Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - Every Screenshot You Need To See

With a hop, skip and a jump into the next-generation, Hideo Kojima - the slightly mad, yet ever-lovable maniac behind Metal Gear Solid - brought the series to new hardware with the incredibly short MGS: Ground Zeroes; a glorified demo that whet just as many palettes as it annoyed. On the bright side though - and if you remove any money-grabbing tactics associated with the idea of slicing off a portion of your game as a separate release - we did still get a taste of what was to come, as Kojima pointed out the idea was to give fans a taste of how the 'new Metal Gear' would play. By that he meant an open-world approach to combat and mission structure, and although that feature doesn't really define Ground Zeroes (there aren't enough weapons, items, in-world items or structures to play around with) it's a concept packed full of potential. Looking to Phantom Pain, Kojima's continuing what looks to be a very dark tone, complete with a descent into madness from main character Big Boss, as he eventually needs to turn into the megalomaniacal overlord from the original MSX game. Ground Zeroes had some extremely sinister undertones when it came to sexually abusive characters like Skull Face, and it doesn't look like Pain is letting up whatsoever, as from all the materials released so far it looks like MGS V is going to be both the weirdest and most intense in the entire series.

Hideo Kojima likes to remind everyone his off-kilter sense of humour isn't lost regardless of how serious the rest of the game might be, and as such you'll have access to things like this chicken hat, an optional extra which appears to make the game easier if you keep dying.  There are also console-specific cardboard boxes you can place on Snake's head, all of which have more polygons in them than the entire Solid character model from MGS 1.