After years of waiting, gamers can finally play the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Compared to the last entry of the series, The Phantom Pain offers more depth and a much larger scope in terms of gameplay. It’s actually much bigger and with that, there is obviously plenty for you need to do. If you just picked up the game and don’t know where to start, here are our five tips to start your journey through Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain off right.
Heroic Points
Every time you complete a mission or do something on the battlefield, you’ll earn Heroic Points. These points accumulate throughout the game and will rise or fall based off your actions. Doing something positive, such as rescuing a prisoner will raise your points, where as negative actions will take them away . Now you might be asking, just what are these points?
Well, if you manage to keep on alerting enemies in the game, your Heroic Points will drop down and you will see Big Boss’ appearance change. Instead of being the hero that he’s supposed to be, his looks will turn into some kind of a demon where horns will grow from his forehead. Get high Heroic points and that horn will disappear.
Explore and Loot Around
With the Mother Base returning in The Phantom Pain, you have an obligation to gather resources and expand it. Since the game is now open-world, you are free to explore the area and look for things like plants, minerals, or items that you can sell to get GMP, the in-game currency. The more resources you get, the faster your Mother Base will expand and the easier it will be to develop items that you can use in missions. There are so many items that you can develop in the Mother Base and it will benefit you if you gather all resources that you see as you explore.
Do Side-Ops Missions / Missions to Advance
For those unaware, The Phantom Pain is the successor of Peace Walker. The advancement missions are similar to Peace Walker where you have to do missions like side-ops to proceed through the story. Since there will be a lot at some points in the story, you’ll have to do certain missions to advance. It’s highly recommended that you check each one of them as there items or potential recruits that will benefit your cause in re-establishing the Mother Base.
To be Stealthy or Not to be Stealthy
Shifting to open-world, The Phantom Pain gives you more ways to approach each situation. Just like previous Metal Gear Solid entries, you can either go stealthy or not- it’s all up to you. Just remember that there are consequences if you decide to go in guns blazing. These include more enemies and you’ll receive less heroic points at the end of a mission.
Use Your Binoculars and Scan the Area
Every time you’re asked to infiltrate an area, the very first thing that you should do is use your Binoculars to scan the area. With them you can mark enemies and track their movement. In addition to that, you can ask for intel from either Ocelot or Miller. Simply highlight something you see, tap that L1/LB button, and you’ll get your intel.
