Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

This Metal Gear Solid entry stands as both a technical marvel and a divisive milestone in this legendary stealth series. It marked a bold leap into open-world design, moving away from the series’ traditionally linear structure. Set during the Cold War era in the mid-1980s, players assume the role of Venom Snake as he rebuilds the private army “Diamond Dogs” and seeks revenge against those who destroyed his previous base. The story begins with an explosive hospital escape sequence, setting a dramatic tone that gradually gives way to a more player-driven, sandbox-style experience.

What immediately sets this title apart is its incredible gameplay freedom. Every mission unfolds like a tactical puzzle with countless possible solutions. You can infiltrate outposts at night using tranquilizers and stealth camouflage, or storm enemy camps with air support and heavy weapons. The tools at your disposal, from Fulton extraction devices and decoy dummies to vehicles, companions, and custom-built weapons, encourage experimentation. The AI responds dynamically to your tactics: use too many headshots, and enemies start wearing helmets; rely on night missions, and they’ll deploy flashlights and night-vision gear.

This adaptive challenge keeps the experience fresh and constantly evolving, and this was an impressive feat at the time, especially because of the saturated stealth mechanics of the triple A titles at the time, this ended up setting new standards for this genre. The Mother Base system adds another layer of depth, connecting the your fieldwork to broader management gameplay. And personally speaking, I'm not a big fan of base-building mechanics in general, but this didn't get in m way in any way, so if you also don't like those, I don't think you'll get bothered by it. Soldiers captured in the field can be recruited, resources gathered can be used to expand facilities, and new technologies can be developed to enhance your arsenal.

This sense of progression gives real purpose to exploration and side operations, making even smaller missions feel rewarding. Combined with the game’s smooth, responsive controls and top-tier stealth mechanics, this videogame delivers one of the most refined gameplay loops ever seen in the genre. Visually, the game is stunning, the Fox Engine enables beautiful lighting, realistic animations, and seamless transitions between environments. Whether sneaking through the rocky deserts of Afghanistan or the humid jungles of Central Africa, each location feels alive and detailed.

The inclusion of licensed 1980s music, which you can play from a Walkman during missions, adds nostalgic personality and helps lighten the often serious tone. However, the game’s narrative doesn’t live up to its mechanical brilliance. While the early chapters are filled with intrigue, emotional moments, and classic Metal Gear eccentricity, the story loses focus toward the end. Many plotlines feel unfinished, and some key revelations are delivered abruptly or through optional cassette tapes rather than cinematic cutscenes. Particularly, the worst example is the Liquid Snake side-mission, which presents us with this iconic character in the franchise, just to not finish it's story-line.

A lot of people were particularly disappointed by the lack of a proper ending and the omission of certain missions that were reportedly cut before release. This results in a lingering sense that The Phantom Pain was never truly completed, despite its remarkable polish elsewhere. Repetition is another issue that surfaces in the later stages. As the narrative pacing slows, you are often asked to replay earlier missions with new conditions or higher difficulty settings. While this does highlight the game’s flexible mission design, it can also feel like artificial padding.

Nevertheless, even repeated missions remain engaging thanks to the depth of the underlying systems and the sheer number of ways each encounter can play out. Despite these shortcomings, this game remains a masterclass in open-world game design. It successfully blends stealth, strategy, and action into a cohesive, highly replayable experience that rewards your creativity at every turn. Its mechanics are so refined that many consider it one of the best stealth-action games ever made, even if its narrative doesn’t provide the emotional or thematic closure fans hoped for.

A lot of people, including myself, consider this to be the ultimate stealth and espionage game of all time, there is little to no game that can even come close to the depth of the mechanics this title introduced, it is simply the ultimate sandbox of this genre. Ultimately, this MGS entry is a bittersweet masterpiece, an unfinished epic whose gameplay excellence overshadows its incomplete story. It represents both the peak of mechanical design and the limits of creative freedom within a major studio production. It still remains as one of the best games of all time, through almost all of it's mechanics and the story it is trying to convey, this is truly a must-play masterpiece in gaming.

Metal Gear Solid 5, for xbox one

Rating: 8.0/10; Great

Played: 2020

Highly recommended even if you are not that into stealth and would rather go Rambo.

MGS5 is a third person stealth shooter semi-open world vehicle sim base management game. It also thinks it is a movie, with the many gorgeous cutscenes, masterful cinematography, and half decent looking credits that show up at the beginning and end of every mission. If you have played the prequel/paid demo Ground Zeroes then you will already have seen the best that MGS5 has to offer. Seriously, they polished the hell out of Ground Zeroes to the point where it shines brighter than the main game. The only truly awesome thing that MGS5 has that is not in Ground Zeroes is how much fun it is to drive around in a tank, IFV or tiny mech killing people and blowing stuff up.

The game starts off with a character creator, which is for the online competitive mode. Then you play as Snake through the prologue, which is like a very long tutorial and cutscene mixed. After that you are introduced to the proper semi-open world. Remember in Ground Zeroes how there was an amazing story mission with meticulous design and awesome set pieces? Also remember how you then went back to the same enemy base to complete generic objectives without much in the way of story and set pieces, sometimes with the enemy placements changed a bit? Yeah that is what the entire game of MGS5 is like. The world is semi-open because you keep leaving and coming back with enemies respawning each time. Story missions pretty much create a new instance of a small section of the map, causing you to fail the mission if you go outside this arbitrary border, and take you around the map to a variety of bases, none of which are as well designed as the one in Ground Zeroes. Though a few do come reasonably close. Eventually you will unlock access to the 2nd map and then go back to the 1st map to finish the game, or so you thought because that was just chapter 1. Chapter 1 ends with a satisfying conclusion; the bad guy is defeated and everything is looking up for the heroes. A good place to end the game, but then chapter 2 begins. 2 has its great moments (especially the quarantine lab mission which is powerfully emotional) but is largely a mess of story and game design, with stupid rehashed missions with the same cut scenes, only now with difficulty modifiers; Extreme to make your time to die much faster, Total Stealth to make being caught automatic game over (which sucks) and Subsistence, which forces you to go in with nothing but the clothes (or armor) on your back. Personally I found Subsistence to be incredibly tense and fun, especially knowing the first encounter is going to be with a guy who has a gun, and you don't have one. But really, these "new" missions should never have been put in the game and these difficulty modes should have been able to be applied to any mission when you replay them, including the option of having 2 or all 3 on at the same time. On top of this the game is not clear about what you need to do to get to the "ending". Obviously the game development was not completed but there is still plenty of content, even when ignoring optional side stuff. The most sensible way to play is to consider chapter 2 bonus post game content.

The core gameplay is phenomenal but not without flaws. Choose between a few control schemes which put the variety of tools and actions within easy reach. It helps that the game gives valuable help messages to remind you of the controls and that the game is slow paced enough that you can take extra time, except when it isn't like some of the boss fights. The camera is great for checking out your surroundings, allowing you to keep impossible situational awareness, but it is zoomed in too far for doing anything outside of crawling or shooting. Getting around indoors is particularly disorienting with just how much of the screen Snake obstructs and the lack of a minimap/compass is a huge pain for both short and long distance getting around. I went around mostly in weapon aiming mode because it shunts Snake off to the side allowing for a much better view. This aim mode is kind of like hip firing in other games in that it gives an area where bullets can go rather than laser accuracy, though it shoots accurately enough. The actual hip firing is more like blind fire with no kind of crosshair or otherwise indication of where shots will go. At the other extreme, you can go into 1st person mode for the ultimate accuracy, using iron sights or whatever scope is on your gun. You can carry 3 weapons; a side arm (pistols and smgs), a hip weapon (mid sized stuff like assault rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers) and a back weapon (big stuff like sniper rifles, lmgs and even a ballistic shield). And you can carry a variety of useful things like explosives, flashbangs, flares, nightvision goggles, drugs and even cardboard boxes. On top of all this you can assign a buddy and vehicle to your load out. You start out with only the horse buddy, which is a reasonable way to get around the map, but not nearly as good as an armored vehicle. Seriously, tanks and IFVs are a ton of fun but break the game. Not only do they easily waste soldiers while being pretty much immune to gunfire, but they also provide near perfect stealth. One time I was in a tank parked on the road in the middle of a base. I had just killed several soldiers when this guy walked right past me. He had no idea the tank on the road was the thing setting off the alert and stopped behind my tank with his back to me. So I did what anyone would do and reversed over him. Another time I was in an APC shooting at a guy who got into cover. He went on the radio saying "I'm taking fire! No shots heard, the enemy must be using a suppressor." Oh really? You can't hear that 20mm cannon going off 100 or so meters away? Even doing the total stealth missions is a joke with a tank. The enemies are incapable of understanding that a vehicle can make sounds and could be an enemy unless they actually see it shoot something. Really you would think attacking in a tank would paint a bullseye on it and alert every nearby enemy in order to balance out just how tough a tank is. Supposedly the game has dynamic difficulty that makes the enemies adapt to your strategies, but I did not see them adapt to the tank. Sure there was a general trend towards heavier armor, helmets and heavy weapons, but no armored vehicles or gunships; the things that would actually counter a tank. No, enemy vehicles only show up when specifically placed as part of a mission and almost never appear in the sandbox (I think a couple of places are marked as allowing a gunship to spawn if you set off the alarm). The other buddies are very cool. The little mech can be outfitted with powerful weapons and has almost as much mobility as being on foot, allowing you to mow down enemies in places the tank can't reach. It can even take out helicopters fairly easily, making it a great match for a tank. Both the dog and sniper buddies feature an impressive level of control for you to make use of their abilities for taking out infantry, but the sniper leaves in the late game and how to get her back is a big secret. That is just bad game design, to put so much work into a feature and let players get used to it only to take it away. Especially in a free roam style open world with replayable missions. She works wonders against some of the bosses, so you're telling me that if I want to replay the boss fights I am going to have to be at a huge disadvantage now? Unless I go online to find out the secret of getting her back.

Speaking of bosses, they are not fun at all. Except for the sniper bosses, stealth pretty much goes out the window and this game is at its weakest as a straight up action shooter. The bosses are too fast, have cheap attacks that can kill you easily and seem to know exactly where you are most of the time. God damn turning invisible and teleporting around like Nightcrawler. It is hard to get a bead on them and hard to stay still without getting wrecked. The best way I found to deal with them, and this includes the final boss, was to sprint around like a mad man letting Quiet and the support chopper do most of the work. Get a shot off here and there and call an airstrike if I could manage to lose them long enough. The burning man boss does not have a health bar and feels more like trial and error.

The game shines with its stealthy infiltration style gameplay, when you can't (or at least don't want to) roll up in a tank or bomb the shit out of everything. The stealth mechanics are realistic, fair and punishing at the same time. Keep low, hide in grass, shadows and cover, avoid line of sight, go slow and quiet, and most importantly mark everyone so you can keep track of them. Add in the occasional suppressed headshot or tranquilizer and hide the bodies, and it is not difficult at all to sneak around. Being spotted is almost always from doing something dumb and unstealthy, failing to adequately prepare through scouting or letting your suppressor get used up in the middle of shooting. There is a truly impressive amount of things you can do to aid in stealth and the enemy AI is almost the best you could expect. The only real problem I noticed is that they completely fail to be concerned over dwindling numbers. One time I turned off a power generator over and over, killing each guard that came to investigate. Not once did they wonder why the power keeps going off and on and why those who go to investigate never come back or radio in. A really interesting thing is that you can destroy radar and communication equipment in the sandbox to make later story and side missions there easier. Chapter 2 seems to reset the damage you have caused though.

Outside the main story missions, the game is full of repetitive stuff that mostly wastes the player's time. Starting with the time it takes for your chopper to circle around to where you will be dropped off and pick you up for exfil. While it is immersive, it gets old fast and reminds me of the flight paths in World of Warcraft. I want to PLAY the game, not watch the same nonsense more than once; just get on with it! As I mentioned there are plenty of optional side missions, like killing groups of enemies, rescues, kidnapping, clearing mine fields and catching animals. While there is a decent variety and they can be fun, they are unlocked sequentially, so on any given trip to the map you will only be able to do a few side missions. To unlock more you have to fly out in the chopper, then fly back in, and there are over 100 side missions. They really overstay their welcome. I would have preferred a smaller number that were integrated into the sandbox and main missions. Like if the heavy troops and armoured units could be encountered during a main mission, encouraging you to defeat them before starting that mission. And then there is moving around the map from mission to mission. It was a damn good thing when I got a tank and could just ignore all enemies on the way, because I really got sick and tired of traversing the same roads and outposts over and over. You might as well go make a sandwich or something while using the chopper to get around, which costs money by the way; all equipped stuff, vehicles and buddies cost money to deploy and there is a cost to be picked up. There is a huge kind of management minigame around your mother base. Build platforms that have real gameplay advantages, such as showing nearby enemies and resources on the map, researching better gear and unlocking supply drops, airstrikes and chopper attacks. Oh and the Intel team (and others) will not shut up, feeling the need to verbally notify you of everything. "Enemy detected nearby. The map has been updated." God damn how many times does that need to be said? Can't they make a simple little ping noise? You can recruit soldiers and assign them to platforms, checking their stats to ensure optimal distribution and weeding out the bad apples. Or you can say to hell with it and get on with playing the game. You get plenty of recruits for free but one of the main mechanics of the game is using balloons to kidnap enemies who will always join you eventually. Kind of like the torture chamber in Dungeon Keeper. Other than being tedious, ballooning out an enemy has a discrete tactical advantage and associated risk. A dead body or unconscious person can be found while a living person whisked away into the sky will never be seen again. Unless someone is close enough in which case they might shoot the balloon or radio "holy shit! One of our guys just got taken by a balloon!". You can also swipe weapon emplacements to prevent the enemy from using them and sell at a profit. Ballooning a tank with crew inside is the best way to deal with enemy armor too, if not the most fun. You will also need to collect resources to spend on research and construction. There is very little to do in mother base and it seems like a complete waste to even make it an area that you can explore. There are target practice side missions, money left laying around, soldiers to beat up and showers to get the blood and grime off. The showers seemed to eventually stop working for me so I just left him drenched in blood. Everything important can be done from the chopper using your trusty portable computer, which has a very annoying load time. I suspect it is intentional to give that 1980s era processing speed for a device that is more advanced than a modern smartphone.

You can send your men on combat missions that take so many minutes or hours of real time to complete. Some are considered online and progress even while the game is turned off. They show the odds of success and percent casualties you will suffer, and some of those casualty rates are high! To the point where I often did not want to do missions and risk losing good men. Maybe that number should have been hidden and randomized? You can even choose to play as these recruits instead of as Snake. Once completed the game makes you go into a reward screen to press collect all. There is a separate reward screen for random stuff, like getting X headshots, a certain rank in a mission or accumulating Y. And these rewards must be accepted 1 at a time. Then there is another reward screen for multiplayer, where you get points from automatic simulated player vs player battles and can spend that on rewards. The game forces you into multiplayer with a tutorial to set up your first forward base, which allows you to have more platforms and thus more recruits giving you benefits, while allowing other players to invade you to steal resources and kidnap your soldiers. Getting high enough base levels to unlock the best stuff is impossible without using the multiplayer bases, and building more beyond the first costs premium currency that you can get slowly over time or quickly with real money. Well no one invaded me and you definitely don't need the best stuff to beat the game. Research is used to unlock new weapons, attachments, armor, explosives and carry counts, but the research screen is a massive clusterfuck. It shows a grid of something like 16 X 16 but only shows a 3 X 3 section at a time with plenty of spaces not even being used. It is like trying to follow a flow chart with a telescope. And then there are different ways to equip stuff for yourself, buddies and the chopper, and a slew of cosmetics from mixing gun parts (which makes me wonder why they have separate weapons with different preset attachment loadouts AND the ability to custom design what you want), and emblems and skins for nearly everything. On top of all of this are audio recordings that need to be listened to in order to progress the story, optional audio collectibles and replaying story missions to get better ranks which can unlock better gear. Then there is the invasion and defense player vs player aspect, and the separate online competitive modes.

MGS5 is a very ambitious game with 100s of hours of content, but which is unfinished. It has an odd mix of excellent content and gameplay combined with plenty of things that are pointless filler that just waste the player's time. Maybe if they had focused more on the core game and less on the bells and whistles we would have had a true masterpiece.

I have always known about the franchise, and even played MGS1 as a kid with no regards to the plot though. In 2017, I got my hands on GZ and TPP and played through them with no understanding of what's going on in the game. I was so confused but somehow I enjoyed playing through it so much and sinked about 60 hours in it. After finishing it, I felt even more confused by the ending and I had withdrawl from finishing it, so I decided to buy a PS3 and play through the entire franchise on it. I started in 2018 and finished it just today, I didn't rush through the games and I tried to enjoy every game as much as possible and understand everything. I have to say that it was the best video game experience I've had in ages.

Last week, I replayed GZ and TPP, everything seemed super easy to understand and for it being a series released over the span of 28 years, the story had little plotholes and everything seemed connected, and the ending hit me way harder than the first time I've beaten it. To be quite honest, it didn't seem like an appropriate ending to such a great franchise. In my opinion, MGS4 served me as the ultimate ending to the series, with Solid Snake being the one who followed the Boss's will and going into retirement with no loose ends left, now that's a really good ending to the franchise.

I highly recommend anyone who wants to play MGS to go through the entire franchise by release order, but leave Guns of the Patriots as the last one.

Gameplay: 4/5 Story: N/A Presentation: 3.5/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

I said N/A on the story as I have not played any of the other MGS games besides Guns of The Patriots. I did some research before playing the game, but after only like 4 hours of gameplay it felt like they throw a story out the window and it was all about executing missions.

The stealth options/ mechanics are so solid in this game. Also love the weather and day/night effects actually meaning something in the game.

I just have to say that I'm incredibly upset with myself. This is the only Metal Gear Solid game I've played, and I wish I would have experienced the others beforehand. Although I didn't have any ties to the series, I still loved my experience.

This game is stunning. I was blown away while both in game and watching cutscenes. The opening mission was one of the most fun intros I've ever played through, and the last 10 missions were amazing. I really enjoyed how the end played out, even if the main struggle of the game wasn't really present until towards the end.

The only thing I disliked was how some of the missions seemed unnecessary, and although you have complete freedom to complete missions however you like, I felt like I played the same way throughout (sneak in/sneak out of every situation). I just felt like I didn't completely utilize the open world.

I can't wait to play the other games in the series!

Played on PC

Having been a fan of the MGS games ever since MGS1 on PS1 blew my mind as a kid, I was very excited to pick up Kojima's last entry in the franchise. And it did not disappoint.

The story is intriguing from the very beginning, particularly if you played or watched the ending to Ground Zeroes so you know the reason for the game opening the way it does. Even from the very beginning, Kojima throws in hidden meaning, symbolism, and references. For example, in the prologue, a character you meet tells you, "Call me Ishmael" and later you see an obvious visual reference to the whale in Moby Dick. There are more obscure themes as well through the music tracks, such as David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World." Mix all this in with an exploration of language, cultural divisions, war, and Metal Gears, and you're left with a rich story you're sure to enjoy.

For new comers to the game, I highly recommend listening to every tape you get immediately. The game could have done a better job on this, but there are some important story information in the tapes, and it's so easy to gloss over them.

As for gameplay, being mostly open world, there is a lot of freedom to choose how to approach each mission. There is a large choice of weapons to choose from. Not only that, but you also have the ability to customize each gun with a myriad of options, such as sights, grenade attachments, paint jobs, etc. It's a great feeling to put time into crafting a sniper rifle just the way you like it, and then see it strapped to your back while you're riding your horse at night across the desert to take out an encampment of mercenaries and rescue some P.o.W.'s.

My complaints about the game are the same as everyone else's and don't diminish the quality of the game very much. The story abruptly ends, likely due to Kojima's fallout with Konami. Microtransactions to speed up development of your base are in the game, which is the same tactic used in crappy mobile games, so it's disgusting to see them in a game of this calibre. The platinum trophy is too much of a time sink. Too many of the side missions are pure repetition.

In the end, though, The Phantom Pain was a great game and I highly recommend it as a must play, especially if you're played the other games in the series.

Final Rating: What a Thrill

I'll admit, I'm a casual fan of the Metal Gear Franchise. I don't know how those hardcore fans do it? They must be fans of the gameplay, because the story is the textbook definition of "bat-shit kooky". It can go from 0 to stupid in 60 seconds. I have always enjoyed Big Boss over Solid, his games are usually set back in time and since he's the originator the storyline isn't quite as convoluted yet.

First off, I'm a fan of Keifer Sutherland, so I am totally on board with him being Snake. MGSV had an actor with a great voice and I swear he had maybe 8 lines in the whole game, way to utilize him guys. The rest of the voice actors did fine, I actually liked Troy Baker as Revolver. The premise of MGS universe always felt a bit jarring to me. There are some moments where the game feels like a really good modern tactical stealth game, ala a Ghost Recon game, then you get attacked by giant mechazords. I think I'd love this series more if it played it a little straighter. A little techno-fantasy is fine, like the bionic arm. I also liked a lot of the cinematic moments they created over the course of the game, like the jeep ride with Skull Face. It's a shame some of those other good moments came during "Chapter 2". Chapter 2 was the weakest epilogue I've probably played in a game. A lot of the mission in this chapter could have easily been added in as a side plots for the main game, because once you kill Skull Face the game has hit its climax. Which leads me to a theory I’ve developed. I think Kojima is extremely creative, but sort of undisciplined creativity. He never found that partner-in-crime to help reign in his vivid imagination and keep it focused. Having to play that pain in the ass hospital scene again just to reveal the twist ending was dreadful.

While I have issues with the story, the gameplay is why I even attempt to play these games. The control scheme is much more user friendly this time around concerning all of the shooty, sneaky, punchy bits. I loved everything about the stealth gameplay. It was fun and rewarded unique, tactical thinking. The base management/building side of things were less engaging. It usually got ignored and when you’ve to sort out the infected towards the end of the story was the worst. Manually sorting through 700+ soldiers. The menu interfaces were also poorly optimized. Always having to make trips to the helicopter to access all the menu options got old, and I found it odd they hid the weapons customization behind several side missions.

All in all, the game was a blast to play, sneaking around, but that’s about it.

9/10

Soo ive never played any previous metal gear game before and i had no real expectations for this but gosh daaaaang. Ahhhhhhhh! I don't know how to process this! Haha. Let me make an attempt.

Soo the premise is you play as Venom Snake rebuilding his destroyed mercenary company while seeking revenge on the ones who destroyed his last home base. Sounds kind of dull and contrived like that doesn't it? Well I can say with absolute certainty it is anything but those two words. This is some of the most interesting stuff i've ever heard about let alone in a video game. The story and back stories of each character you come across are just soo intriguing its hard not to get lost in this world that has been created. And thats kind of the one flaw i can find in this game. It not for new players in any stretch of the imagination. Tons of information is thrown at you like you are already supposed to know what they are talking about which can lead to alot of confusion at times. But if you slow down and work it out it will make more sense and the brilliance of it will break through. Also another fairly big flaw would be that for some of the missions later in the game they start to make you repeat ones previously beaten which really started to frustrate me. But in all honesty those two gripes were totally worth it for playing this incredible game. Soo much effort went into this. Its all over the place. From the great story with loads of twists and turns, to very rich lore that makes you want to play all of the other games in the series just soo you can learn more, to all of the characters that have soo much depth that i love (My favorite is probably Quiet!), to the open world setting where you can tackle missions however you want, to even just how it all looks when theres a lengthy cutscene that they just made look soo cinematic, this game is worth your time. And it certainly took mine, I've clocked in at over 60 hours playing this now. And I kind of want to play it again. Just. Woah. Check this out if you havnt. Theres soo much here to love.

Full review here, as I just took this bit from something else I wrote: http://wp.me/p55m9h-Qa

The Phantom Pain is less on story, at least in the way that we've become accustomed to when playing Metal Gear. There are fewer cutscenes, and some of the more interesting pieces of information are relegated to cassette tapes. However, it's by far the funnest of the series if you only factor in how it operates, with polished stealth, tons of freedom and a surprisingly fun strategy element where you build your own base. It's just unfortunate that some uninspired choices later on in the game make it harder to get to the story than is necessary.

I am well aware of my own bias towards the system since I consistently have given the core series perfect scores, but this is the closest that I've gotten to giving four and a half stars (or 9.5 out of 10). For those who want the antithesis of Metal Gear Solid 4, then this is the game you want.

A goddamned shame, this one. Tedious, devoid of story. What little is there contains more magic bullshit that has crept into the series. Pyromancers and the like. Barf. I'm 5 hours in with nary a codec message or reason for doing what I'm doing. Shoehorned in, too, is the same "build a base with recruits" mobile game mechanic we've seen in nearly every AAA title of 2015.

A goddamned shame.