The Phantom Pain storyline resides somewhere after Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker and somewhere before the original Metal Gear NES title that launched in the 1980’s. It would be understandable if you didn’t know the minutiae behind the Metal Gear series, but you don’t necessarily need to have all the twists and turns processed to have fun with MGS V. You might not. After all, he kind of looks like Solid Snake. The Metal Gear series is a complicated beast from a story perspective and we’re not going to try to explain it here. These new and old gameplay aspects gel incredibly well with the best-in-class cinematography, voice acting, and beautiful in-game visuals. It’s also a game with more systems in it, more things to collect, more over-arching aspects to manage. This open world is combined with the stealth gameplay and gadgets that fans have come to expect from the series, and the results are nothing short of spectacular. The Phantom Pain differs most significantly from previous entries in the Metal Gear Solid series in that it is a open world game. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will go down as the best-looking, best-playing, and most ambitious game in the series - one that utilizes the new-gen hardware and the incredible Fox Engine to deliver both a visual masterpiece and a more robust gameplay experience than its predecessors.

Hideo Kojima has been talking a lot in recent years about wanting to work on other projects, and he’ll now get his chance, but he leaves the Metal Gear series at the top of his game. Regardless of what Konami decides to do with the franchise, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is arguably the last true game in the series.

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