Metal Gear Solid 5 is all about that (Mother) Base

While the shift to open-world stealth gameplay means blowing out certain aspects of Metal Gear Solid’s design, it also means scaling back on others, and in The Phantom Pain's case, that means dialing down the cutscenes. Not that there won't be any long-winded monologues, but the first 16 hours or so of the game puts a much larger emphasis on the gameplay, and you won't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the action to get going.

For a nice change of pace, The Phantom Pain puts a lot of its secondary information on cassette tapes, rather than dumping everything on you via hours of static codec conversations. Want to know more about the political landscape of the early 1980s or what happened to your comrades after the events of Peace Walker? Pop in a tape while you're travelling across Afghanistan or exploring Mother Base.

Unlike other Metal Gear games, Big Boss won't be funnelled down a linear path from the beginning of the story to its end. Instead, you'll choose from a variety of missions from a menu, similar to the PSP entry, Peace Walker.

You get a series of story-based mission that will further The Phantom Pain's narrative, but you also have a huge variety of Side Ops to choose from, ranging from assassination missions, to recruiting specific soldiers, or even hunting down old members of your squad. Completing these missions will reward you with additional resources, which you can then use to build extra weapons and gear. If you're stuck on a particularly difficult story mission, take on a few side quests, research a rocket launcher, and blow up your problems with ease.

The latest feature revealed for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will make Snake a nigh-undetectable master of stealth and subterfuge… and will also make him look completely ridiculous. Konami recently revealed the glorious chicken hat, a piece of equipment which players will be offered if they get killed or otherwise fail in Snake's quest for vengeance too many times.

You're free to pass on the hat, but you'd be giving up one of the most versatile tools in tactical espionage action that isn't made from corrugated paper. Guards don't tend to get out of sorts when they see Snake wearing it (unless he sticks around too long or starts shooting at them), because they think he's just a harmless chicken. Just a harmless, man-sized chicken with an eyepatch and a robot arm. Apparently there's no penalty for wearing the hat other than occasionally catching its weary stare as you try to follow otherwise serious cut scenes.

Looking for more information on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain? Click on for everything we know about the game.

At The Game Awards 2014, a new trailer for Metal Gear Online - the multiplayer companion to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - was shown. Right off the bat, it looks like you can have eight players on a team - if the above image is any indication. The developers did confirm that the Metal Gear Solid characters themselves will be playable, so you won't be running around as a bunch of generic-military-shooter-men (though there are still plenty of those).

In the ensuing firefight, a variety of traps and tools were shown. Early on Snake hijacked what very much looked like a tiny Metal Gear built for one, and rode it around the battlefield wreaking havoc. Not necessarily the stealthiest way to go about it, but it sure looked like fun. As for traps, the opposing team deployed a balloon mine that, when triggered, hoisted an unsuspecting player up into the air for easy shooting. They also had a… um… stuffed dog toy that they just dropped on the ground. This seemed to function much like the dirty magazines of yore, leaving its victim hopelessly infatuated (and ready to get shot down).

Looking for more information on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Just click on to the following slides for everything we know about the game.

There's a fresh gameplay demo of Metal Gear Solid 5, and it's stuffed full of new features. You can watch the video underneath this article, but here are some of the highlights... It shows a typical mission in one of Phantom Pain's open-mission areas. Snake is sent in to extract a hostage, and he takes new female companion Quiet with him. She has the ability to evaporate into a cloud of smoke, and reappear at set locations on the map. So, as Snake progresses through the woodlands in this demo, Quiet moves around the level to cover him with sniper fire.

While Snake can take out most enemies himself, Quiet is used as a back-up or for removing multiple threats at once. The hostage, for example, has two guards. Snake coordinates with Quiet, picking a target each to eliminate them at the same time. Apparently, there will be other allies that can be used as support characters throughout the Phantom Pain. Before you ask: it's unlikely they'll be human-controlled characters.

Even Metal Gear fans will admit the series history is really hard to nail down, so let's make it clear right now: The Phantom Pain's Snake is Big Boss, aka Naked Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3, the star of Peace Walker, father to Solid Snake, and the villain of the original Metal Gear game. It's set in 1984, 11 years before Solid's first battle with Big Boss. In The Phantom Pain, Snake is just trying to rebuild.

According to early sources, his nickname for MGS5 appears to be Venom Snake, likely because he's filled with venomous rage in a quest for revenge on the people that killed and tortured those closest to him. He plans to do a lot of damage, but he's got to do a lot of rebuilding first. In fact, Snake himself has been rebuilt this time, including a newly acquired cybernetic arm and some very different gameplay.

The Phantom Pain appears to begin with Big Boss/Snake dead on a stretcher. He's eventually revived and but is in a coma for the next nine years. When he awakes, he's missing an arm and has to quickly relearn his motor skills, because the hospital he's staying in is under attack. After escaping, Snake is set on revenge on the mercenaries that did this to him, so he starts to rebuild his army, this time under the David Bowie-esque moniker Diamond Dogs.

The Phantom Pain seems to be a lengthy tale of revenge on the part of Snake, as he slowly builds up the private military group that will presumably become Outer Heaven. As he rebuilds his reputation on the battlefield, Snake will meet friends old and new, as well as taking out armed guards with tranquilizers and CQCs. But will he find the mysterious XOF team that seems to be responsible for all his pain?

Classic Metal Gear games are known for sneaking in tight corridors and quiet hallways, though the series opened up more and more with each sequel. The Phantom Pain makes the world bigger than ever by adopting a truly open world gameplay. Snake gets dropped into a base and can explore it however he likes, planning his approach however he chooses, using new tools like the iDroid to mark waypoints along the way.

The changes feel natural for the franchise because the combat is still there, you just have way more places to hide. MGS has always been about giving players room to experiment, and Phantom Pain's map is apparently bigger than every previous Metal Gear combined. That's a lot of space to drag around bodies.

MGS5 has some insanely huge maps, so it's a good thing that Kojima isn't forcing Big Boss to crawl around the miles of open world. For the first time in series history, MGS5 adds in drivable vehicles, putting Big Boss behind the wheel of jeeps and tanks. He can even ride a horse around the world, as we've seen in an early Afghanistan level, and the horse defecates in real time--seriously, new-gen horse poop.

Snake can also take to the air via helicopter. Though Snake is alone on his tactical espionage missions, he can call for help from his team, including airstrikes via copters that he can ride along in. How will all these transportation options change the gameplay? And what other planes, trains, and automobiles will be available in the final game?

Snake already had to deal with losing an eye, but when he wakes up in his hospital bed he has to come to terms with losing his left arm and having chunks of shrapnel embedded in his skull. His prosthetic is pretty advanced for 1984, with all the maneuverability of a normal arm, but with special abilities. Do you recall how Snake normally taps on a wall to call over a curious guard? Well, that arm can now make that arm wherever, no wall needed. How's that for advanced?

Snake's cybernetic enhancement fits with a series full of augmented characters like Gray Fox, Raiden, and Revolver Ocelot, and the tech advancements don't stop there. Snake's iDroid is a great asset for planning out missions, summoning weapons, or listening to emotionally draining conversations. And to help time pass in game, Big Boss now has an e-cigar that he smokes while the in-game clock quickly advances.

The whole of MGS 5’s narrative is split and seems to be pre- and post-coma. Before Snake heads off to dreamland, he’s seen assisting a familiar face in the accompanying hospital bed. Master Miller (a.k.a. Kazuhira Miller) had teamed up with Big Boss prior to the Peace Walker incident to form Militaires Sans Frontières. When Boss awakes, Miller has been kidnapped and Snake has save his old friend from being tortured to death. And Snake gets help from his classic frenemy, Revolver Ocelot.

With Ocelot, Miller, and other familiar faces hanging around, the game still finds room for new characters. There's The Quiet, a controversial femme fatale that seems to have a complicated past. There's also a character that looks a bit like Psycho Mantis, as well as some other potential bosses with wacky names, such as Skull Face, Code Talker, and Eli. We look forward to hearing their life stories in separate 40 minute cutscenes.

The first publicly available taste of MGS5 is already available and... so far so good. As detailed in our Ground Zeroes review, Snake plays better than he's ever played before, with everything from combat animations to moment-to-moment movement feeling more realistic when exploring Camp Omega. The game also delivers on its promise of taking the previously linear Metal Gear series and transitioning it into a more open-world, player-decision driven progression path. And though there isn't much by way of story here, Ground Zeroes' narrative treads the same thought-provoking ground you'd expect from a Kojima game.

Plus the game sets up a ton of plot points that Phantom Pain will no doubt explore. You learn the fates of Peace Walker characters Paz and Chico, you meet the despicable villain Skull Face, and you witness the attack on Mother Base that puts Snake in his lengthy coma. This is all essential info for Phantom Pain, plus it gives you ample time to adapt to the new controls.

When the star of 24 was confirmed to be the new lead in MGS, director Hideo Kojima had this to say about Kiefer Sutherland as Big Boss: "I wanted Snake to have a more subdued performance expressed through facial movements and tone of voice rather than words," Kojima said. "The game takes place in 1984, when Snake is 49 years old; therefore, we needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s."

Sutherland will not only lend his vocal talents to our favorite spy, but also his movements as well--Snake's animations will be modeled after motion captured data. "It's an honor to be able to play this character," Sutherland said. "This character has an unbelievable legacy, but there's a real personal quality to this character that I've connected to. I'm not a gamer and I even knew about this game. I was certainly keenly aware of the legacy of these games." For fans of David Hayter's portrayal, you can hold out hope that Hayter still technically remains the voice of Solid Snake.

Yeah, we've heard this before. Hideo Kojima is claiming that Metal Gear Solid V is his last Metal Gear game, and that he'll pass the franchise off to his staff after this one. Before you get too worried, you should remember that he said literally the same thing when Metal Gear Solid 4 was announced. Kojima saying he's making his last MGS game is like The Rolling Stones saying they're on their last tour.

Kojima claimed that the reason he's making it at all is because he wants to reinvent the series before he leaves. That's why it's Metal Gear Solid V instead of 5 (V is for "Victory," in his mind), and that's why he's leaving David Hayter in the past. But will he really go to all the work of redefining Snake only to abandon him?