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Still the king of open world stealth action.
Playing this again a decade after release and it has barely aged a day. The story is a mess (though has some cool bits), pacing can be whack, and some other issues but none of that matters because the gameplay and AI is just that good. I recently played some Wildlands and Breakpoint, which share some surface level similarities, and while Breakpoint wins over in gunplay and sounds the enemy AI and general options available to you leave so much to be desired.

Sneaking up to a base, spotting targets and marking high value soldiers to capture. Planting some C4 on anti-air radar, comms equipment, and heavy weapon emplacements. Interrogating an enemy to reveal the hostage location, making your way there someone you didn't account for spots you. Dive behind a wall to blow the C4 and call in a support chopper. Making a mad dash to the hostage location, rockets popping off from your air support while your chosen song (for me; "Old" by Machine Head) blasts through the speakers. Running to the LZ with the hostage over your shoulder, bullets whizzing by.
Mission cleared, funds received, new weapon developments unlocked.

No other game captures this feeling. And thats just one of many mission types and experiences to have in MGSV. The only one that comes somewhat close is Mercenaries.

And the AI, nearly perfect as far as enjoyable enemies go. Their sight is nearly perfectly tuned, difficult but fair. Hiding in grass and using camo works how you would expect most of the time. They are very dynamic and have wide patrols and even change guard/ sleep when night hits. If you do get fully spotted by an enemy and they start shooting or begin to shout out the whole base will know where you are which is a little cheap feeling but you can break sight line and lose them. Far too many games the enemies are clairvoyant, or have eagle vision, or once aggro'd just stupidly conga-line to your position but not here. Diversions actually work, setting an explosive off on the far end of base may prove beneficial to shake up the guard positions. Hit and run tactics even with loud weapons work as the enemies wont just magically know where you are without visual contact.

Progression is solid with unlocking new weapons and gear, all sorts of cool gadgets and equipment to use. With many options for both stealth and going loud.

The soldier capture with fulton device is brilliant and creates a whole extra layer of gameplay as every enemy you come across may be a piece of loot to gather and change how you approach a mission. Going up to a guard outpost and see 3 guys talking to each other, yeah you could throw a grenade and make short work of it but one of them is S rank in R&D which you need for some new weapons so now you gotta figure out how you wanna extract him.

That combined with enemies getting new equipment to counter whatever you do often (helmets added if you headshot often, gas masks if you use smoke grenades etc) really shakes up the formula. Too many stealth games fall into just headshotting enemies, melee takedowns, and occasionally hiding a body.

Some minor downsides: Some menu controls like moving the cursor in map screen feels like its emulating a stick and sucks. Cover system doesn't want to work 70% of the time, there is no hard button for it, only rubbing against a wall to activate it.
Gunshot sounds are weak, even the mod that's supposed to improve doesn't help much.
No FOV options, though I've somewhat accepted the limited fov as a gameplay concession.

All in all just a great fun time, especially if you want to get creative with how you approach missions. There is just no other game like it even after all these years. Even if other games have improved or included individual elements of this, as a total package it really is unique.

This game makes me feel invisible

my personality