So I've been back and forth a lot in my mind on if I should pick this game up or now. Today for the first time ever I booted up Ground Zeroes, since it was a free PS+ game, and played the main mission, and it was pretty fun (though I have no idea what the hell was going on, story wise)

My MGS experience isn't too great but also not lacking either, I played and beat both MGS2 and 3 back in the day, and know the story of MGS1 and MGS4. Is Phantom Pain enjoyable without playing or knowing anything about Peace Walker?

Seeing how much praise this game is getting makes me interested, but as someone not really invested in the Metal Gear story deeply, I'm not sure if that will impact my potential enjoyment of the game. I'd love a new AAA game to play, as I haven't really had much to play the past few months.

Main question would be, is this game enjoyable if you aren't devoted to the crazy Metal Gear lore, and if so, should I try to fully complete the side ops in Ground Zeroes before I start playing? Does uploading data do anything interesting/useful?

Thanks for any/all opinions. For some reason this game is super intimidating to me, having such a cult following, and though the coverage of it looks cool, I'm super hesitant going forward, feeling like I'd miss out on some of the enjoyment. It's probably a false feeling, but I'd love to here people's opinions on the game, especially if you also weren't super into the MGS series before you picked this up.

The game is REALLY gameplay focused from what I've played. Of course there's story, but I think someone could enjoy it without knowing much. That being said, I think you could get more enjoyment if you at least know what happens in Peace Walker. If you listen to the tapes in Ground Zeroes they do a good job of recapping things, or you can watch the PW movie on YouTube. This game is the least Metal Gear of any of the other games, so even if you're not into the world that much, you'd still have lots of fun sneaking around. (This is from about 12 gameplay time)

Honestly, I'm a huge MGS fan, but I just couldn't put myself playing through Peace Walker. I watched the movie, and I regretted it. It really didn't interest me.

Phantom Pain does obviously have characters introduced from that game, but in reality, you don't really have to know anything going in. There's a lot of stuff that is solely in this game, so with or without any backstory, you're still going to be pretty confused, and then ignore it and enjoy playing the game. I have barely seen any story throughout my time, and while I'm a little bummed in that aspect, actually playing it more than makes up for it.

This is coming from someone who went in thinking I'm not going to enjoy it, as of all the stories about being next to no story, being a big downer on Peace Walker and thinking Ground Zeroes was just okay. Phantom Pain is an awesome game.

You don't need to be an MGS fan to really enjoy MGSV, in the same way you didn't need to be a Witcher fan to enjoy Witcher 3. Being invested in and familiar with the lore behind what's happening can add an extra dimension to it, but if you're not, the game does a good job of recapping what you do need to know in service to the gameplay, which is stellar.

Absolutely. The last Metal Gear game I played was Metal Gear on the NES. I watched some, but not all, of Metal Gear Scanlon. Other than that, I played Ground Zeroes last week and listened to the Peace Walker tapes on YouTube. That's it.

The sense I have been getting from people on the forums is that Phantom Pain is such a drastic departure from the style of MGS4 that it was turning a lot of long-term fans of the series off, or at least concerning them because there are no 90 minute long cutscenes or any crap like that. I don't know about any of that, but I feel like Phantom Pain was made specifically for people such as you and I. What drew me to this game was the promise of flexibility, the stealth, all of the different tools and toys and weapons to play with in a huge sandbox, the base building, and the FOB PVP mode. So far, it has delivered on all fronts.

I was thinking about this the other day when one of my friends asked me the same question you're asking now. I told him that Phantom Pain was to Metal Gear Solid as Shadow of Mordor was to Lord of the Rings. What I mean by that, is that in MGSV, the gameplay comes first, and the story is almost second. Sort of like how Shadow of Mordor could have been set in virtually any world, setting, or franchise, and still been a very similar game to how it turned out. If the cutscenes were removed from Mordor, I think one would have had a bit of a difficult time identifying it as a LOTR game - and in that case, I couldn't have cared less about LOTR when I bought Mordor, but I ended up absolutely loving the gameplay and it turned out to be one of my favorite games of 2014. I feel that way about Phantom Pain. Without giving too much away, after 45 hours of gameplay or so, I would say at least 90% of that has just been doing missions or side ops or out screwing around in free roam. For that 90%, Phantom Pain could quite easily have been a Splinter Cell game or a new Mercenaries game (ok that might be a reach) or anything else. Hell, even a brand new stealth action franchise.

The point I'm trying to make is that I feel like Kojima and Konami designed this game specifically to appeal to a wider audience, and get people into the game who historically were not Metal Gear Solid fans. And guess what, it totally worked. I think Phantom Pain is one of the best games I have ever played...I'm even enjoying it more than The Witcher 3, and that is something I never thought I would say. This game is just so incredible in so many different ways, I could go on talking about it for hours. I'm taking a break from playing just to write this post, and then I'm going right back to playing after I make a cup of coffee so I can stay up even later and play even more!

As far as your Ground Zeroes question...I just played the game last week since i got it free in a Steam bundle with Phantom Pain. I went through and extracted everyone who would be of any benefit to me in Phantom Pain, so I ended up getting quite a few very high ranked soldiers for my Mother Base. Not to mention a couple of other goodies that can help you out a great deal in the early part of the game. So, I think it's worth going back and at least completing the main mission, then going and doing the side ops where there are interesting personnel to extract. There are several good guides on how to do this quickly, I recommend it if you're going to be playing Phantom Pain at all.

So anyway, sorry for the long post, but it's hard for me to stress just how good this game is in words. I advise you to stop overthinking and worrying so much about essentially nothing and just buy this game, it's something that I don't think anyone should skip unless they just don't like video games or they don't like fun. Because damn, Phantom Pain is good. Stop thinking about it and go buy it.

I also recommend going through the Phantom Pain forum and reading some of the topics from the last week or so, because I'm pretty sure this exact question has been asked at least once or twice recently. Those answers might help you, but I don't think you're going to have a single person tell you to not buy this game.

Peace walker sucked so much.both the story and game play blew. It had some good ideas that TPP took, expanded upon and threw in open world craziness. Just read a plot synopsis of peace walker and you're good to go. There are some references to PW but not anything significant

This is essentially the exact opposite of what most people on the forums have been saying about Peace Walker over the last few weeks, at least from what I've read...and I know review averages aren't everything, but with scores this high for both critics and users...well, yeah. This seems like in general, people really liked that game.

Peace Walker's story was nuts and the gameplay was fine, although the bosses jarred heavily against the bread-and-butter stealth.

It's easily the best MGS game due to the removal of much the terrible writing and the inclusion of great gameplay.

By terms of gameplay, it is impossible not to recommend this game, even if you aren't into/invested in the MGS lore. The story will make more sense if you have knowledge of the series going into it, but I have a feeling that this game's specific plot could be enjoyed by someone without said knowledge. The main hook of the story is interesting in its own right.

@takayamasama: I was in the "Metal Gear is fucking stupid" camp for most of my gaming life. I played MGS2 on Xbox, didn't care much for the gameplay, but appreciated the batshit insane stuff in the story. Didn't have a Playstation until about a year ago, so didn't play any of the others. But what I learned about the games through osmosis made them seem like overly dramatic bullshit with bad stealth. I love stealth, and the stealth in MGS2 just rubbed me the wrong way.

But despite this I started watching Metal Gear Scanlon. Mostly because anything Drew does is fun to watch (that goes for all the members of the Bomb Crew really) and I was kinda curious if my "this is bullshit" opinion would hold. Well, it did in a way. The gameplay looked like it would still keep me away from those games. And some parts of the story is just stupid in the bad way. But I got kinda invested in the good kind of stupid the story put forth. So I got really interested in Ground Zeroes, and when the reviews started to hit I bit the bullet and pre-ordered PP on Steam, which got me GZ for free.

I haven't had that much time to play, 13 hours in with five main missions beaten. But I can honestly say this is one of the coolest games I have played in a long time. Without a doubt a top three game of this year, might even be my number one.

Everything about it is just awesome. The stealth works, the shooting feels nice, the base building and stuff is right up my alley. In those 13 hours I can already give you a handful of awesome stories of successful stealth, bad fuckups leading to fun escapes, and some downright weird stuff. What I know about the story is what I have gotten through seeing all of Metal Gear Scanlon, and doing all of the Ground Zeroes missions at least once. And I feel I know enough to enjoy all of it.

So far my only two gripes are the fact that you cannot salute your soldiers on Mother Base, and that the Emblem Editor lags like fuck when trying to change the text.

TL;DR: I didn't care one bit for or about Metal Gear before this, and I love the game.

@takayamasama: HUGE longtime metal gear fan here. Jump over that fence and join us. The story stuff in MGS V is self contained enough that you'll be fine. If you know stuff about Peace Walker and the other games in the franchise it does add another dimension to it BUT that being said this games story really is the moment to moment game play. The stories you create in the open world doing missions. If you are down with an action stealth game then by all means jump in.

@Mike: I don't base my opinions off what other people think and reviews. If people enjoyed PW that's fine. Like I said, it had some neat ideas but I couldn't get past the poor execution and awful story. They controls for that game we're horrible, even by mgs standards

Hey again all!

Thanks so much for all the replies, it pretty much cemented me getting the game. I'm gonna spend some more time in Ground Zeroes, both to collect stuff for MGS5 and find/listen to all the casettes to try to learn more of the backstory.

Really love the unanimous "the game play is downright amazing" that I'm hearing, and that really excites me.