Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is Kojima’s open world stealth game for PS3/360

Hideo Kojima ended speculation about Metal Gear Solid 5 on Thursday, debuting Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, a sandbox game for PS3/360.

We know a few things more clearly now that Konami and Kojima Productions Thursday event celebrating the 25^th anniversary of Metal Gear is out of the way. First, that big San Diego Comic-Con leak about a Metal Gear Solid 5 announcement was way fake. It was the fakest. Second, word that Metal Gear Solid 5 would use Kojima’s new Fox Engine for multiplatform development, star Solid Snake, and be an open world game was spot on.

Kojima and Konami announced Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes on Sunday, and it sounds like the dramatic redesign the stealth series has been thirsty for these past ten years.

As detailed by myriad press outlets that attended the event in Japan, a trailer and gameplay demo shown for the game looked familiar with some significant changes. Kojima showed Snake, looking markedly younger than he did in Metal Gear Solid 4, crawling, sneaking and shooting his way through a massive military base. Rather than being restricted to contained play fields in a jungle or base, the demoed area was huge, allowing for Snake to cover large distances by helicopter or jeep. The developer also emphasized that this was not just a tech demo, but actual samples from the game that’s currently in development.

A cutscene showing shadowy businessmen, soldiers, and a caged boy—a possible reference to series character Raiden—was shown as well.

The game is also targeted for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, though Kojima did emphasize that the Fox Engine the game is built on was made to accommodate next-generation consoles and high-end PCs as well. No time frame for release was given, but considering Konami plans to have it out on current systems, the publisher can’t wait to long past 2013. The Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 are expected on the market by the end of next year.

Attendees were suitably impressed by the look and scale of the environments on display, commenting on the impressive weather effects and play.

Kojima’s been teasing this open world Metal Gear Solid for nearly two years now. It’s impossible to judge the game based on a brief demo and other people’s impressions. Metal Gear Solid 4 was promised to have wide-open, varied environments as well. Great as that game was, it still confined the player to small spaces, even if they did allow for a great deal of experimentation.

Ground Zeroes sounds excitingly new for the series though. One to watch.

Source: NeoGAF