Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain News - Kojima Clarifies 'Open World,' Ground Zero

Kojima’s upcoming action-adventure stealth title, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, is turning out to be one of the biggest games to hit the current and next generation platforms with its revamped open-world gameplay, and enhanced stealth options. Now, there ise more information revealed for the game’s so-called "open world," and Ground Zeroes.

When the game was revealed back in E3, director Hideo Kojima not only showed off new gameplay mechanics and the cast involved with it, but he also stressed on creating a "true open world experience" that took a number of fans by surprise.

However, the term "open-world" created a bit of misunderstanding as to what kind of options there will be for players to explore the environment, apart from heading on with the mission in hand.

“I think the term 'open world' has taken on a life of its own and caused misunderstandings," Kojima told Famitsu magazine in a recent interview, translated by Polygon. "Of course it's not going to be a game where Snake fishes all day or changes jobs and pursues a different life. The game map is an open world and you have freedom in that way, but in MGS5, it's clear what you're doing. That may be 'I have to help someone' or 'Destroy this thing' or 'Go gather intelligence at this spot'. Some missions will have time limits, too."

Kojima further went on to explain that attaining open-world with Metal Gear Solid 5 is something that has been long overdue based on the kind of titles he creates.

"With MGS up to now, we could only build the interior of wherever you were infiltrating. How you got there was shown in a cutscene, and the player would just suddenly be in front of the entrance. Once you finished the mission, there'd be another cutscene, a helicopter or whatever would come by, and you'd escape. It's not that linear games are bad [...] but really, it'd be fun if you were the one thinking about how and where to infiltrate, what sort of equipment to bring, and how to get out of there," he added.

On a similar note, when asked as to how different the open world is, Kojima added, “I think the way that MGS is combined with an open world here is something that we haven't really communicated very well yet.”

“In particular, with this game, we're building the control system and working the visual expressions for a global market to meet the needs of the North American market; that may have an impact on things too. But once you try it out, you should be able to feel like 'Yes, this is MGS.' I feel that games are interactive media, and the rush comes in being able to use what you're given freely to play. Open worlds create that for you, and I think the future of gaming lies in them."

As far as the in-game Ground Zeroes is concerned, it formed as one of Kojima’s bases to discuss the game in its full magnitude back in the E3. In the new interview, Kojima revealed that although Ground Zeroes' user interface is a bit different than MGS5, it's the same open world.

“There is a certain goal in separating the game like this, though — if we just threw you into the main open-world game, we figured that veteran MGS fans would get confused."

“The main section [of the game] is just really big and you can have enemies attack you from 360 degrees around. As time passes, you reactions in-game will change depending on player actions. If you do a mission, you'll be tired out,” Kojima added.

“You'd be exhausted after a round of airsoft, right? So let's take an hour-long break...something sort of like that. So to keep people from thinking 'This isn't MGS!', we'll limit the amount available to you at first and set a static time and weather pattern. So you'll get to play this open-world, highly free MGS in those conditions."

As a matter of the fact, the new Ground Zeroes has a little story of its own. According to Kojima: “GZ takes place in 1975, a year after Peace Walker, and the main game takes place in 1984, nine years later.”

“Something bad happens at the end of GZ, and then you continue into the main game. Unless you play GZ, you won't understand why retaliation is one of MGS5's main themes. It really is the 'ground zero' of Snake's story."

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is currently slated to release on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4.