This Is A Sneaking Mission: Metal Gear Solid V On PC

As daft and self-obsessed as it became, Metal Gear Solid is a wonderful thing. The series has only been spotted on PC a few times over the years, but delightfully we will get to interrogate its two shiny new games. Open-world sneak 'em up Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and its short standalone prologue Ground Zeroes are both coming to PC via Steam. Maybe PC folks are lucky, knowing less about the knots the backstory tied then bloody-mindedly untangled at agonising length in MGS 4. For many of us, it might simply be a pleasant and silly open-world sneaky game.

But oh my, we've been mostly ignoring the game until now (briefly noting that PC was vaguely planned) so we have a lot to catch up on. The Phantom Pain is a big, sprawling thing set in an open-world chunk of Afghanistan about legendary spy-turned-mercenary Big Boss's revenge on a chap killing his chums. As well as sneaking around doing spy things and getting caught up in a wacky story, he's leading a merc outfit. The Diamond Dogs (who, of course, turn deceased comrades' ashes into diamonds) live in a big offshore base, which you upgrade and staff with resources and people--and livestock--nabbed from the battlefield.

Ground Zeroes is a prologue chapter, a simpler affair in one small area, but still a paid standalone.

I suppose I should touch on the twisting story. Metal Gear is split into two eras with two stars, one starting in the '60s starring Big Boss ( once 'Naked Snake') and the other starting in the '90s with Solid Snake (a clone of Big Boss). MGS V is from the earlier strand. And that's enough of that.

Kojima didn't offer even a vague PC release date but did confirm that, as on consoles, Ground Zeroes will be released first. GZ hit consoles in March while TPP isn't due on them until early 2015. I imagine we'll see Zeroes before Pain hits consoles, at least. Steam store pages are up, and the PC release is definitely being treated as a Steam release, coming with a Steam-themed cardboard box (for hiding in, obvs) with a valve on the back and choo-chooing blasts of water vapour.

Here, have a half-hour demo of a specially-trimmed mission from E3:

They also showed more at an event during Gamescom. Skip to 22:45 during the broadcast for the start of the show, or 27:40 for the new gameplay demo.