10 Things Assassin's Creed Must Learn From Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain

5. 'Eagle Vision' That Works

I've always thought the only way to 'do' a comfortable sense of infiltrating a place was to show you where the enemies were at all times; essentially giving you the Predator-like sensation of stalking your prey, whilst restricting things like how much damage you can take or the animations at your disposal, to fulfil a change. In 2007's Assassin's Creed we got 'Eagle Vision', the notion of seeing enemies through walls no matter their alert level - a vision mode that always felt broken, even visually. Watching batches of enemies float through the landscape just looks unpolished, and when you have to toggle it just to see what's ahead or around you - at most tagging a handful of goons to then keep track of - it results in your floundering around, rotating the camera in all directions just to establish sense of place. MGS V took just enough of this forward, allowing for a system that's either contingent on you scouting encampments for soldiers and tagging as many as you like (alongside proximity-based audio cues and on-screen indicators showing who's aware of your presence), but also giving you a companion character who'll auto-tag them all, should you choose to bring him along.

The key difference is in the presentation. MGS V's version of this 'through the wall' stuff comes with distance markers to your enemies, a set of visual icons that work perfectly with the more immediate "Someone's looking your way" HUD stuff. If you get seen in MGS it's because you've literally gotten too careless and charged ahead, whereas in Assassin's Creed you could take a good 20 minutes scouting a place, only for someone to spot you from across the map regardless.