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Question: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Printable Version +- Metal Gear Forums (https://metalgearforums.com) +-- Forum: Metal Gear (https://metalgearforums.com/Forum-Metal-Gear) +--- Forum: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (https://metalgearforums.com/Forum-Metal-Gear-Solid-V-The-Phantom-Pain) +---- Forum: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (https://metalgearforums.com/Forum-Metal-Gear-Solid-V-Ground-Zeroes) +---- Thread: Question: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? (/Thread-Question-Where-does-Ground-Zeroes-rank-in-the-MGS-series) |
Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - NateDog - 21-08-2025 I'm not exactly sure what the general view on Ground Zeroes is (or was), but from my own experience, I was taken aback by the initial pricing for what sounded like it was going to basically be a demo for MGSV. I avoided it on release, but then Konami announced that it was going to get a fairly big discount across the board, so I finally jumped in. The main game is very short (especially if you want to speedrun it), but the whole Omega Camp map feels as good as any other section in an MGS game, and I don't say that lightly. It gives the player a number of directions and routes to take on the mission from and is full of varied areas within it. You can stay low in open or more intimate and enclosed areas, you can go up high and utilise the ladders and towers, you have vehicles, there are mucky and grassy sections you can hide within, you have buildings or areas you can hide in, etc. All of the side missions which you can try upon completing the main GZ mission feel fresh despite taking place on the exact same map but with assets moved around or just changed completely and I think this is the biggest testament of how well designed this is. The vast majority of The Phantom Pain felt like it lacked any area that felt like what GZ gave to us, which left quite a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I'm still yet to replay the game, but having finished MGS4 recently on my run through the series I am pretty close to getting to do it, and it will probably feel very weird replaying this on a PS5 given I first played it on PS3 but I've very much been looking forward to getting to get my hands on the game again. Where does Ground Zeroes stand in terms of quality for you? RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Departed - 21-08-2025 I've replayed Ground Zeroes several times over the years. Camp Omega is a brilliantly designed map that gives you plenty of ways in and out and has a solid "procure on site" feel to it. The mood it captures is pretty brooding and ominous and it has some neat tricks under its sleeve. But in spite of that, it still ranks at the bottom for me among MGS games. That doesn't make it bad, but it's very much a piece to a larger whole. On its own, it's a really fun mission with two other missions I enjoy, namely the missions where you kill Glaz and Palitz and the mission where you blow up the anti-air guns. There's nothing in GZ beyond those three missions that I want to come back to and for as well designed as Camp Omega may be, it's not so well designed that the game didn't get stale having all its missions in one environment for me. I've heard a lot of people say that they were disappointed that nothing in MGSV compared to Camp Omega, but I never really agreed with that. I felt like Phantom Pain's outposts all adopted Camp Omega's design philosophy brilliantly, just on a much smaller scale which I personally prefer, since I like missions I can be done with a lot sooner. I also just appreciated the variety of settings we got in the fuller game, and enjoyed its mission variety a little more. For me, the best levels are still OKB Zero, Lufwa Valley and the R&D Platform for mission 22. What would've helped GZ a lot is if more of the island was used for the side missions and if the game had featured at least one boss fight. Something to give a change in scenery and to have one open-ended boss encounter that's fun to come back to again and again. I think had GZ been priced like DLC for MGSV, I'd view it a lot more favorably, but for as replayable as the game is, nothing justifies even its current asking price, since it's just one mission repurposed a few times and with a few different set pieces. The fact that something like RE4Make's Separate Ways exists for $9.99 and features what is essentially an entire game with six really good fights hammers home how overpriced GZ truly was. It's not bad by any means, and truly is an amazing stealth action experience, but it's not nearly enough for what it asks, and even just as a part of MGSV, I don't even consider it the best in show, given for all of its mission types, there was a mission in Phantom Pain that I liked more. GZ was a rescue mission and my favorite rescue mission was still Code Talker, since I like Lufwa Valley better, and that mission had way more open ended alternate scenarios, and featured a fun boss encounter. My favorite assassination mission was still War Economy or Retake The Platform since the former gave you way more Hitman-esque opportunities for creative kills and the latter is just one of my favorite missions in MGSV period. For sabotage missions, I enjoyed Red Brass more because having an entire mountainside to plot out an an ambush on a convoy feels immensely gratifying and guerilla. And for the alternative missions, I preferred the boss missions like White Mamba or Voices over the others in GZ since I really liked those fights and the gimmick missions in GZ are cute novelties but have diminishing returns once you know all the tricks. So in the end, it still ranks at the bottom for me, but it ranks in the bottom of a series where I maintain that there are no bad Metal Gear games and GZ is one of them. Overpriced, but still a benchmark in quality for stealth action game design and the best opening mission to any game I've ever played. Definitely a better opening to MGSV than Awakening was. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Dirty Duck - 23-08-2025 I think Ground Zeroes is some of the tightest design in the series and despite still being on the PS3 the next-gen wow factor hit as if we were already on the PS4. Starting in the dead of night, in heavy rain, and packed to the brim with the lens flare that became so iconic of MGSV, it’s the moodiest intro to an MGS game to date and for good reason. As far as story goes I think it’s the darkest Metal Gear has gotten. The use of “Here’s To You” as the game’s main vocal theme as well as the obvious allusions to Guantanamo Bay positions both Big Boss and Ground Zeroes itself as opponents of US imperialism and its unjust persecution of prisoners. It served as a perfect palette cleanser after Peace Walker maybe felt a bit too much like a jolly romp with a ragtag band of misfits. XOF destroying everything you’d built throughout an experience like Peace Walker was a great story beat and it left you (and Venom haw haw) hooked for The Phantom Pain. I love TPP and I think it does carry on the design philosophy GZ took towards stealth and infiltration. That being said I do wish there were some more Camp Omega type locations dotted throughout the map. Keiv is right that there definitely are locations that are similarly designed but I don’t think any felt as large as Camp Omega did. The entirety of the game taking place there probably helped with that. With all that being said I do feel that Ground Zeroes' length means it can't rank that highly amongst MGS games for me. Even if it is an incredibly cohesive package it's not as ambitious or sprawling as any of the other entries given that it is essentially the tutorial for MGSV. Tutorials are always designed more tightly in an attempt to forcibly teach the player the game's systems, so it's no wonder that MGSV's approach with those same systems are more fast and loose, letting the player interact with them in their own way. I have a lot of respect for Ground Zeroes and I do actually think I'm fine with it being a separate entity to The Phantom Pain but I feel like it mainly exists as an appetiser for it. That being said I do think considering MGSV as one package that includes GZ and TPP bumps both up in ranking-they compliment one another very well. Talking about it has made me want to replay it. I remember a member on MGSF doing very niche runs on YouTube that tided me over until TPP. Theoryraptor I think was their name? I always read it as "the ory raptor" which is very dumb. But also no cardboard box 0/10. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - starschwar - 25-08-2025 It's very difficult to evaluate as its own beast. I'm convinced that the entirety of the main mission was meant to be a long, playable flashback during the helicopter ride to Mother Base after rescuing Kaz. There's just a little bit of Phantom Pain gameplay polish that wasn't quite ready yet, so it can feel a bit awkward to play due to muscle memory, etc. And while I think that in many ways it signaled severe narrative missteps (too little dialogue, too many cassette tapes), it is still one of the better pieces of the overall MGSV storyline. In some ways, I prefer it to Phantom Pain. No recruitment, base management, item development - just a good old fashioned infiltration mission in a large area with limited resources. And the "pseudo-historical missions" are more entertaining and have more variety (both in premise and ways they can be completed) than most of V's missions proper. If taken as a standalone game (which it was sold as!), it's pretty low in my rankings. Above the MSX games, Portable Ops, but probably below the rest of the canon and maybe-canon titles. Either one notch above or below Phantom Pain, depending on my mood. It does not come close to 1-4, nor Peace Walker. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - ArabianLuffy - 30-08-2025 You will look at Ground Zeroes as same as MGS2, Tanker mission. - A short lived gaming experience. - Playing as a legendary soldier. - The story is just short. A prologue. Ground Zeroes suppose to be included along with Phantom Pain in one entity. To play it before the hospital escape session. I prefer not to rank it. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Aragorn - 30-08-2025 It's the single best isolated slice of MGS out there. As a game? bit of a scam, but I got my money's worth back when I first bought it. Omega def feels better than almost all MGS V levels. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Webbie2689 - 31-08-2025 I'm amazed at the memory on some of you. I'm not sure how to vote, because I'm not really sure how to rank it against other MGS titles. To me GZ is like the tanker mission from MGS2, or the virtuous mission from MGS3. It's just a quick little intro to the game to get the party started; nothing significant enough to compare to any full game. With that said, I remember loving it. I remember people being very upset with the pricing and the length. I did think the price was too high for what sounded like a demo, but being that they were upfront about it basically being a demo I was never upset about the length. When I finally played it I felt it was what I had been told it would be, and I was so hyped for MGSV and tired of waiting to play it that I was thirsty to try anything related to the full game, and I remember actually being very excited when they announced they were putting this out for us to try in advance of V. So, for what it was, I thought it was great aside from the price, but I was so excited for MGSV that I wasn't about to let the price stop me from getting an early taste of what was to come. I was mored hyped for the release of MGSV than maybe any other game I'd played up to that point in my life. RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Jassassino - 10-09-2025 Voted 'The Best' and although that sounds stupid for such a significantly smaller and shorter experience, I kind of stand by how good this game is for what it is. I think it's a brilliant realisation of MGSV's gameplay style, mechanics and approach to how it wants you to sneak around and complete objectives - so much so that I think it achieves it better than MGSV itself in what it does. You have tight corners, crowded and cluttered zones paired with open roads, and areas just short and small enough between them for it to be a real danger if you're caught (I never really thought it was much of a problem if I forgot to snipe one of the 20 random soldiers in MGSV's world-space wherever I was doing a mission, because there's so much space and open, empty zones with random cover, that I could just retreat and hide if I did get spotted). I also think GZ knows when and how to give you kind of 'overpowered' elements for you to use - the Raiden special mission for example, with the fast-sprinting, felt fair and good to use there, thanks to it not being a normal ability you could use in every mission as Snake. I feel like MGSV, I have so many ridiculously fast traversal tools (and I get that it's open world etc but I'm unsure that argument justifies just how fast Venom Snake runs in MGSV) and tracking tools like the sonar. The only time MGSV felt like it kind of lived up to the atmosphere of GZ was in the Oil Field when I went there once at night during the rain for a mission, or maybe OKB Zero (but that was still just kind of a hill with a couple of huts). RE: Where does Ground Zeroes rank in the MGS series? - Aragorn - 13-09-2025 Since I finished delta and started my NG+ playthrough, I decided to restart MGS V in parallel. GZ feels *so good*. Mind you I got the whole MGS V definitive edition for 20$ since I can't find my disk; so with price aside - it still feels like such a smooth experience and GZ in specific has such a thick, oppressive atmosphere. Breaking into camp omega really feels *wrong* in a way; and it gives you that feeling that you are witnessing horrors that should not happen in this day and age. When you line it up as an obvious Guantanamo parallel, it really gets under your skin. One thing I will be a picky bitch about: I really dislike that Big Boss doesn't have a CQC stance anymore with the knife and gun. It was a tiny detail, but it gave him a lot of personality and it gave the technique personality too. |