Metal Gear Survive (2018)

Survive is filled with glimpses at a game I could really get into. It has some very solid survival mechanics: a hunger/thirst system that provides a challenge without being obtrusive, an injury-treatment system a la MGS3, and limited oxygen for tense excursions into the hazardous Dust. What's more, it's built on the Fox Engine that gave MGSV its frankly insane level of character control. Maybe best of all, in my opinion, is the base-building and recruiting system that lets you slowly build out a base of operations with workspaces, housing, food and medical stores, and defenses. All of the above, in their best forms, would make for my perfect game. Unfortunately, it's all dragged down by many small things and one big thing.

Starting with the small things:

Your avatar is slow. They can move at a decent clip while sprinting, but that drains your stamina. Worse, stamina consumption is prohibitively high in the Dust, which also blocks your (the in-game equivalent of) cell service. You can expect to find yourself traversing long distances without map coverage at a leisurely jog.

Your avatar is fragile. Even with end-game armor, it's trivially easy to get shredded by a couple of Wanderers (zombies). Enemies in Survive are generally very hard to stagger, so don't expect to get off a full three-hit combo on them without getting struck back. This is primarily a melee game for most of the campaign, since firearms are expensive to craft and ammunition is rare, certainly not numerous enough to deal with the enemy count. You can unlock a Bloodborne-like quick-step dodge, but that's your only defensive option--no blocking here. Also keep in mind that your avatar takes a second to ready their weapon, and getting hit by an enemy often instantly puts it away, so it's common to get stun-locked to death without even having the chance to put a hand on your weapon.

The crafting progression levels off pretty quickly. Better games in the genre (Subnautica) dole out meaningful improvements to traversal, allowing the player to access more of the environment, or more easily access useful areas for gathering and expansion. In Survive, on the other hand, progression is almost purely about the numbers on your gear going up. Once you've unlocked one of each weapon type, nothing is going to fundamentally change about your excursions into the Dust for the upwards of 20 hours you have left in the story. You might see jeeps and walker gears (bipedal single-person light mechs) abandoned in the Dust and think your days of hoofing it are temporary, but in fact, these machines are temporary. Their "drive systems" are damaged, according to a helpful loading screen tip, so you can't use them for very long before you are forcibly ejected and they explode. A better survival crafting experience might let you build one for yourself, another piece of equipment to upgrade over time, but not here.

Tower defense. A fine genre, but not what I expecting here, and not particularly well executed at that. A good portion of the single-player content--and all of the multiplayer content--takes the form of defending a central point from waves of zombies. I'm actually very mixed about this one, because I love building things in a world I can explore, and especially building things with a practical purpose. There is some fun to be had in planning out a defense, putting down fences here and mines there. My only real complaint that many of the later defense missions go on far too long, and because of the avatar's aforementioned slowness and fragility, it can go from fine to game over in a matter of seconds.

Now for the one big thing: the story.

I suppose this is one of those games where the remnant fanbase will tell you that it's not about the story, that the real game starts at the end of the campaign. That may be true, but I spent 35 hours just trying to get to credits, and it did not make for a great showcase. Missions were repetitive, characters were dull, and plot points were borderline incomprehensible.

I think, maybe, giving the player a custom self-insert avatar was a mistake here. This game has the sort of cutscenes that make me cringe in anticipation of the uncharacteristic stupidity everyone (but most egregiously, my avatar) was going to display. Major decisions, often obviously wrong ones, are made in these scenes, and the player has to deal with the fallout silently. At least when it's Solid Snake or Big Boss, they have a character for these decisions to be taken into context with, but this character that is ostensibly me would never do half the dumb shit he did if I had any say in it.

So, all told, I do think there are some good bones in Survive. Maybe I'll put a few more hours into it, build up my base some more, maybe hop online. I've come this far, after all. But if you're looking for the Metal Gear you know and love, I implore you, look elsewhere.