Lucky journalists had a chance yesterday to see Metal Gear Solid V in action as Kojima Productions demoed the upcoming open world stealth title behind closed doors at their new Los Angeles studio. Unfortunately no video footage is available but there is no shortage of discussion from those who were present.
Many of the big changes in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V release have already been detailed and debated at length. David Hayter is gone. Replaced by Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland. The removal of Snake/Big Boss’s iconic voice actor is a sore point for many fans of the series including David Hayter who voiced his displeasure at times on Twitter as is the modern thing to do.
Linear gameplay is also mostly gone. Replaced with an open world full of new and dynamic possibilities, although anyone familiar with Kojima’s penchant for heavy handed narrative will know can still expect a great deal of linearity to the story aspects of the game as can be seen in the demo videos for The Phantom Pain.
The Changes
The ever present HUD and Soliton Radar are gone, partially in keeping with the historical setting of the game and also in keeping with the minimalistic aspect of many modern game interfaces like The Last of Us. Enemies can be spotted using binoculars and then tracked in a BF3 like manner using the HUD but the omnipotent radar is no more.
The left and right side scrolling menus used for item/weapon management are also gone moving to a directional D-Pad style menu in the centre of the screen, another iconic Metal Gear trope thrown out the window in favor of the series continuing evolution.
Alerts are no longer instant and the player is given a final chance to respond before everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Slow-motion is triggered as you are spotted and Big Boss has a split second opportunity to respond before the game’s signature alert noise “!” plays.
In the Metal Gear Solid V demo shown to journalists the objective was to reach a truck marked with a FOX badge, which then triggered a driving section complete with blown out tires and unfortunate collisions with concrete barriers. The driving section has been criticized as “needing more work” although from all reports the producer Yuji Korekado who was playing the demo was perhaps not as well prepared to play the game as he could have been, coming very close to death while showing off the final parts of the demo.
Next Gen Demos Incoming
According to those present the demo was conducted on a PC with similar capabilities to next-gen hardware and proper demos on Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles will take place at the Tokyo Game Show which runs September 19th to the 22nd.
While no release date has been announced expect to be playing it some time next year with both next-gen and current-generation versions presently announced.
- This article was updated on February 20th, 2018
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