Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4458546-20130711102035/@comment-42.98.57.120-20130723155841

You are right, we are indeed looking at difference between games, and I think every MGS fans and Kojima agree that GTA V does a lot better in their open world (especially the vertical aspect of the open world). Although I think it does no harm in having a GTA scale open world in MGS, it doesnt mean it is a must (it can be a smaller scale).

In addition, the games' nature dictates whether an open world is needed/feasible or not. In GTA and Assassin's Creed, once you completed a mission, you can either free run the map, explore secret tombs, look for easter eggs or do some Animus puzzle or go straight to the next main mission. But in MGS, with the exception of MPO and MGSPW, Snake gets back to back missions (and everyone of them are main missions), it is not reasonable that Snake can spend 10 minutes rebuilding a city, explore secret tombs, etc and get back to the handle the nuclear threat. This is not to excuse that Kojima has no need to make an open world just as large, but then there are other game play elements that has to be considered. MGSPW Mother Base has the framework of the Brotherhood, only it was more like a statistic board than an interactive village. As for the missions, I'd say the nature is similar to AC's or GTA's, except they take place in a very small confined map.

I think MGSV is closer to AC than GTA (I played all ACs but only GTA 3). I believe Kojima is trying to merge MGS4, MGSPW and ACB together to creat an open world game where we are free to explore and recruit people for building the new Mother Base, while keeping the mission at a reasonable length.

Anyway, all these games have their own main features and characteristics, but I always welcome new elements to be added in them.