 3 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- 0.49 GB
What is Metal Slug?
“METAL SLUG ”, the very first title in SNK’s legendary 2D run & gun action shooting game series where all began, returns to the missions on the Steam gaming platform!
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 18 May 1996 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Nazca Corporation |
| Publisher | SNK |
| Platforms | Arcade, PlayStation, Steam Deck |
| Genres | Platformer |
| Languages | 8 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q14942984, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Metal Slug received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
None declared
Hearing
None declared
Input
- Full controller support
Difficulty
None declared
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | full support |
| Cloud saves | No |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Yes |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | 0.49 GB |
| Add-on content | 1 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is Metal Slug worth it?
89% of 5,258 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It costs $7.99 on Steam.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Metal Slug? How long to beat it
Total play time for Metal Slug is about 3.8 hours to do everything, and around 0.9 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 0.9h | 492 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 1.8h | 70 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 3.8h | 47 |
At its current price of $7.99, beating the main story works out to about $8.88 per hour. That is the price divided by the hours, a value read and not a verdict: a longer game costs less per hour, which is not the same as being the better game.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Metal Slug sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueMetal Slug plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PlayStation
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Estimated sales for Metal Slug
These are estimates, not reported figures. Nazca Corporation has not published unit sales for Metal Slug, and nobody outside the company can measure them. What follows is arithmetic on the review count, with the method printed below so you can check it or reject it.
How this was calculated
Steam sales track review counts closely enough that dividing one by the other across games with published figures gives a usable multiplier. This is the standard method for estimating sales from outside a publisher.
| Reviews on Steam | 5,258 |
|---|---|
| Sales per review | 30 to 60 |
| List price | $7.99 |
| Assumed average selling price | 33% to 66% of list |
What this cannot tell you
Steam only. Console, Epic, GOG and retail sales are not in here. For a game that sold heavily on PlayStation this is a fraction of the real number.
The band is wide because the method is imprecise. Review rates vary with price, genre, launch era and how insistently a game asks. Published analyses put the ratio between 30 and 60 for paid games, and we show the whole range rather than picking a point in it.
The owner estimate above measures something else. SteamSpy counts accounts that have the game, which includes free weekends, bundles, giveaways and gifts. It sits higher than a sales figure for that reason, and the two are not alternative answers to the same question.
Revenue is the shakiest line. It assumes an average selling price well below list because most copies move in sales, and it ignores regional pricing, refunds, key resellers and whatever deal the publisher actually has with Valve. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a figure.
If Nazca Corporation publishes a real number we will use that instead and say where it came from. Our editorial policy covers how we handle figures we cannot verify.
Metal Slug price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: $7.99 on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest Metal Slug updates & patch notes
Pulled from Metal Slug's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
What readers say about Metal Slug
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 219 most recent negative Steam reviews of Metal Slug on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Performance and stutter63 of 219 (29%)
Slowdowns, particularly in sound and music, plus irregular input latency make this port so very, very disappointing.
Steam review, 30 October 2020 · 2 hours played · 123 readers marked it helpfulI'm hesitant to say it's not worth your cash but know this before you buy - You are not getting anything other than a barebones, unoptimised and fundamentally graceless version of one of the best arcade shooters of the 90s.
Steam review, 26 June 2015 · 1 hours played · 43 readers marked it helpful - Controller and input25 of 219 (11%)
It runs poorly and has TERRIBLE input lag.
Steam review, 20 March 2026 · 0 hours played · 11 readers marked it helpfulmetal slug 1 is the most sluggish of the series (pun intended) control wise, but with the added input lag of this port, its nearly unplayable for someone whos familiar with the real game.
Steam review, 9 December 2015 · 2 hours played · 11 readers marked it helpful - Crashes and freezes7 of 219 (3%)
Trying to get a friend to connect would sometimes crash the entire game, and performance is just downright awful.
Steam review, 13 April 2020 · 0 hours played · 8 readers marked it helpfulFrankly, the slowdowns and freezes are entirely inexplicable.
Steam review, 11 February 2023 · 0 hours played · 6 readers marked it helpful
A further 6 reviews call the game buggy or broken without saying how, which is why they are counted separately rather than assigned to a theme. Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where Metal Slug appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Metal Slug qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
Get the weekly rundown
One email a week: what moved in the rankings, what launched, and what dropped in price. No more than that, and unsubscribing takes one click.
We send the weekly email and nothing else. Your address is never sold, shared or used to build a profile, and it is not readable by anyone visiting this site. See our privacy policy.
Games like Metal Slug
24 games overlap with Metal Slug on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are METAL SLUG 3, Metal Slug 2 and Sonic Mania.
Part of the Metal Slug series
Metal Slug is one of 4 Metal Slug games we track. See the whole series ranked by the GamingPickz Score, plotted on the grid, and listed in release order:
Metal Slug head to head
See Metal Slug compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
Common questions about Metal Slug
What platforms is Metal Slug on?
Metal Slug is available on Arcade, PlayStation, Steam Deck. It first released in 1996.
How much does Metal Slug cost?
$7.99 on Steam in the United States, read on 30 August 2026. Prices move often and vary by region, so check the store before buying.
Do players recommend Metal Slug?
89% of 5,258 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does Metal Slug work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Metal Slug as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
How big is the Metal Slug download?
0.49 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Metal Slug?
Metal Slug was developed by Nazca Corporation and published by SNK.
Is Metal Slug worth it in 2026?
89% of 5,258 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is $7.99 on steam. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is Metal Slug on sale?
Not at the moment. Metal Slug is at its $7.99 list price on Steam, read on 30 August 2026. It has been cheaper before; the price history above shows when.
How long does it take to beat Metal Slug?
about 0.9 hours for the main story, 1.8 hours with the main extras, 3.8 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.
Is Metal Slug worth the money?
At $7.99 for about 0.9 hours to beat the main story, Metal Slug works out to roughly $8.88 per hour. That is a value read, not a verdict: a longer game costs less per hour, which is not the same as being better. Weigh it against the review sentiment above.