In a recent tweet, Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, shed more light on the purpose of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Kojima seemed to confirm that Ground Zeroes, released in 2014, was a test for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, released later in 2015.
Kojima explained through his tweet that Ground Zeroes was originally planned as the prologue to The Phantom Pain. So it wasn’t originally going to be a stand-alone release, just the beginning of the game. Yet, Ground Zeroes was pre-released with the PS4 to “provide feedback to the main game in mind.”
It was essentially a way to introduce the world to a new kind of Metal Gear Solid and to test the Fox Engine and open world before releasing the full game.
That may sound okay, but this prologue’s high price of $30 on release and lack of content left many fans disappointed and frustrated. Some fans could finish the entire experience on its highest difficulty in seven minutes. Some argued that charging such a high price for what essentially felt like a demo or a test was unfair. They felt they were essentially paying for the privilege of beta testing the game without receiving enough content to justify the price. Other fans said it was more than enough content.
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So yes, according to the wording of the tweet, it was more of a demo than a full game. So it really should have cost a lot less.
Don’t get us wrong; it’s not fair to say fans paid $30 to beta-test a game. The tweet only seems to confirm the theory that this wasn’t intended to be a full game and was just a small slice of the real game. In other words, although it may have been a standalone experience, the intended design was that of a prologue in a full game that just got taken out and sold by itself.
By releasing Ground Zeroes before The Phantom Pain, Kojima, and his team received feedback from players and critics on the game’s strengths and weaknesses and used it to improve upon The Phantom Pain. So players could help Kojima’s team make the next game through a playtest of sorts.
Ground Zeroes’ controversy highlights the importance of transparency in game development and fair pricing. While it played an important role in developing The Phantom Pain, fans deserved to know what they were paying for and feel they were receiving enough value for their money.
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