Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance player count increases thanks to Jetstream Sam

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was released nearly 10 years ago, but it has seen a surge in new players lately due to a related meme featuring Jetstream Sam, one of its characters, stroking his chin and pondering.

Samuel Rodrigues, or Jetstream Sam, is a character in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a 2013 spin-off from PlatinumGames. He’s recently seen a surge in popularity as a meme across the internet.

According to Playtracker, the Jetstream Sam meme went viral earlier this year, and it coincided with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance rising in popularity. The number of concurrent players in the game increased from an average of between 300 and 800 players in 2021 to an average of around 2000 players in January 2022.

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Additionally, activity to unlock achievements has increased across all platforms the game was released on and is at its highest level since 2018, indicating more people are actually playing through the game. Steamcharts has shown that the game’s player base has grown over the past two months.

Despite being almost 10 years old, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is seeing numbers it hasn’t seen since launch.

📈 Concurrent players increased by 1000%
🏆 Peak achievement activity across all platforms

The cause? Various meme templates featuring characters from the game went viral. pic.twitter.com/Ey6FmYAXJp

— PlayTracker (@PlayTrackerNet) May 23, 2022

Jetstream Sam’s meme is ironic. People would caption it with an absolutely ridiculous statement, and in the GIF, Jetstream Sam would pat his chin and think about actually considering it. The game’s political setting and over-the-top characters have inspired many memes, including ones involving its main opponent, right-wing Senator Armstrong.

One of the characters, Monsoon, even has a whole vicious speech about the concept of in-game memes, explaining it as “the DNA of the soul”.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was first released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in February 2013. It came to PC in January 2014. The game is also backward compatible with Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

In our review of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, we said, “Rising’s problems are rarely enough to derail the incredible momentum of an always entertaining, action-oriented Metal Gear spinoff. Whether you’ve ever enjoyed Metal Gear or not, this is a must-read for anyone who appreciates hand-to-hand combat.”

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey