Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PC) Review - High-Fidelity Infiltration

Back in March I spent several days completing everything that Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes had to offer. Even then, when I found out that this month I’d be able to re-play it on PC, I was immediately excited.

Further Reading: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Xbox One Review

Yesterday I spent a couple hours testing Ground Zeroes on PC, and was very happy with the results. Below we’ll go over why.

The Ultimate Big Boss Experience

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes on PC is equipped with several new graphics options. Here is what’s new according to Nvidia:

60 FPS frame rate
Additional deferred lights per scene
Additional shadows per scene
Higher-resolution render targets
Higher-resolution shadows
Increased detail over distances
NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU support
Options to adjust seven graphics features (Effects, Lighting, Screen Filtering, Shadows, Texture Filtering, Textures)
Resolution support up to and including 3840×2160 (4K)
Screen Space Reflections

The first thing I did upon entering the game was crank up all the settings. For reference, here are my PC specs:

Intel i5 3570k
8GB DDR3 RAM
GTX 970

I just so happened to acquire the GTX 970 this week, and it turns out that Ground Zeroes‘ format is perfect for pushing the card. The Metal Gear series has a tendency to include a lot of in-game cutscenes, and Ground Zeroes hasn’t changed that. Its opening and closing cutscenes are as lengthy as they are great for enjoying the best of modern graphics, and in this port I was able to enjoy Big Boss’ beard unlike ever before.

Maxed out, I had just enough horsepower to experience Metal Gear Solid at its greatest fidelity ever, while also remaining at 60 frames per second for my entire stealth playthrough. While some of this is due to the sheer horsepower of my setup, a lot is owed to Kojima Productions which has managed to craft what I believe to be the most thoughtful PC port of 2014. This is a game that has translated extremely well to the PC environment with gorgeous graphics backed by great optimization. I’m inclined to believe that as long as you have a reasonably up-to-date gaming PC, you can push Ground Zeroes to visuals that rival and even surpass the PS4 version.

…a lot is owed to Kojima Productions which has managed to craft what I believe to be the most thoughtful PC port of 2014.

The game experience is so optimized, in-fact, that I was able to complete the main campaign with a smooth frame rate while streaming at 720p on Twitch using Nvidia’s Shadowplay. Given my previous experiences streaming, I was actually shocked at how well the game performed while my PC was stressed to handle an astronomical amount of computation.

Content and Controls

On the content front, Ground Zeroes isn’t much different than its console brothers. What you’re looking at here is the standard Ground Zeroes experience, but with both console exclusive missions thrown in. So, you can play both Raiden’s Jamais Vu and classic Solid Snake’s Deja Vu on this version. It’s a welcomed choice by Kojima Productions, and one that ensures that the PC version is a winner in terms of graphics and content.

Another quality of this PC port that shocked me is how well the keyboard & mouse controls have been implemented. Not only is aiming smooth—and in my opinion even more effective than with a controller due to the preciseness of the mouse—but menus are simple to interface with. This isn’t a port that emulates controller input, it’s a 100% complete PC iteration. Made better, the game quickly toggles between keyboard & mouse and gamepad once it detects input. So, I found myself trying out both input methods without having to dive into menus or restart the game, which was a nice touch.

Conclusion

While Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes on PC doesn’t include any content perks outside of packing in both console exclusive side-missions, which means that the entire experience can be devoured in fewer than five hours, it’s a great option for any Metal Gear fans who want to immerse themselves in the best graphical experience that the series has to offer. Meanwhile, for those unfamiliar to the franchise, at $19.99 (or cheaper if you take advantage of the launch sale on Steam) it serves as a great environment for testing new hardware. If you haven’t experienced the Fox Engine yet, this is the best way to do so.