Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will be 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes and feature a similar open world structure but on a larger scale than before. However, don’t expect to have all the freedom in the world to do whatever you want like, say, Grand Theft Auto.
Director Hideo Kojima confirmed as much when speaking to CVG during E3. “This is a game that is not necessarily what you would call sandbox where you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want, like in GTA. This is not the way this game works. For our game, you get in, you accomplish a mission and you get out. These missions are very simple; destroying something, arresting someone, killing someone, recovering something. It’s really simple in that regard.
“Players have all the freedom in the world to think about what method, or what route, what time of the day will they choose to get in and accomplish their mission. During these missions there’s a story that’s developing. But there’s a limit to what the player can do when away from this mission because it’s clear when there’s a mission to complete.
“When we say we’re an open-world game it makes it sound like it’s trying to be the same as what [Rockstar] are creating. But this is very different – I’m trying to do a free infiltration game. What Rockstar has created and the world they have created is super impressive, and actually when I saw the PS4 version [of GTA 5] few days ago I got depressed again. But this is not game design-related it’s just me. The quality that they showed in the PS4 trailer was really impressive.
“In that regard, [MGS5] it’s completely different to GTA 5 in which you can do whatever you want. In MGS 5, you have missions and I try to provide players with as much fun as possible in the freedom they have for how to complete their mission.”
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is rumoured to be out in 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4.
