Metal Gear Solid 5: Controls, Pause Functionality, Weapon Switch And More

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain director Hideo Kojima continues to provide information on his open world stealth game with a little more than a week before its big release for current and next gen consoles. Kojima recently tweeted about the real-time nature of the game and that whether you’re switching weapons or pausing, the game won’t stop alongside you in previous Metal Gear games.

Of course, he also wants to change the perception that the series is all about complicated controls. “Metal Gear Solid is often mistakenly considered too complicated in its controls. Simply more buttons are available in order to change camera or give the player more actions to chose from.

“I tried to configure the controls for instinctive gameplay as much as possible. Ground Zeroes performs smoothly and conveniently like a representative of the new generation. It’s hard to go back and play the old Metal Gear Solid games after you get used to Ground Zeroes.

“Back in the nineties, changing from the main screen to a secondary screen to switch weapons was the mainstream. This was distracting to players as they needed to switch between different screens back and forth. So I invented the weapon switch that can be done with one hand by clicking over the game screen in the first Metal Gear Solid. I also made background icons transparent.

“In Metal Gear Solid I had to chose a special button configuration to change weapons quickly (select a button as you hold another pressed). No other game had done the same before, so it kinda made everyone anxious. Well, you should be careful in Ground Zeroes because the game keeps going while you’re switching your weapon.”

Kojima also clarified some the nature of pausing in the game. “In Ground Zeroes even while you check the map or the walkman, the game isn’t paused and the world around you keeps going on like the real world. Of course there’s a pause button. I could even pause during my demonstrations. Players can go to the bathroom or take a break. However Snake in Ground Zeroes can’t take break, so you can’t play the game while paused.”

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes will be out on March 18th for North America and March 20th for Europe on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4.