Earlier in the week, Hideo Kojima mentioned that a few characters would receive redesigns with a “sexy” approach; with the recent opening of a new Los Angeles studio, Kojima and Konami revealed a few more changes for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V.
Konami opened a new US-based studio in Los Angeles this week; as part of their opening, several larger outlets were introduced to a new demo for the Ground Zeroes portion of Metal Gear Solid V; Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain are still referred to as the “complete” MGSV experience, but Konami has yet to reveal if Ground Zeroes is a separate prequel title, or just the opening half of Metal Gear Solid V.
The new demo includes part of the Ground Zeroes trailer shown at PAX Prime 2012, but with Keifer Sutherland’s voice already in place. Other changes include the removal of a health-bar; much like other current-gen action games, Ground Zeroes features regenerating health, with damage indicated by the screen fading into a red hue. In order to give the player more spatial-awareness and to showcase the power of Kojima Productions’s new FoxEngine, the HUD has been removed allowing for full-screen clarity, as seen in games like Split/Second (which uses a minimalist HUD to increase environmental-awareness) and The Last of Us. While previous Metal Gear Solid titles were often confined to tight areas where guards were always within view, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain both feature open-world environments where alerting guards may not be so obvious; players will be alerted by a white flare once they raise enemy suspicion, as an early warning sign before being spotted. Another element borrowed from recent FPS’s and action-games is slow-motion during high-tension moments; when Snake is spotted, the gameplay will slow down allowing the player to take guards out in a calculating manner before they can raise a full-alert. Another departure from Metal Gear Solid tradition is a minuscule amount of cut-scenes; the Ground Zeroes portion will feature less cut-scenes than previous titles, as most of the story will be presented through active gameplay.
Outside of the new gameplay demo, Konami also showcased a new video displaying the facial and motion-capturing process used for The Phantom Pain. The video features Quiet’s motion-capture actress Stephanie Josteen sitting among an arrangement of cameras that track her face in real-time to be digitized into a character model; the same method was used for Rockstar and Team Bondi’s L.A. Noire:
Konami hopes to bring a demo of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain running on next-gen hardware to TGS 2013 later this month. Gameplay trailers and demos shown at past events have been on a PC using the build for the current-gen release; the next-gen builds will run at 60fps, with the current-gen versions running at 30fps.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain will release on 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
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