Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes length doesn’t matter

There’s a concerning trend in gaming these days that has to do with certain games length of play and their replayability. While this topic is a complete post on its own, I want to focus on Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes length and why people need not be concerned.

The first problem were the headlines, “Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes beat in 10 mintues”. While you can finish the Ground Zeroes story mission in 10 minutes with a lot of sprinting and finesse, you don’t necessarily beat the game. You just successfully finished one of the many playable missions in Metal Gear Solid 5. When I played the first Ground Zeroes mission, I watched every cut scene, played very cautious, didn’t raise any alarms and didn’t kill anyone. With all of that the whole mission, just this one mission lasted an hour and 40 minutes. Point being, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes length is what you make it.

After completing the Ground Zeroes story mission, hard mode opens up, including several other playable missions. You didn’t think Kojima was just going to give you one story mission? The man who created a whole ‘nother game called Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. The man lives for extras, his games contain so much less than he wants them to. These missions tend to take 20-40 minutes each, depending on your play style. Add it all up and you’re looking at ~5 hours of content for your first playthrough only.

These missions include special objectives that earn you achievements/trophies, and finding all of the XOF patches in the Ground Zeroes mission earn you the Deja Vu missions. So it would behoove you to spend time and get the most out of each and every mission. One achievement has you exit the map in the back of a truck, patience is a virtue, considering I had lunch and checked my twitter feed waiting for the truck to drive around the map and eventually leave. Plus there’s some funny easter eggs definitely worth checking out.

Ground Zeroes is intended to be an appetizer to the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain that’s releasing sometime in 2015. It’s an introduction, if you will, to the incredible Fox engine, and to Kiefer Sutherland as Snake (which is honestly the trippiest part of the game). It’s much more than a demo and well worth its $30 price tag on next gen, especially PS4.

Don’t worry about Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes length and go out and buy it now. The Fox engine is incredible and ‘s story is as gripping as ever. I had goosebumps in every cutscene. Take your time in each mission, look around the map, check out the shadows, listen to the birds, the wind, the metal clinking on flagpoles. It’s simply amazing and a perfect introduction to not only Kojima’s Fox engine but also the next generation of gaming.

…a new generation of platforms doesn’t truly start until it has seen a Metal Gear Solid release. – Jesse Divnich. Vice President of EEDAR