Nab a soldier into a chokehold and I can make him give up the locations of his buddies. With the right cassette tape, I can even hide in a toilet and convince a suspicious guard to leave me alone on account of horrible explosive diarrhoea.

Place a poster of a Russian solider on a cardboard box while standing and faraway guards will think you’re one of them. And that’s just the start of MGSV’s AI interactions. The only game that comes close to this level of stealth AI these days is the new Hitman trilogy, and even that game doesn’t pull it off quite as organically. If they’re sure they saw something move, they’ll investigate your location and report what they saw. If it was just a quick glance, they’ll probably stare in your direction for a bit then go back to their business. Instead of being stuck in either calm or alert mode, soldiers can enter varying degrees of ‘sus’ depending how long they caught a glimpse of Snake. Enemy AI is the soul of a good stealth game and MGSV’s still the most reactive around.

Some of MGSV’s charms will never wear off, though, like its NPCs that still feel distinctly more ‘alive’ than your standard stealth action goon. “It’s a potent dose of Kojima bullshit to get hit with right off the bat, and pretty much the opposite of what makes the rest of MGSV fun.” Goon patrol I can’t un-learn that Snake’s water pistol can short-circuit generators without raising alarm, or unsee the time D-Horse did a number two on the road and an approaching Jeep spun out in the massive turd like a slippery banana peel. This is one piece of magic that I’m sad I’ll never get to experience again. Horse stealth also establishes a mantra that MGSV will repeat over and over – every tool has multiple uses, including ones it won’t tell you about. Does it look goofy? Absolutely, but it’s a totally practical mechanic that’s super handy for passing by guard posts without raising a fuss. I love that one of the first things the game teaches you is that there’s an entire button on the controller devoted to hanging off the side of D-Horse to enter ‘horse stealth’ mode. It’s a potent dose of Kojima bullshit to get hit with right off the bat, and pretty much the opposite of what makes the rest of MGSV fun.īut eventually I was let loose on the deserts of Afghanistan once more and got to the good stuff. In my head that whole sequence is about 15 minutes, but in reality it’s more like 45 minutes of mostly crawling on the floor and following a straight line down hallways while getting interrupted by cutscenes ever other minute. Remember the whole bit with the hospital attack at the start? Holy hell, what an awful way to start a game.

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