Linkity Link.

Thought it was weird that they would announce them as two separate games, at two separate times.

Kojima already said way back when that Ground Zeroes would lead into V. I thought from the trailer that they were a two-parter story on one disc but it's nice to get some confirmation

Sounds like a way to sell one game and make double the money.

Sounds like they're just making one game, and cutting part of it out and selling them as separate games then.

Don't care, I'll play both, I just want some MGS

I think this is a micro-transaction..

The ultimate microtransaction.

Sounds like another great excuse for angry people to start vilifying a game developer with zero context.

Kojima started the entire GDC panel by saying that Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain combine to make MGS5.

EDIT: During the presentation they said, again, that The Phantom Pain was an open world game and whatnot, you'll be able to go anywhere and do anything, and that the intro they were showing was the tutorial, where it begins by crawling.

Unless they are making TWO open world games, one where you build Mother Base some more, then it gets taken, then TPP where you rebuild as the Diamond Dogs.

So mgs5 is going to cost 120 dollars?

Macro-transaction? Call in xXelNagaXx420

So Ground Zeroes is open world helicopter/jeep shenanigans and The Phantom Pain is presumably a more (Or now that I think about it maybe less?) traditional Metal Gear Solid game. Either way if they come separately in two different Collector's editions, I'm a pig in Tactical Espionage mud.

MGSV is actually GTAV. Kojima has been Rockstar the whole time.

I AM SO CONFUSED

So Kojima says it's 1 game at GDC. Then later on, Konami says it's 2 separate games. WTF is going on?

Yeah, this marketing has now come back around to bite them in the butt.

Then why did the "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" trailer at GDC show parts from both the "Ground Zeroes" and "Phantom Pain" trailers/presentations?

I dont get it.

@muthachugga: I'm guessing: Poorly written article + out of the loop PR guy = CLUSTERFUGE.

I mean, let's say this is true. GZ and MGS5 are two different games. THEY JUST SHOWED THE ENDING TO GZ. So what's the point? It can't be. Peace Walker actually had chapters. It began with the prologue, and had actual, named chapters.

I am so confused right now.

Exactly. They need to clearly state that it is one game or two.

Flat out I think this article is wrong and the PR person messed up or something. I can't believe they'd do that, and from the trailer angle as I pointed out it makes no sense. They rather clearly framed it as one game today during the presentation.

Michael Transactions.

This all could actually come down to the whole episodic game experiment Kojima talked about a few weeks back. Where you release a game in chunks that way if it's no good or nobody buys the first chunk, then the developer doesn't need to dump investment into the other half or 3/4s of the project for nothing. Maybe they release Ground Zeroes and then we buy The Phantom Pain at a later date as dlc or expansion pack type of thing.

From the article the PR guy said that The Phantom Pain will definitely be on 360 and PS3 but from the way they're talking it sounds like Ground Zeroes would be released first since it's the prologue to MGS5. So doesn't that confirm that Ground Zeroes would also be on the 360 and PS3? Or are they gonna release it as a prequel?

@probablytuna: I think ArtisanBreads probably has it right. The PR dude and developer aren't on the same page with the messaging.

I don't want to be a jerk by saying what I already said, but if you could find a link to the GDC stream, you could hear exactly what was said. Kojima began by taking off the Joakim mask and then saying SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF "Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain combine to make Metal Gear Solid 5".

@n7: And after that, Konami said it was two separate games. I trust Kojima more, but why would Konami say that?

@muthachugga: Because they are as confused as we are?

@n7: Agreed. I doubt it's 2 separate games.

I'm saying the same thing, I watched it.

The Phantom Pain is what makes our wiki mods suffer as they try to sort all of this out.

no, just the season pass :|

My mind... I swear, this is like the mindfuck of everything to do with MGS2 injected with nanomachines spliced with the T-Virus after a pinch of heroine.

It's possible he meant they're two seperate games, but playing them both will complete the overall story of Metal Gear Solid 5. I didn't watch the conference, but did the game get officially named MGS5, or are they still going by the sub-titles?

It was officially called Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain, but they would also refer to it as Ground Zeroes as well during the conference... They've often stated that the 'two' will make up MGSV that's true, but I think most of us (myself included) thought that Ground Zeroes was still apart of the same game as Phantom Pain, just as a separate prologue story ala The Tanker mission in MGS2.

@yummylee: Well, I have no clue then. I guess we just have to wait a bit longer for some actual confirmation.

It'll probably come as two seperate discs, but Phantom Pain's disc will be a fake CG disc that disappears when you touch it.

My sentiments exactly.

So, yes.

Two seperate games with no David Hayter, huh... I think I'm finally sharing the feeling some people had with MGS2, and that's not fun.

I got the impression that Ground Zeroes was just the name of the prologue within MGSV.

That means absolutely nothing.

The Tanker and Big Shell combine to make Metal Gear Solid 2

Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, and Legacy of the void combine to make Starcraft 2

That latter example isn't really true. Starcraft 2 was never sold as Wings of Liberty and its expansions. You don't have to pay $140 or whatever the total cost will come out to in order to claim you played the full game. They don't combine to make Starcraft 2. You bought Starcraft 2 in 2010 or whenever it was out, and there are then expansions released after the fact. They don't all combine to make one game.

Also, they added this to their posting that makes it rather clear that the Konami PR dude just had little to no idea what's going on:"Update 2: We got in touch with Boor again, this time asking if the two games will be part of the same package or on the same disc. He replied: “Can’t confirm at this time."

The game is called Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

He announced Ground Zeroes and then The Phantom Pain. Both games combined to make Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

Semantics. They combine to make one story. Maybe a better example would have been The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King combine to make The Lord of the Rings.

Boor's follow-up statement makes absolutely nothing clear. The company he works for could easily have decided, as part of the marketing plan, to describe Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain as two separate games but not give any specifics as to whether that would actually mean distinct releases.

I wonder if it'll be like a Pokemon Red and Blue situation for these games. Except instead of different Pokemon for each version, it'll be...a different story? I can't imagine that the gameplay will be hugely different between the two.

I still don't see where what you're saying or what he said proves anything in any way. Until someone explicitly states that both Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain are either part of the same package for X dollars or are two separate packages for X dollars each everything we say is conjecture.

Er, it makes it very clear in the context of the dude just said they're two separate games when quoted earlier in the article (“'Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain are two separate games,' Boor clarified to Siliconera via e-mail.") and is now in an update to that very same article saying he can't confirm whether they're part of the same package or not. If you're suggesting that it's part of their marketing plan to directly contradict themselves within the same day in separate statements, I can only say that seems to be a truly bizarre decision on their part. Bizarre enough to make me believe that there's no way that they'd intentionally be doing so.

Also, to speak to your Lord of the Rings analogy, that name refers to a trilogy of books, so while it could apply here, it would seem rather awkward to refer to the fifth game of the Metal Gear Solid series as its own sub-series of games.

It's in the GDC conference. It's the same game. He showed us a trailer of "MGS5" and it had "ground zeroes" and "the phantom pain" footage in it.

Kojima said they are the same game at GDC. He said that Ground Zeroes is the prologue and TPP happens after that.

@mikerd: The phrase "two separate games" is meaningless without context. That's why this thread exists in the first place. It could be taken at face-value to mean that they are in fact, going to be sold separately for $60 each. It could also mean that they are simply being developed separately but will eventually combine on a single disc to make the whole MGSV game. You can't contradict anything when you have zero information, which is exactly what not confirming something gives you.

Will your game be coming out on next generation consoles?

Yes

Will your game be coming out on PS4 or the yet-to-be-named Durango?

I can't confirm that at this time

OHMYGAWD THEY CONTRADICTED THEMSELVES (not)

@n7: Because it's impossible to cut a trailer from footage of two separate things, right?

Did Kojima ever actually say that Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain are the same game? Using those exact words? "Combine to make MGS5" certainly doesn't say that, and that's the quote I've seen bandied about as "proof". Being a prologue to something in no way means that it is the same game. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is a prologue to Dead Rising 2.

@starvinggamer: Dude I don't flippin' know. I read the update and he refers to Ground Zeroes, The Phantom Pain, and MGS5: The Phantom Pain as separate games.

He says MGS5 comes with Ground Zeroes as the prologue, so, does that mean there are THREE, but TPP and GZ are stand alone, and MGS5 combines them? That's what his twitter update seems like it says.