Gaming: Finally, You Can Play Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes Inside...

Gaming: Finally, You Can Play Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes Inside...

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Metal Gear Solid 5 famously released in two highly disproportionate parts, with its short (but highly replayable) prologue Ground Zeroes releasing roughly a year before the full-fat Phantom Pain.

This has always struck me as an odd decision. Prior to Ground Zeroes' release, Hideo Kojima claimed he split off the prologue because he wanted to give fans something to play. Yet I've always believed pressure from Konami played a big role, especially given how The Phantom Pain itself was noticeably unfinished (though still brilliant) when it launched, and Kojima's departure from Konami shortly after the game's release.

In any case, I've often wondered whether the two games would be spliced together at some point, especially since Konami renewed its interest in making games. And after a fashion, it has finally happened, though neither Konami nor Kojima were involved.

Once again, the modding community has rappelled from PC gaming's transport helicopter to execute this ambitious reunification mission. Created by modder RLC and uploaded to Nexus Mods by CapLagRobin (via GamesRadar), the simply titled "Ground Zeroes" mod for The Phantom Pain grafts the standalone prologue mission into the larger 2015 experience.

Getting Ground Zeroes to work in The Phantom Pain requires a bit of prep. You'll need to install Snakebite Mod Manager and the latest version of Infinite Heaven, which is a location & mission addon system. You'll also need to download the US Naval Prison Facility map. Oh, and you'll need to own both TPP and Ground Zeroes.

Once you've downloaded and installed the mod, it will add the Ground Zeroes mission to the mission list on the iDroid in the helicopter. The mission will also trigger automatically after players complete Episode 1 of The Phantom Pain, suggesting it acts more like a flashback than a prologue.

It somehow even includes fulton support in Ground Zeroes, which apparently was a nightmare to get working because GZ has ceiling collision issues that don't exist in MGSV: TPP. The mod comes with a full list of known issues but most (not all) are relatively minor things like shaders not working properly in cutscenes or missing audio, which hopefully over time we'll see a few fixes for.

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This is, of course, a mod that includes an element of guesswork.

Source: PC Gamer