War, and its consumption of life, has become a well-oiled machine
Metal Gear Online on PS3, for whatever reason, was an anomaly. It was a blip in the grand MGS4 campaign, a back-of-the-box sidenote that – as compelling as it might’ve sounded – just didn’t translate into much in the way of a playerbase. The foundation was there, the gameplay strong and it maintained much of the series’ blend of quirky mechanics with an otherwise po-faced visage. This was only a few months after Call Of Duty 4, too, proving that gamers were more than willing to flock towards a single multiplayer experience if enticed.
Most likely, it was the awkward means of updating MGO that led to a resistance from the wider gaming community – and that’s to say nothing of the misguided decision to have you create a Konami account specifically to play online. Just trying the online component was a rigmarole, and not even the heavy-hitting franchise could get gamers to put up with all that faff. Even in those heady days of modern gaming – as we now know it to be, anyway – we gamers weren’t willing to put up with such a crippling lack of usability. It ticked along for a good few years before the servers were shut down – perhaps even longer than it had any right to, truthfully.
But with that said, those who did make the effort would’ve found something rather special; perhaps not so cliched as a diamond in the rough, but at the very least it was something original, unique and fresh. And, if nothing else, it’s the kind of blemish that emboldens any developer, a scar that Konami and co will retain for its next core multiplayer outing. This time, it’ll be perfect. Right?
And so in some ways it’s sort of a fresh start. Metal Gear Online will be the multiplayer offering for Phantom Pain, and it’ll be bundled in for free on the disc. It’s interesting that Konami was certain to emphasise that point, since the PS3’s MGO did work on a series of unlocks and purchases – and this was way before the microtransaction craze had really taken root. Exact details such as player count, mode types and so on have not yet been confirmed, but that gorgeous FOX Engine is really being put to good use.
Where previously MGO had very strict spaces – many of which were just dusty, compact Middle Eastern alleyways – this latest is to allow for a greater amount of freedom. No doubt the likes of team deathmatch et al will make an appearance, but this new Metal Gear Online will revolve around a sense of attacking and defending. Not exactly brand new, admittedly, but for a series built on a central, personal approach to play it’s this design that will dramatically affect the way the game’s played.
If, for example, the defending team is holed up in an outpost then your job isn’t simply to head over a ridge, gun down a few enemy soldiers and call in a killstreak; here you’ll need to be a little more thoughtful, considered, smart. Stealth will obviously play a large part in that, and that is a victory in and of itself – it’s a sorely underserved aspect in a world of copy-and-paste multiplayer shooters. The Last Of Us has shown that quiet multiplayer can be as intense, as compelling – if not more so – than the brazen Call Of Duty's of the world. But then comes the strategy: how will you not only infiltrate that base, but incapacitate those within? You won’t be alone, obviously, which makes the idea all the more thrilling.
There’s the expected fear that the random, unthinking Internet might not always agree with your way of playing, and all those clever plans might not actually – if ever – work as planned without a coordinated attack among your party chat friends. But then that’s where the beauty of such a system comes in; those gun-toting heathens are the distraction, while you slip in underneath a cardboard box, popping tranquilisers into necks. Both the potential for exacting methodical plans and capitalising on the noise that is online gamers is huge, and offers up a whole new way of thinking – it’s not just questioning your enemy, but now it’s a case of also asking ‘what will my allies do?’ and strategising accordingly.
With the FOX Engine, though, the environments are going to be much more expansive, both physically and – as a result – in terms of the ways you can play. There are mountable, moveable, bipedal turrets, for example, which makes them viable as both an offensive and defensive option. In fact, the plethora of gadgets and tools you’ll make use of add that greater level of depth to it, and it’s all done in a way that is oh-so-Metal Gear.
For every tranquiliser gun and pair of binoculars there’s an equally ridiculous opposite. Deployable cannons that use Fulton recovery balloons are just one such item, which assails any would-be attackers and causes them to drift off into the sky should an ally not come to their rescue and pop that balloon first. Or stuffed toy dogs whose inescapable cuteness causes a player to become irretrievably distracted, in much the way magazines would work. Or a short-range teleportation device, seemingly used to avoid gunfire, wreak confusion or bypass obstacles.
Then there’s the usual array of stealth suits and ghillie attire, sensor grenades and – of course – cardboard boxes. It all plays into that offence/defence system, and though we don’t yet know all the paraphernalia that will feature in MGO it’s a great way of prioritising a sense of personality with everything.
In much the same way that The Last Of Us’ multiplayer matches begin with a sense of uneasiness and apprehension, Metal Gear Online’s calm before the storm looks to enable a similar feeling of keenness. There’s to be an escalation of sorts to MGO’s games: the setup, the prep, the action, the reaction. Defence will need to quickly cobble together it’s first line of gadgets, the warning shots that will act as signals and deterrents. Attackers, however, will need recon – to know what they’re up against and how best to go up against it. If done well, if done properly, then there could be a great deal of strategy and counter-strategy involved in devising plans, the sort of round-based tactics that will vary with each new game – hopefully keeping MGO continually fresh, where other shooters prefer to stay in their ruts.
The class-based mechanic that underpins all this adds that extra level of input from the player, enabling you to choose your style – stealth, sniper, reconnaissance or the brash type with an AK-47. Hopefully this will mean loadouts, changeable on the fly to suit the nature of the round you’re playing, to counter your enemy’s picks or complement your own team’s. Best of all is that Snake, Ocelot and other franchise favourites will make appearances in the multiplayer mode, though it hasn’t yet been detailed quite how all this will work.
The excellent Sneaking Missions will be returning too, whereby one player would play as Snake, skills with stealth and all, versus a larger team of militia – but with the addition of extra characters it’s likely that this feature won’t be constrained to a single mode. Perhaps a Star Wars: Battlefront II-style hero mode, with brief stints of power as a reward for being the best player? We can only imagine. There are still a lot of questions to be answered with Metal Gear Online, but already it’s looking to shake up multiplayer gaming, even if just a little bit.
Ultimately there’s a sense of ‘games as services’ about this side of Phantom Pain, too. The MGO we get on launch almost certainly won’t be the one we’re left with, and if Konami can build upon the systems and the features over the months and years after its release then we could be looking at something a little more permanent than its PS3 equal. As the sun seems to be setting on the age of Call Of Duty, it’s games like Metal Gear Online that are – or, at least, could be – paving the way for new ways of thinking and playing.
This more directly competitive experience combined with the ‘game invasion’ of Mother Base attacks is giving The Phantom Pain some interesting multiplayer options for players to explore. If nothing else, it’ll be fun to once again outwit other players rather than simply outmanoeuvre them. There was an exhilaration to utilising cardboard boxes in the PS3’s MGO to surprise a human player, catch them off guard and easily send them to sleep with a tranquilising dart. If Konami can at least make that sensation feel as empowering as it was previously then it’s already half of the way towards making Metal
Gear Online a standout multiplayer experience for this generation.