Metal Gear SurviVe – E3 Demo – Impressions

Starting off with my Hands on Video Overview of the E3 2017 Demo for Metal Gear SurviVe Co-Op mode.

There are many who say to me “Your that Metal Gear Guy” while others would say to me “There is more to life than Metal Gear” these things are said because the Metal Gear series really is more than just a game to me. I grew up with it and its messages, themes and concepts are a big part of what I live by. The series is meant to be Anti War and speak about political issues that affect us day to day in society. Every once in awhile they will come out with a spin-off that isn’t in this format and in early 2018 you can get a chance to play Metal Gear SurviVe.

What is Metal Gear SurviVe? Without getting too deep into story you are playing yourself, a created character who happens to be one of Big Boss’s soldiers at MSF Base. It looks to start off with reference to the Ground Zeroes ending showcasing the base being attacked and destroyed but you get wormhole’d into an alternate world. Here is where the name SurviVe makes sense because in this place you will face hordes of creatures as you try to surviVe in this alternate world. Today I only want to talk about the E3 2017 Demo for Metal Gear SurviVe so lets jump into that.

First off they wasn’t speaking about any Story or single player. They directed us in the Co-op online mode where you face waves of creatures as you also have an objective to complete which for this demo we was trying to defend the wormhole generator. As someone who played many survival games I have to say they did add some depth to the game as a quick note there are also Side missions while you are doing main objective so that’s great. They added predictive routes so we can strategize and do things like place traps or turret guns in those directions. There was also a deep survival element to all weapons and gear with percentage bars on almost everything. I won’t dive to deep into all of it but a key part is your stamina as it can be drained from running to striking. Making it a more of a surviVal game than anything and for a spin off I think it works extremely well to not only provide a new experience in the metal gear universe but also bring in the community to join co-op for a surviVal game.

We started off in what I will call Free Roam where all 4 players get to run around, target practice and get use to controls but from what I saw it showed a amazing feature where players all go to sections to active a mission and basically ready up to get it started. Think of a in-game party where your character gets to roam and active missions only when all players can go to the section. I thought it was a nice touch but is still in the works. This picture can display it a little bit more the circles in the background.

After we load up we were deep in the field ready to protect the generator. I chose all melee attack weapons so I can see what’s new in the mechanics as I play a lot of phantom pain so guns aren’t something I needed to test. I was extremely impress with some of the gameplay mechanics and control mechanics that improved some of what I called the greatest Gameplay ever in The Phantom Pain. Most players like me who spent over 1,000 hours in The Phantom Pain can tell what has changed in SurviVe and at first I was thinking what did that do? Why is this so different? As I tested all the items, weapons, melee attacks and all the new button functions it was well put together and make more sense overall. Things like the dive button which was its own button before now works with Other functions making it a better use of buttons. If I am getting too deep into controls its because I plan on playing SurviVe a lot and it was important as a hardcore fan to know how well it was put together and my feedback to developers hopefully helps. In the end controls won’t be a problem we can move on to gameplay.

We got to fight the first wave and it was pretty easy and I pushed the limit by heading start into a horde of creatures with only melee weapons. I havked and slashed my way through most with the help of one of the 3 other media who were playing with me. He was using a sniper so he posted up high and was cover fire as I was upclose having fun. First was was easy enough so I got overconfident and for the second wave I really was overwhelmed with a few hordes banging up on me. I ended up injuries and went to menu to heal myself. This was during the intervals between waves you get a small break to craft defenses like fences and gun turrets. For me I personally wanted to start at menu all the internals but I won’t say what I saw because maybe I wasn’t suppose to sneak through everything I seen but what I can say is that there was a deep crafting and survival elements that made me want to take notes of all the types of things you can craft.

By the second wave we get D walkers or for those who don’t know what this is look at picture above. A mech you can ride and kill creatures with that is a mini metal gear to me. Now believe me you want to use them because the creatures at first were normal not to hard but as you reach higher waves new creatures come out and you will need all the help you can get. The mission is a failure if the creatures destroy the generator or if all the creatures die. This makes it so that players work together and protect the objectives. For me co-op in Metal Gear based game is big time fun but this was a blasted and I cannot wait to hang with my family or friends and play Co-op together. For the demo we only had 3 waves and we failed the mission. Honestly speaking I was all the outside of the defending zone was but it was because I wanted to reach outside the limited area and see what happens this lead me to see that the hordes of creatures main focus is the objective so players cannot exactly be decoys pulling them away from it. My plan was to have them chase me away from generator we was protecting but most of the horde would keep moving towards objective and a few strays came would chase me by this time it was third wave and it was getting tough but I figured my team can handle the inside I will be far out stopping them from even reaching our defenses but we failed the mission. Which only made me want to really play the game more. All these efforts I make to play different is to make sure I get a different perspective and one of the key things I can say I learned is the wormholes all over the map the creatures drop in and of someone like me who thinks ahead places some traps we can take out a bunch of enemies from far away. I will advice you to be careless the stamina system makes you need to be smart if you use it all up you cannot run and can barely walk fast. Your out of breath and out of chances to fight back so surviving will take some serious planning and skill.

To be honest a lot of survive games only provide you with hordes and the player has nothing much to worry about other than a health bar but with Metal Gear SurviVe you have a lot to think about. Not just your health matters, things like stamina effect your running and striking abilities. If you get hit hard your injuries and need to heal, your weapons have a percentage meter they can be wasted and you will have to craft new ones. There is a lot of elements I cannot speak of but oxygen meter was interesting as it might be a new feature of being in a infected area and needed to wear the mask or find one to stay alive? That’s all my hopes talking but in the end of the day there is a lot of things that make this surviVal game unique not just with gameplay but with richer survival elements that can add to the intense experience.

After all the controversy about things surrounding konami a lot of people questioned if they would even make a game again yet they got Super Bomberman R, PES18 and Metal Gear SurviVe. The big question everyone is asking I will ask and answer with the Question itself is “ Will Metal Gear SurviVe? My answer is it will because we got lucky to have the same creator for 30 years and the format and template are all well known so it wouldn’t take much to do something special. No one can wear the shoes Hideo Kojima wore for 30 years but we can start to make new aspects to the foundation laid down for 30 years. To start that journey i think it’s fitting in the game and concept of a spin off that the first non kojima game be about surviving. It feels like i really am a Big boss soldier and I have to surviVe without the greatest Creator of all time. I feel we will have fun with this spin off and co-op is a really nice touch to bring the community together. Metal Gear and are some of the most obsessed fans and we deserve co-op to overload each other with talks during a cooperative experience. This will need the way as we ask the number one question. “ Will Metal Gear SurviVe?