Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Reportedly Just Two Hours Long

[Cognimancer]

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Reportedly Just Two Hours Long

Ground Zeroes, the next installment of the Metal Gear Solid saga, probably shouldn't be treated as an "installment" if you can complete the main mission in a couple short hours.

Ever since the dual announcement of the two upcoming Metal Gear Solid titles, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, it's become very apparent that Phantom Pain is the one we're supposed to be excited for. Series creator Hideo Kojima already admitted that Ground Zeroes is essentially the tutorial for Phantom Pain [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130968-Metal-Gear-Solid-V-Ground-Zeroes-Will-Be-a-Tutorial-For-The-Phantom-Pain], but a recent report from Game Informer suggests that he really wasn't kidding. According to the magazine's preview, the main story of Ground Zeroes can be completed in just two hours.

This claim lends some believability to Kojima's previous statement that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain would be "hundreds of times larger" than Ground Zeroes. Granted, that two hour report only covers the game's main story mission, not side quests or exploration, but Metal Gear Solid has never really had much content in those categories. If anything, the game's biggest attraction is arguably its story, which is infamous for extremely long, non-interactive cutscenes. So how much actual gameplay can be in those two hours?

Kojima has said that Ground Zeroes would ideally be part of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129703-Metal-Gear-Solid-V-Ground-Zeroes-Almost-Came-Out-Years-Ago], but it's being released early (March 18) to give fans a taste of what's coming up. Of course, that two-hour taste isn't exactly a free sample - Ground Zeroes will cost $20 on last-gen consoles and $30 on current-gen for the digital version, with another ten dollars on top of that if you prefer the physical copy.

Source: Kotaku [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/02/04/march-cover-revealed-2014-3151321.aspx]

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[tippy2k2]

Are you sure they didn't mean the beginning cut-scene would be two hours long?

Get it?...cause Metal Gear has long cut-scenes

I'll see myself out.

!

Wait, I have something useful to say too! If it's going to be cheaper like that, then I'm kind of fine with shorter game-play. Twenty dollars is a lot of money for just two hours so I doubt I'd get it immediately but I am slightly intrigued to see what we get here. Just because old MGS games didn't do much side-mission-wise doesn't mean that this one won't. If they're truly going GTA-style open world, there should be lots of stuff to do, right?

Maybe Otacon will go play darts with me?

 

[Gearhead mk2]

And one hour and forty-five minutes of it is cutscenes.

OT: I'm actually ok with this. I like the idea of releasing a little DLC arcade title as a precursor to the real thing. But they'll probably have to knock down the price a bit more before anyone besides the die-hard fans buy it.

And I just see that tippy basically said everything I did before I said it. Now I feel unoriginal and sad.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

2 hours? Fine. $30 bucks for it? No.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Hmm.

The main quest alone taking 2-hours long is a bit more than I was expecting. I thought you just get in and get out of that one base in the Ground Zeroes demo and be done with it in a few minutes. If that one and only mission is 2-hours long, then that actually sounds quite lengthy for a single mission.

From what I've heard, Kojima confirmed that there's going to be side-objectives available for Ground Zeroes, so it won't be just this one mission. If I remember correctly, the mission system was compared to the one in Peacewalker, where you can pick optional missions to take on from the mission menu.

From a leaked achievements page, there's going to be at least 6 unique missions. The main Ground Zeroes mission, and 4 side ops, and one extra op. Then there's collectibles. And replaying missions for S-ranking. So it sounds like there's going to be a few things to do.

But still... A physical copy of Ground Zeroes for the PS4/Xbox One will be 40 fucking dollars. 20$ might be acceptable. 30$ already sounds like too much. But 40$? Seriously now.

Since I don't have a PS4 or Xbone, I'm gonna have to go with the previous-gen version and see how that goes. I'm hoping that besides the main mission, the side ops will be lengthy as well.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

I'm okay with paying 20$ for it since it will probably have Peacewalker style side missions. Definitely not 40$, but I'm okay with spending 20$.

 

[Brian Tams]

40$ FOR A PHYSICAL COPY OF THIS SHORT SHIT???

They're out of their goddamn minds. Please don't buy this piece of shit. 40 bucks for that small of a fucking game? Fuck them. I was excited to get Phantom Pain, but if this is going to be their new business practice, then they can kiss my money goodbye.

Seriously, 15$ would've been at least somewhat decent, but 30-40 bucks is bullshit for what will essentially have less content than an indie game. Fuck. That.

And yet people will still buy this, which will lead to shameless copying by other developers.

 

[Xan Krieger]

$15 an hour? So much for video games being better in terms of money per hour of entertainment. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon was $20 and took me over 4 hours my first runthrough.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Just for some context, I put about 5 hours into the Bravely Default demo and I'm not even sure if I finished it...it was a free download granted I have a limited number of times that I can use it. That being said though, it sounds like Kojima could spin this in a similar way Capcom did with the Dead Rising 2 demo/mini-game/whatever the Hell it was which was released to get people excited for Dead Rising 2. You had to pay for it but the content was exclusive to the demo.

Anyway, I stopped caring about Metal Gear when I watched MGS4 and since the signs are beginning to point to this and, Phantom Pain being more the same I think I can safely continue skipping out on the series.

 

[Rad Party God]

40$ FOR A PHYSICAL COPY OF THIS SHORT SHIT???

They're out of their goddamn minds. Please don't buy this piece of shit. 40 bucks for that small of a fucking game? Fuck them. I was excited to get Phantom Pain, but if this is going to be their new business practice, then they can kiss my money goodbye.

Seriously, 15$ would've been at least somewhat decent, but 30-40 bucks is bullshit for what will essentially have less content than an indie game. Fuck. That.

And yet people will still buy this, which will lead to shameless copying by other developers.

Calm down, that price is for the Xbone and PS4, it'll cost $20 on the previous gen, though I agree the price is quite ludicrous, to say the least. And this is MGS we're talking about, it'll have far more replay value than most indie games with the same price and content (I'm looking at you, Gone Home). So yeah, $20 for this sound like a fair deal to me.

Also, this is hardly "the first one" to do it, remember Gran Turismo 5 and Dead Rising 2 demos?.

 

[Irridium]

Think I'll wait for a price drop. I'd be fine paying $15-$20, but more? Yeeeeeeaaaaaaah, no.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I am so confused. Are they really trying to sell what is essentially going to be the Tanker mission from MGS 2 as a separate thing from the main game? Just... WTF are they even thinking here?

 

[grigjd3]

So they removed the cutscenes and kept the gameplay? I'm suddenly interested...

 

[mindlesspuppet]

People always complain that digital and physical copies shouldn't be the same price. Comes along a top tier franchise with a cheaper price point for digital only, and everyone is up in arms... gaming community at its finest.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I don't get it. This is clearly the Phantom Pain's equivalent to the Virtuous Mission/Tanker Incident... so why not just bundle it all together?

 

[Li Mu]

Are you sure they didn't mean the beginning cut-scene would be two hours long?

Get it?...cause Metal Gear has long cut-scenes

I'll see myself out.

!

Wait, I have something useful to say too! If it's going to be cheaper like that, then I'm kind of fine with shorter game-play. Twenty dollars is a lot of money for just two hours so I doubt I'd get it immediately but I am slightly intrigued to see what we get here. Just because old MGS games didn't do much side-mission-wise doesn't mean that this one won't. If they're truly going GTA-style open world, there should be lots of stuff to do, right?

Maybe Otacon will go play darts with me?

Don't worry, the gameplay will be 2 hours long. But there will be 58 hours of cutscenes to skip through. So we'll get our money's worth of unintelligible dialogue.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Huh, not sure how I feel about that. Price is definitely adjusted, but I dunno... depends on how much side-content there is. Peace Walker was pretty short too, but there were tons of side missions. I suppose $20 is somewhat reasonable and I'm more than willing to sacrifice the hard drive space.

I just hope they don't take too long getting the Phantom Pain out.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Yeah, I'm getting less and less sure this will even be worth playing. Before it was touted as a tutorial for Phantom Pain. Sounds like a waste of time to me.