Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeroes Bringing In the Companion Apps

Hideo Kojima took to Twitter to explain some new, but fairly conventional, details about Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes. This time, we learned about the companion apps you can use in the game.

So, Snake has a new iDroid terminal he can pull out in the middle of the game. This terminal displays the map, and it can be opened up in a tablet as well as a smartphone. Later, he demonstrated using the touch controls to pinch or slide by finger and navigate your way around the map.

Kojima demonstrated these features with both an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3. One of his senior producers, Kenichiro Imaizumi, also confirmed on Twitter that the feature would be available on all platforms.

So, it’s an interesting feature, but not particularly novel or exciting. While companion apps are becoming more and more popular with AAA game developers, we don’t hear much about how popular these features are with actual players, and it’s not really clear if making them is even worthwhile.

Truly, this is less Kojima innovating and more Kojima acting to keep pace with trends, AKA do what everyone else is doing. No one is saying that either Ground Zeroes or The Phantom Pain are going to be bad games, but it is not possible to not notice the veteran developer taking these deliberate steps.

Well, we will find out soon enough how it all turns out, but here and now, how does this all make you feel? As always, you’re welcome to share your thoughts below.

Ground Zeroes will be released on March 18 for Sony and Microsoft's 7th and 8th generation home consoles.