The latest entry in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will follow an episodic structure, according to series creator, Hideo Kojima.
Kojima feels that the upcoming game would be similar to a television series. He states, “Think of past Metal Gears as like movies, you just move along and really enjoy the ride, And think of Metal Gear Solid 5 as a TV series”
The game would abandon the linear structure of its predecessor, instead dividing into missions that the player can play in any order. He explains, “Each mission is an episode, Now there might be independent stories within each mission. Of course it’s not linear, you can play any mission, any episode at any time. But ultimately when you play all of them and get to the core of the story, everyone will get the same viewpoint [of the story].”
The inspiration for this design change was taken from Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series. Kojima adds, “Creating that kind of freedom [for the player], I think that’s the future of games,”
The themes chosen for this game are Race and Revenge. He justifies, “For the past 25 years, all my Metal Gear games have included a theme,” Kojima explains. “For MGS5, I wanted to write about race and revenge. This is ultimately where all of it leads to. Past Metal Gears, I wanted to talk about the foundation where of all these battles and where hate comes from. Differences in culture, differences in race, the cycle of retaliation, it’s ultimately caused by race.”
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