I've never played any Metal Gear games, but after watching Metal Gear Scanlon, I am super into the story, and got pretty pumped when Ground Zeroes went free with PS+ this month. So, just wondering if I should wait to play GZ until after Metal Gear Scanlon 4 or if the stuff that goes down in GZ is separate enough to enjoy now. Thanks duders!

The "story" of Ground Zeroes, and it´s very thin anyway, is set decades before that of MGS 4. I think you´re really safe in terms of spoilers.

It´s a short, but fun trip. Get in, boy!

The chronology of the games goes:

Snake Eater -> Portable Ops / Peace Walker -> Ground Zeroes -> Phantom Pain -> Metal Gear -> Solid Snake -> Metal Gear Solid -> Sons of Liberty -> Guns of the Patriots

I'm pretty sure.

Technically I think you are safe to play Ground Zeroes. I'd say you aren't hurting your MGS4 or general series experience by doing that. Except. Definitely you will not witness / feel the mechanical change arc as acutely as if you played them in strict order.

TLDR - go for it!

Play it. Ground zeroes is very separate fiction wise and doesn't spoil 4 at all. The only thing is there is an extra mission where you play as Metal Gear Solid 4 raiden but there's no story attached to it, you just look like him.

Have fun, I loved ground zeroes it has the best controls in the series.

Ground Zeroes is by far the best playing game in the series. Nearly all of the controller jank has been worked out of it, and while the story isn't as Metal Gear crazy as what you'll be used to after seeing Metal Gear Scanlon, The Phantom Pain will provide that in spades.

The story has much more to do with MGS3/Peace Walker (much more so with PW) and almost nothing to do with MGS4, so you're all clear.

2 hour bonus stream or whatever. We'll only be watching the reaction to the ending.

It spoils major plot points of Peace Walker if you listen to the in-game tapes. Otherwise, it's not really an issue as you wouldn't really comprehend the spoilers just yet. It doesn't really have a lot going on in terms of story on the surface.

@mirado: @audiobusting: As Dan/Drew will not be playing Peace Walker, but it seems important to V, what is the best way for me to catch up on PW after they have done MGS4? Read a wiki? Find a YouTube playlist of all the cutscenes? Playing the game is incredibly unlikely, not even sure where my PSP is.

EDIT: Oh, hangon, is it on 360? Hmm...

There's a lot more story to GZ if you listen to the tapes. Specifically the "Pre-Mission Briefing" tapes; they gives you a lot more info on why the mission is happening. Cassette tapes replace the old style codec calls in MGSV.

@bollard iirc Dan said on his Tumblr later on that he was considering whether or not they would play PW still. Cause if they did then he could play co-op with Drew. But if not, I think the "Backstory" option in GZ's main menu is enough for people who do not want to play PW.

@bollard: I don't know if Dan and Drew have already decided to skip Peace Walker (I thought they talked about wanting to at least try out the co-op), but yeah it's pretty unlikely that they will complete it anyway. It's a pretty big time commitment. And yes, the game is on the PS3/360, so you don't need a PSP anymore. But again, it takes a while to complete.

One relatively quick way to see the whole game is watch a Let's Play of it to see the whole game (I recommend this one: http://lparchive.org/Metal-Gear-Solid-Peace-Walker/). It's also a good primer on how the base-building systems work, some of which seems to be making a comeback in Phantom Pain. But if you really want to, the fastest way to catch up on PW's story is actually the tapes included in GZ after all. Those tapes are journal entries that you get by the end of PW, so you're basically just listening to the epilogue of PW. They are just monologues, so it's not the most exciting way to find out about these things.

Oh, the story in PW may spoil a little bit of MGS4 though. They're not really spoilers, but there are some callbacks.

Edit: I forgot that there's also a "Backstory" option in GZ, but I'd imagine it's more boring to read through that than to read a wiki page.

@audiobusting: @kasaioni: They've only committed to playing 4, and I really want to be caught up on the story before Phantom Pain releases so I can play it myself!

Also my plan is to worry about PW after they finish MGSIV, so don't need to worry about 4 spoilers in PW.

I disagree; I think it's better written than the wiki and it plays music in the background.

@bollard Okay, but I'll warn you that Peace Walker takes longer than most Metal Gear games to complete. So the sooner you start, the better.

@kasaioni: Ah, thanks for the tip!