MGSV a perfect example of mediocre open world games. Open World is not always Good.

Saying the game does not work as an open world game is a moot point. We cannot judge it as a truly open world, because it is not one. It's a large sandbox. A few animals that run at you or run away from you. No population in Afghanistan during the 1980s except for Russian outposts. So it's really the facade of an open world game, and a repetitive one at that. And this is coming from a huge MGS fan since like 2000. I would have preffered something along the lines of 3 or 4 in terms of the environment and level design.

MGSV is not open world. Some missions you can't complete if you leave the specific area. If you go there it aborts mission.

I'm playing through it for the first time and Im at Mission 8 plus done every side ops till now, but gosh this game is boring ( MY Opinion ). I just can't bring my self to play through it. I even tried not to think of it as a MGS games I know and used to play in the past and just look it as a Sandbox game. Yes the gameplay is amazing, animation is fluid but even then, it's just Boring and repetitive. no other way to describe it and I have no Idea how this game got a 10/10.

Edit: I think I'll just move onto another game and play this on the side whenever I can.

This. MGS5 is a great sandbox game.

@i-siamak-i:

Side ops are probably the single worst aspect of that game. That's where all the repetitive complaints come from. The actual missions kick ass and have tons of variation.

Instead of pushing through the side ops like a check list, just ignore them. They'll pop up in the field anyways and it's more organic to tackle them that way.

I can understand that as gamers we all kind of have a completionist itch to scratch, but with MGSV it's best to just go with the flow. It's next to impossible to 100% the game anyways.

Just tackle the main content that is actually awesome and ignore the optional stuff if it's dragging your experience down.

@i-siamak-i:

The latter half of the game has you literally repeat missions from earlier portions of the game on a harder difficulty for you to continue.

There are some well designed arenas in the game which I liked but everything is padded out unnecessarily in the sandbox environment. You can choose an entry point from different areas of the game but they're very loosely defined and uninteresting. Particularly when you compare it to its peers such as Dishonored.

Personally, I thought it was a very poorly designed game. Outside of some fun tools to play around with, I found it hard to stay all that interested given have repetitious everything was. Like people have said, ignoring the side content is the best option but even the main content is unnecessarily padded out. There is so much waiting in MGSV. The helicopter is just baffling... Why is there any arbitrary wait time when you craft something? W-what? Okay, grand. I'll just go shoot some mines (an actual series of side missions...) while I wait 30 minutes in real time for my sniper to be developed. I can only summarize the reason for this was to get players to explore more of the side content... which again, is an exercise in repetition.

Context is another problem with the game. Nothing feels all that purposeful. Generally speaking, outside of some key situations, missions boil down to 'rescue person for thing' or 'collect intel for yolk'. It's hard to stay motivated to continue when the pay-off is some additional gear.

Enemy design is pretty bad too. Especially those bloody bullet sponge guys. Worst. enemy. ever. There's pseudo boss fights revolving around killing these tank-like enemies that you just shoot explosives at. Shoot, run away, shoot. And they just soak up these bullets like it's nothing.

I think I got pretty close to the end of MGSV but I never completed it (like mission 48 or something). I wouldn't recommend the game. I just didn't get it all. The design of the game didn't resonate with me in the slightest...

Also, I felt the opening was perhaps one of my least favorite levels in a video game I have played in recent memory.