MGS V: The Phantom Pain And The Irrepressible Hideo Kojima

Many would consider Ground Zeroes to be the prologue to The Phantom Pain. In truth it’s more of a bridge from Peace Walker’s bite-sized format and cast of characters to the fully open world gameplay and the revenge – nay, revengeance – at the heart of the central game beneath the Metal Gear Solid V umbrella.

The Phantom Pain actually has its own lengthy story-driven prologue that, over the course of an hour – ironically a little longer than a first play-through of Ground Zeroes’ main mission might be – introduces some likely future foes, explains the destruction of Militaires Sans Frontières that we saw at the end of Ground Zeroes, and kicks the story into action. It could be done quicker, and you literally have Snake drag himself along the floor for minutes at a time, but it displays an undeniable flair for the cinematic.

MSF might have been destroyed and buried by its foes after Ground Zeroes, but the idea of a military force without any allegiance lives on, and it’s up to Big Boss to build and lead just such a group once more within the Diamond Dogs. Initially to rescue one of your own, The Phantom Pain drops you into Afghanistan at the height of the Soviet invasion and occupation of the 1980s, taking jobs and contracts from whoever is offering them. These could be to take out a high-ranking soldier, retrieve experimental weapons for the CIA, recover intelligence, or more.

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It’s a grand expansion on the gameplay of Ground Zeroes, taking the same principles from that compact sandbox environment and stretching them out over the rugged Afghan terrain. Thankfully, you have a trusty horse who will appear out of thin air whenever you whistle, so you can ride quickly between the many Soviet outposts in desolate towns and checkpoints that are dotted across the countryside. As time cycles from day to night, guard patterns change and visibility alters, shifting what you’ll face in a given situation, but if you don’t like what you see you can wait them out by puffing away on the Phantom Cigar.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of playing it as a straight-laced stealth game, scoping out enemies, quietly taking them out one by one as you make your way to the objective before escaping to safety and extraction. However, these are just the underpinnings to a game structure that gives you the freedom to play how you want.

Though hopping on and off the extraction helicopter is actually a rather drawn out process, that lets you really soak in the scenery, you can drop in and pick from a constantly refilling selection of missions, before heading back out to Mother Base, or you can stay in the field for extended periods of time, moving from main missions to smaller “Side Ops” that might, for example, see you kidnapping and inducting into the Diamond Dogs a multilingual enemy soldier who can then translate for your future interrogations.

On top of this solid core is a gradual development and expansion of the Diamond Dogs’ Mother Base. The Fulton Recovery System returns, allowing you to knock guards unconscious and send them flying high into the sky on a balloon. They then get shuffled off to the department that suits them best, between R&D, Intelligence, Medical and Combat, and though you can override the automated placement, it’s usually to their strengths.

Building your forces helps you to unlock more and more gear, which is then paid for by completing missions – bookended by mini credits sequences just as in Ground Zeroes – and picking up resources from outposts and glinting diamonds as you come across them. From here you can start to unlock an embarrassment of gadgets that can fundamentally alter how you tackle a mission, while also expanding the offshore platform that serves as home.

Upgrading and unlocking new guns are the obvious first steps, but you can then augment almost all of the tools at your disposal in any part of the game. You can improve the Fulton, so that it can pick up things heavier than a soldier, letting you steal entire shipping containers, or stick heavier guns and weaponry onto the helicopter, so you can just fly around shooting everything to bits from the side of the chopper or call in air support for a more destructive approach. Alternatively, you can simply call in a different mode of transport, AI buddies, or just have more ammo dropped in.

I can’t help but draw parallels between Kojima’s work and that of George Lucas at the height of his reign over the Star Wars franchise during the late 90s. Thankfully, he’s held back from endlessly revising his former work by the simple realities of game development compared to film, but it feels as if nobody is willing to tell him that, no, this is all getting a bit too silly – although in light of recent developments, this might no longer be the case. As such, what emerges from The Phantom Pain are little moments, easter eggs and ideas that are so self-indulgent that they’d struggle to be taken seriously anywhere else.

Upon being dropped off back in the heart of occupied Afghan territory, a little puppy is yapping away at you, your helicopter and your horse. Of course, it’s the perfect opportunity to test out your Fulton, to send him up into the sky to be collected and taken back to Mother Base. Nicknamed DD once you return after the mission, taking the Diamond Dogs name of your reformed organisation one eye-rolling step too far, he’ll grow into an adult wolf that can be your companion on missions. Oh, and for the coup de grâce, DD’s only got one eye.

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Unfortunately, I didn’t unlock this myself in the time I had to play, but looking over a fellow journalist’s shoulder who was several hours deeper into the game, they explained that the R&D team can create new gear for DD, including a doggy stealth suit and a knife that he can use to take out enemies. You can put a wolf, a naturally predatory animal, in a stealth suit and give it a knife.

It goes on, as I anecdotally heard that you can build a zoo at Mother Base for all of the animals you Fulton back there, which can range from sheep to wolves and onwards. Then there’s how you can airdrop yourself a horse to ride around on or the myriad new abilities afforded to the humble cardboard box, including the seduction of a hapless soldier while you sneak around to subdue them.

Yet, having such a lack of restraint is part of what makes Metal Gear Solid so popular. While I’m surely not the only one who wishes that Kojima had an editor to cut down on his excesses, he’s completely free to tell the story how he wants, and shackling his seemingly boundless creativity would dull some of the brilliance of a playground that I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of.

5 Comments

  1. Fantastic preview Tef, I’m almost literally wetting my pants over this game now!! I totally don’t mind the jokey moments, they permeate the series and aren’t usually intrusive, and I love the idea that this is building on the format of Peace Walker, Mother Base management in that game never got tiring for me. Any sign of an external turn-based battle mini-game?
    Sounds like you had a good amount of time with the game Tef, any chance you can reveal whether or not you have it on preorder? I won’t be cancelling mine whatever anybody says :)

    • Ta. :)

      I’m not aware of a mini game like that, I’m afraid, but you never know. There’s plenty still to talk about – albeit not by me – with regard to MGO and how base invasions will work though.

      And yeah, it was a good 5-6 hour session, but I could have theoretically played for longer – hence how others unlocked crazy dog stealth suits.

      Finally, no, I don’t personally have it pre-ordered, but then I haven’t pre-ordered a game outside of Kickstarter for a couple of years, maybe.

  2. Awesome , cheers Tef, I’m so jealous! My most wanted by far…

  3. Yup, good read. Most games just follow some kind of concept but some just stand out. Metal Gear games were always in the latter.

  4. My body is ready for it. My Snake is Solid and i shall re

    THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STEVEN’S SELF AWARENESS. IF HE DID NOT STOP HIMSELF, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN BANNED OR TURNED INTO TUFFCUB 2.0.

    I’m going to have to preorder this but i am concerned that the retcons may ruin the other games and Kojima has said that they don’t fit in well with the other games.

    Konami, you may want to milk this until it’s deader then dead as without Kojima, ye are pretty much screwed. I mean, look at this! This will make you a shit ton of cash.

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