Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes

Reactive guards and alternative routes make a strong infiltration playground within a small package.

Ground Zeroes makes a single facility worth studying. Guards take cover, investigate a last known position and attempt flanking manoeuvres, encouraging players to hide, relocate or continue a firefight as circumstances change. Different entrances give the rescue mission multiple approaches. The identified PS3 account finds crouching after a sprint and taking cover responsive; rain, animation and distant thunder reinforce the tension. Context-sensitive actions can still misread intent, turning an attempt to use equipment into an unwanted vault. The larger limitation is breadth: a brief main assignment and a limited weapon selection constrain the campaign. Additional missions extend the opportunity to experiment, but cannot turn a prologue into a lengthy adventure. It suits players who enjoy refining routes and repeating infiltration attempts more than those seeking a substantial sequence of story missions.

Who it is for: Players who enjoy studying a facility and refining alternative infiltration routes.

Play notes: Independent judgment from Stan Galupo’s PS3 account, not our own playtest. The page says updated April 6, 2023, but launch-relative prose and 2014 comments indicate a historical test. Exact test date, patch, model and hours are unknown; this is not a verified 2023 retest. Incorrect clone chronology and an explicitly untried truck-route speculation are excluded.