Here’s What You Need to Know About Metal Gear Solid 5

Ground Zeroes. The Phantom Pain. Old Snake, New Snake, Red Snake, and Blue Snake.

Look, the case of Metal Gear Solid 5 is a bit confusing. Even as a long-time MGS fan, you shouldn’t feel ashamed if you’ve been scratching your head, trying to parse just what exactly you’ll be playing from Kojima next year and beyond. We’ve received some solid details in the past about the projects, but a new interview with Hideo Kojima on Famitsu (via NeoGAF) clears up a few facts about the future of the Metal Gear Solid franchise that you’ll want to know.

The first thing that you need to understand is that yes, Ground Zeroes is a prologue to The Phantom Pain. The smaller chunk of content is meant to end with some sort of big event that will make the wait for the real thing that much more difficult. It’s also considered a tutorial for The Phantom Pain, and will only include limited locations to explore. Base building, recruiting soldiers, and all the other unique features seen in the handheld Peace Walker will be available – and expanded – in The Phantom Pain, but you shouldn’t expect any of this functionality in Ground Zeroes. Sure, the save data will transfer from the prologue to the real thing and there will be unique benefits, but expect the full suite of new features to be stuff into The Phantom Pain.

Why is there even a Ground Zeroes in the first place, anyway? Kojima explained to Famitsu that Metal Gear Solid 5 is taking quite a while due to the density of content in the world, so Konami worked out a deal with the creator so that some form of the game would become available early. He hopes that both games will be launched in some sort of bundle, but there’s no solid information on anything of the sort at this time.

Hopefully, that makes a little bit more sense. Look to hear more on this bizarre project in the coming months.