Mother Base and FOBs explained
The Mother Base side of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is detailed enough to necessitate a half-hour demonstration out of gamescom, and I’m loving it. There’s a lot to parse, but thoughtful editing and delivery keeps the flood of information from feeling overwhelming.
You can manage operations day to day, if you want. While there are plenty of menus to sort through, Mother Base is a large physical location within the game with separate areas for things like R&D, support, and animal conservation. You can shower. You can shower for too long. If you don’t shower enough, you’ll attract a swarm of flies and disgust your troops. Typical workplace drama.
Eventually, you can set up forward operating bases, which “function as an optional online version of Mother Base with all of the same customization features … Every player’s FOB is unique and their development will complement Mother Base by funneling increased profit, resources, and manpower to Diamond Dogs.” These bases are vulnerable to other players, but automated security can help.
In the case of an active intrusion while, say, you’re off playing a mission, you can return to your forward operating base to handle the pest either as Snake or one of his men. This player-versus-player gameplay is separate from Metal Gear Online, which “pits groups of soldiers against one another.” FOB engagements are one on one, “with the primary focus being on the massively multiplayer metagame experience of pitting your army against rivals from around the world.”
All that, and I still have about 12 minutes left on the video. Nice P.T. emblem, by the way.
There’s a new trailer for The Phantom Pain, too.
Relative to prior trailers, this one falls flat (not that there isn’t some real weird stuff going on).
