Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is set to be one of the most important (and dramatic) launches of 2015.
The Phantom Pain's development has often played second fiddle to rumors of employee mal-treatment and in-fighting between game director Hideo Kojima and parent company Konami. Still, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is almost here, and as of writing it's sitting at 95% on Metacritic.
Gamespot discovered in their review that the game's online player vs. player mode seemed locked behind a paywall, but Konami has since explained that it's not entirely true.
Metal Gear Solid V's Mother Base PVP gameplay exists separately from Metal Gear Online, which is coming in October. Mother Base operates similarly to Watch Dogs, which allows other players to infiltrate your base and test the defences you've set up.
To build those defences, and indeed, to purchase the land necessary to build a base, utilizes a currency called MB Points (Mother Base Points). Gamespot noted that MGSV, at present, doesn't include the ability to earn MB Points outside of purchasing them with real money. Leading them to believe the multi-player components were locked behind a paywall.
The news appeared to contradict Konami's Ken-Ichiro Imaizumi, who stated a few weeks ago that micro-transactions were optional.
..."You can make money by completing missions on single campaign mode. There are other ways to make money as well."...
Konami has since clarified the situation, saying that the system is still a work in progress and that it will be fully playable when the game launches for real on September 1st, 2015.
..."[Mother Base PVP] will be fully accessible at launch and the micro-transaction layer to that specific feature in the game primarily acts as an accelerator."...
I find it a little sour that a fully-priced title would include accelerator micro-transactions, potentially giving people with expendable income the ability to pull ahead of other players. It'll certainly have an effect on my review of the game, which should hit sometime in the next week or so.
What do you guys think of micro-transactions in fully-priced titles? Hit the comments.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain launches on September 1st, 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and PC.
Source: Gamespot
