Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes Length Revealed: Two Hours Long, 200x Smaller Than Phantom Pain

Bad news, gamers. Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is short. We knew that a while ago, when creator Hideo Kojima mentioned that this was really a prequel to the real game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, but we didn't know how short it would be. But reports are coming in that state you can beat the game in a mere two hours. Ouch.

Eurogamer's recent review calls it ""the best, most expensive demo ever made" and goes on to say that the game might be even shorter than two hours. There's only one mission in the whole game, and it can be completed in under an hour. Beating the game will unlock four side missions that range between 15 and 45 minutes, so you can go back and keep playing.

But it doesn't sound like you might want to do it anyway. "The truth is I tried to persevere through the murky narrative terrain Kojima laid out for us, I really did, but ultimately found it so arduous and at odds with the joy of sneaking that I just couldn't be bothered," Jeffrey Matulef says in his Eurogamer review. "Asking a group of Metal Gear fans/journalists at the same event if they actually understood the intricacies of the plot, every one of them offered a sheepish admission they were lost on the specifics. Some argued that it's probably meant to be confusing so that Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain can clear everything up. I remain sceptical, but on a basic level we all understood the general set-up for Metal Gear's long-awaited numbered sequel."

Double ouch. He does go on to praise the mechanics, and that the game allows you many different strategies for tackling the mission, but notes that the open world is far too short to even be called that.  

While most fans were hoping Ground Zeroes would satiate them before the real meal, it doesn't seem like it's going to be the case. 

There's hope for The Phantom Pain, though. Kojima has told a group interview that the game will be 200x bigger than Ground Zeroes. "I knew we couldn't hit a game that big for next-gen launch date [22nd February for the PS4 in Japan], and we didn't have any Japanese titles that were available for launch... At that time Ground Zeroes was almost complete, and a lot of fans asked for a product out there, so that's the decision I took." 

It's a strange tactic, that's for sure. Ground Zeroes will only cost $30 but it's half the price of a normal game for a single mission exised out of a much larger game. Would this have been a better demo than anything? Couldn't gamers have just waited?

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes hits on March 18th. There's no release date set for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain just yet.