The gameplay here is by some margin the best in the series since Kojima's magnum opus (MGS3). Stealth is more viable and more rewarding than it was in the vast majority of MGS4, back to the MGS3 and earlier levels of effectiveness. The gameplay sandbox is perfectly matched to the open environments, in a way it simply wasn't in the cramped and restrictive locale for Ground Zeroes and the abilities and options are opened up massively versus the stripped-down Peace Walker.
MGSV feels like MGS4 never happened. It's a massive course correction. MGS4 veered off to pander to people who were really only interested in the story. MGSV is an antidote to that. Here, the gameplay is to the fore. Its modern action game controls allow people who want to just Dan Ryckert their way through to do so, but the situations, environments and encounters once again reward and encourage stealthy play.
Numerous times, I've run through a mission with an S-Rank or an A-Rank and just immediately felt that the whole thing was an exercise in practised, precise beauty. You steal through quietly, leaving none with the knowledge you were ever there. And then you make your way out, and press the trigger on your C4 to blow the shit out of something (RADAR, comms, a mission objective) because you can do so with impunity. And it. Is. Glorious.
I often said in the run up to this game coming out "I just want to sneak into and out of places". This is the last word in doing exactly that.
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