02-09-2025, 06:20 AM
MGSV was my favorite game of all time when it came out. So much so that I put over a 1000 hours into it and spent way too many months making a 2 and a half hour review to air out the madness of my thoughts. Ten years on and I've only grown to love it even more, especially in comparison to most games from the industry these days. To me, MGSV is everything I wish gaming today was. It's entirely gameplay focused, open-ended with the best controls of any stealth game or shooter I've ever played, and allowed for some of the most endlessly gratifying gameplay experiences any video game has ever provided. Its missions aren't huge commitments, each open-ended and designed with just the right balance of player freedom and structure to keep them unique, even if there were only a small handful of objective types.
In fact, for as much as I adored Delta, playing it for the first time made me appreciate MGSV's narrative brevity that much more. Apart from the opening, it is not a game that is constantly trying to interrupt you for ten minute intervals to info dump all over you. It also didn't do the thing every AAA game these days does and make you slowly follow an NPC while they talk at you because that's cheaper than just producing a cutscene. Sure, that hilarious Skull Face scene exists, but it's still treated like a cutscene that you can skip.
Obviously, it's got flaws galore. Even in my nearly five year old review of the game, I spent as much time railing on the game as I did praising it. I wish it had more varied boss fights, including a fight against Skull Face himself that played like Cliff's fights in Death Stranding. I wish the open worlds weren't so barren. And while plenty wish the game had mission 51, I wish Eli was never in the game period. I would've rather seen Chico play that role like the original concept art eluded to, since that would've connected way better to GZ and PW instead of just randomly dropping baby Liquid into the mix.
Still, even in spite of its vast array of flaws, none of it changed the fact that I've spent more time playing MGSV than any game I have ever played, purely because I enjoyed its missions that much. I haven't played MGSV since 2022, since a lot of games have come since, and I've been more keen to play new games instead of constantly replaying old ones I love. But I plan on coming back to MGSV and I imagine when I do, I'm still gonna love it as much as I did a decade ago.
Until a game plays as well as MGSV and has missions that are open-ended and not just railroading me to the next overlong cutscene, I don't see any other game topping this one for a good long while.
In fact, for as much as I adored Delta, playing it for the first time made me appreciate MGSV's narrative brevity that much more. Apart from the opening, it is not a game that is constantly trying to interrupt you for ten minute intervals to info dump all over you. It also didn't do the thing every AAA game these days does and make you slowly follow an NPC while they talk at you because that's cheaper than just producing a cutscene. Sure, that hilarious Skull Face scene exists, but it's still treated like a cutscene that you can skip.
Obviously, it's got flaws galore. Even in my nearly five year old review of the game, I spent as much time railing on the game as I did praising it. I wish it had more varied boss fights, including a fight against Skull Face himself that played like Cliff's fights in Death Stranding. I wish the open worlds weren't so barren. And while plenty wish the game had mission 51, I wish Eli was never in the game period. I would've rather seen Chico play that role like the original concept art eluded to, since that would've connected way better to GZ and PW instead of just randomly dropping baby Liquid into the mix.
Still, even in spite of its vast array of flaws, none of it changed the fact that I've spent more time playing MGSV than any game I have ever played, purely because I enjoyed its missions that much. I haven't played MGSV since 2022, since a lot of games have come since, and I've been more keen to play new games instead of constantly replaying old ones I love. But I plan on coming back to MGSV and I imagine when I do, I'm still gonna love it as much as I did a decade ago.
Until a game plays as well as MGSV and has missions that are open-ended and not just railroading me to the next overlong cutscene, I don't see any other game topping this one for a good long while.
![[+]](https://metalgearforums.com/images/collapse_collapsed.png)
