15 Games That Drastically Changed Their Series’ Formula

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

The Phantom Pain divides opinion among fans of Metal Gear like no other game in the series, thanks to its de-emphasized storytelling style and its disappointing and unfinished narrative. That said, there’s no doubting that purely in terms of how it plays, The Phantom Pain is an absolute masterpiece. The game puts you in a highly systemic based open world environment, and gives you tons of options to tackle objectives as you see fit, making for one of the most organic and thrilling stealth games ever. Many might argue that in doing so, The Phantom Pain lost much of Metal Gear’s identity- and yet, despite all of its controversial issues, it remains one of the best games to have been released in the last few years, across all systems and genres.