Konami have officially announced that their free add-on database for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots will be available on the 26th on the Playstation Store. This is great news for any PS3 owners who are interested in the game, yet need filling in on the series' backstory. The database is an archive with details about characters, weapons and plot elements, going all the way back to the original Metal Gear game.

Apparently, Konami have organised the database so that it can be searched via any of three hubs, GENE (the glossary), MEME (a map of the relationships between the series' characters), and finally SCENE, which is a timeline of the series. You'll be able to go from page to page using certain keywords, but all the information about Metal Gear Solid 4 is locked and can only be looked at as you progress through the actual game, the database will cleverly read your save file. Look out for it.

It's a nice little free download, 77mb to be exact. Any MGS fan should snap this one up in case it gets taken off for some reason.