Metal Gear Solid 5 Phantom Pain Open World

There are several big games scheduled to launch in 2014, and one of the biggest is the next iteration of the treasured Metal Gear Solid franchise. Acting as a prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will be hitting a medley of platforms when it releases this March, but according to franchise director/creator Hideo Kojima the follow-up's open-world will literally be "hundreds of times larger."

In a recent tweet from the prestigious game designer (translated via Siliconera), Kojima established that Ground Zeroes will help longtime fans become accustomed to the new mechanics that are being implemented within the fifth MGS. While each area in the prologue will be fairly large in size in order to encourage the exploration of different paths and strategies, the open-world featured in its successor, The Phantom Pain, will be even more massive in scale.

GZ is both a prologue to the MGSV story and, at the same time, a tutorial for a new MGS, which transitions to sneaking simulator. With that said, GZ has a relatively small field as compared to the main game (which is hundreds of times larger) without time zones changing in real-time. However, each mission offers different time zones with different playstyles.”

There are some major changes afoot for the beloved Metal Gear Solid franchise, and those changes come in a myriad of forms. Putting aside the massive open-world featured in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and new stealth elements, another substantial change was the reveal that Kiefer Sutherland will be taking over the role of Snake from here on out. That decision was met with excitement and cynicism from the fan base, but it sounds like the game itself is coming together quite nicely.

Hideo Kojima probably still has a few more secrets under wraps pertaining to Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, but much more should be made clear as the former nears its highly anticipated March release.

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Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes releases on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, and PS4 on March 18, 2014.

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Source: Hideo Kojima (via Siliconera)