Kojima discusses the true nature of MGS V: Phantom Pain and MGS: Ground Zeroes

[Snare]

Hideo Kojima speaks about the true nature of the two games and the reason behind the brevity of Ground Zeroes

It’s been suspected for some time now that Ground Zeroes was a splintered portion of MGS5, and when asked about this Kojima said; “I'll be honest here: this wasn't necessarily a strategic move. The Phantom Pain is roughly over 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes... I knew we couldn't hit a game that big for next-gen launch date [22nd February for the PS4 in Japan], and we didn't have any Japanese titles that were available for launch... At that time Ground Zeroes was almost complete, and a lot of fans asked for a product out there, so that's the decision I took."

So will this lead to the rise of the release of glorified demos as full products? Or will the final product of the Phantom Pain justify the wait and the transition game?

Full article here
http://www.game-debate.com/news/?new...round%20Zeroes

[brendanvb]

I guess we'll have to wait and see how much content is actually in Ground Zeroes. They say even though the main campaign can be completed in 2 hours, there is in fact 10 hours of content. I'm grateful that they at least had the decency to not charge full AAA price for it. The PS4 version is like R375.

I would've been fine to wait for The Phantom Pain had they not gone this route, but I'm very excited to play Ground Zeroes next week. MGS games are always top-notch quality.

[Deceptor]

Yeah next week can't come soon enough . Even if I finish it in 2 hours I know it will be packed full of awesomeness.

[XbatousaiX]

I cant wait to play it who cares if you can finish it in two hours it is a Metal Gear game and I need it.

[brendanvb]

I cant wait to play it who cares if you can finish it in two hours it is a Metal Gear game and I need it.

I just hope the 2 hours is purely gameplay-time and excludes MGS's infamous lengthy cutscenes

[Snare]

I just hope the 2 hours is purely gameplay-time and excludes MGS's infamous lengthy cutscenes

Lol, I think that's what the other 8 hours of "content" are

[brendanvb]

Did some searching and managed to find a very informative article about it's length and side missions:

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is the best, most expensive demo ever made

That title sounds negative but it's a mostly positive article. I've quoted some of the more informative parts below:

Let's get the facts out of the way. Ground Zeroes' main campaign is a single mission. Depending on one's play style and a bit of luck, this could realistically be completed in under an hour. Others will take it slow, experiment and maybe start over every time they're spotted. Under these conditions it could last upwards of four hours. It took me about two and a half, when I played it at Konami's camp in Nasu, Japan. But here's the twist: Ground Zeroes' main mission is only a tiny sliver of what the game has to offer.

Upon completing it, you'll unlock four side missions set in the same environment. Some of these are entirely combat-focused, while others are stealth-based. Some flesh out the series' incredibly convoluted narrative, while others are silly one-off scenarios. All range between 15 and 45 minutes, and come with their own truncated end credits sequence as well as the series' trademark cryptic audio easter eggs teasing further plot revelations upon completion. Irritatingly, the two best side missions are split between console-exclusive bonuses and are stupidly difficult to unlock, but more on that later.

Like any good Metal Gear, the more you put into it the more you get out of it. Even after eight hours on this map I was still discovering new strategies. I won't spoil them, as figuring these for yourself is much of the fun - but let's just say that Konami capped its preview event by showing a skilled member of the dev team race through the main mission in under 18 minutes without raising a single alert. Naturally, he utilised a lot of secret techniques that hinted at just how deep this rabbit hole goes.

The Xbox One's Jamais Vu mission stars Raiden, who runs a lot faster than Snake, but otherwise operates the same. Your goal in this mission is to eliminate a gang of body snatchers who can only be detected by tagging them with your binoculars. It's a fun little jaunt and it gives non-lethal-focused players like yours truly a chance to muck about with the game's deadlier weaponry, but it's ultimately insubstantial and ends with a frustrating, overly long shooting sequence.

The PS4's Deja Vu mission is the real surprise. In this goofy side-quest you're tasked with recreating photographs of areas in the level that recall the first Metal Gear Solid. Find the right angle to snap a pic of a chopper and two soldiers and the picture is automatically taken, which brings with it a funny cutscene comparing the new game to its 1998 forbear. Like Jamais Vu, it's not a huge boon, but it is an amusing aside for exploration-loving, secret-hunting players like myself.

Unfortunately both console-exclusive missions take a lot of doing to unlock. Konami won't let me say how you unlock them, but let's just say that it's something that would have taken me a very long time to do without outside help. Being the stubborn player that I am, I actually never unlocked them on my file and simply switched demo stations to scope them out.

I'd be remiss to not at least mention one of Ground Zeroes' biggest changes to the series: the newly cast Kiefer Sutherland voicing the lead. It's hard to come to a proper conclusion from this thin slice of content as Snake is a man of few words, but based on his handful of lines I'm not sold on this new interpretation of the protagonist. On a base level, Sutherland's softer, raspier tones sound an awful lot like those of Robin Atkin Downes, who plays Snake's primary compatriot Kaz. This problem makes itself present in the opening cutscene where the two have a conversation off-screen and even after my third viewing of this I had a hard time sorting who was talking at times.

In a lot of ways, there's really a lot to Ground Zeroes. Its small scale is more than compensated for by its robust depth, but its conclusion is anticlimactic, despite its bombastic and lengthy denouement cutscene being exciting in and of itself. Indeed the biggest issue with Ground Zeroes isn't its length: it's a lack of closure.