Metal Gear Solid 5 mega reveal – Info on Ground Zeroes, Snake’s abilities and more

Kojima Productions has been benevolent enough in detailing its upcoming action-stealth title Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain in the past. This time, benevolent is just an understatement, and that was personified when Kojima recently held a press conference – with Hideo Kojima present – to go deep into the game.

Following details on The Phantom Pain, the studio shed some much needed light on Ground Zeroes, a prologue to the original MGS title which takes place about nine years before The Phantom Pain.

As reported by Polygon, the new reveal for the game had a major emphasis on the improvement of gameplay mechanics, which now offers slowed-down executions, interrogation techniques, and speedier traversal with a more compact story line, courtesy of fewer cutscenes.

“The slice of Ground Zeroes we saw was the same section Kojima Productions showed for the first time last year at PAX Prime — only this time, the game's spoken dialogue was in English. That meant we got to hear the new voice of Snake/Big Boss, Keifer Sutherland, delivering signature lines like ‘Kept you waiting, huh?’ (It was weird.)” Polygon wrote.

“The demo began with the camera following the character Skull Face into a military prison compound during a moonlit, rainy night. After some story set up that offers more questions than answers, the player is given control of Big Boss, who's tasked with infiltrating the compound in search of a piece of intelligence.”

While on display, Hideo Kojima went on to explain how Ground Zeroes is not the kind of an open world that fans would expect from The Phantom Pain. Since Ground Zeroes is a prologue to the original larger game, Kojima confirmed that Snake will play in a more limited space.

Snake’s apparel and gear consisted of a pair of binoculars and a holographic tablet dubbed the iDroid. As expected, Snake has the ability to scope out the entire compound to double check the status of security in the area. Once the enemy is marked, Snake is able to track them down, and possibly see these enemies through walls and other obstructions.

“Snake can turn those bright lights on enemies to his advantage. If he takes control of a searchlight, he can shine the beam on enemy soldiers, distracting them. When engaged in combat, he can flick on a flashlight attached to a gun to momentarily blind his target,” the report adds.

Metal Gear Solid 5 is currently scheduled for release on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, although no official release date has been announced.