As in the previous game, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the player can make use of the fulton recovery system to extract enemies and recruit them to Mother Base. If they successfully recruit the soldier, they can then place him in a department to research new tech, resources, and weapons depending on what that soldiers skills are. What’s new in The Phantom Pain is that now instead of just staring at a screen of names of soldiers and stats, players will now be able to actually go to Mother Base and examine the fruits of their labor.
Players will be able to build and customize specialized platforms for each department. Because of the customization capabilities, each player’s Mother Base can be their own unique home. Visiting your base is important as being greeted by their leader increases soldiers morale, and you will want to use the base’s portable showers every now and then to wash away the grime, blood, and fatigue of previous missions. If you neglect this for too long, you will be noticeably less able to take on missions, and your soldiers will notice that you are starting to stink. So wash yourself, you dirty boss.
You can send troops on missions or bring them on your own missions for assistance to help them become more proficient in their department. This comes with a risk, however, as your soldiers can be killed or recruited by an enemy, and your resources will suffer. As you gain resources, you will be able to unlock new abilities and weapons from respective departments. Some of these abilities include air strikes, helicopter support, diversions, and even the ability to manipulate the weather.
Players can also research technology such as armor cloaking, the wormhole extraction device (a modified, sci-fi reminiscent version of the fulton), and the hand of Jehuty, an ability of big boss’ bionic arm that pulls enemies within range of CQC. Some of the other departments, such as the intel team and medical team were not showcased, and they remain a mystery that we will have to see for ourselves when the game is released.
One thing that we got a glimpse of but was not touched on is a shot of what looks like D-walker, a miniature metal gear that was previously shown in a gameplay video this year.
Players will have to budget themselves, as using these abilities too often will result in a loss of Gross Military Product (GMP). If Mother Base starts bleeding money, soldiers morale will decrease, and they may even desert. If players experience a surplus of GMP, however, they have the option to expand Mother Base to forward operating bases (FOB). These serve as an online extension of Mother Base that allows players to interact with and even sabotage each other. We caught a glimpse of this earlier this year but this time we got to see what an infiltration really looks like. Players will have to be tactical when building their FOB’s because if their defenses are too weak and they cannot take out the enemy before they reach Mother Base’s core, the enemy will make off with a large amount of GMP, as well as any other resources that they made off with using the fulton recovery system.
From what we have seen, it looks like we have nothing but good things to expect from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Not often to developers show as much of their game as KONAMI has shown, so they obviously feel confident that they have released an amazing game that still has tons of content to be explored beyond what they have already shown. Let’s remain hyped and hope they are right.
