Metal Gear Survive single-player campaign and beta details

Konami outlines survival gameplay and announces January open beta.

Konami has shown off the single-player campaign of Metal Gear Survive in a new gameplay video and also revealed that there will be an open beta next month.

The open beta is set to run on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and will take place January 18 through 21, although we don't know what's in it yet.

We now know plenty about the single-player campaign though, thanks to the video fronted by game producer Yuji Korekado.

First things first, the game's story is definitely not considered MGS canon. In Korekado's words, it's "an apocryphal story set aside from the main Metal Gear Solid 5 timeline - just like the sub missions in Ground Zeroes that feature Raiden or Snake from MGS1."

As we've heard before, it all begins when XOF attacks Mother Base at the end of Ground Zeroes. In this universe, a wormhole then opens above the collapsing base and sucks a good portion of the structure and its personnel through to another dimension. Six months later, you are then sent in after them by some shadowy organization.

When you arrive, you discover a dishevelled Base Camp where resources are scarce, and through a mixture of campaign missions and side missions, it's your job to build it up into something more robust and sustainable.

You'll do this in particular by crafting. There are crafting materials throughout the world, and while basic combinations give you food consumables, you'll also need to seek out more complex recipes by completing tough tasks in multiplayer. Doing so will allow you to craft more powerful weapons and other items.

Speaking of weapons, Metal Gear Survive retains MGS5's mix of stealth and action gameplay, but gives it more a Dead Rising/survival genre-style accent. For example, ammunition for guns is scarce, so there are tons of melee weapons you can craft. The gameplay video shows footage of the player wielding souped-up baseball bats and massive blades among hordes of enemies.

Speaking of enemies, they are Wanderers, who appear to be zombie-like creatures that will call others if you disturb them. You can still use MGS5's stealth toolkit though, and there's a bow and arrow that makes short work of Wanderers if you can avoid detection.

Overall the general rhythm of the game sounds like it will involve tending to Mother Base - crafting, planting crops, upgrading fortifications - and then going out into the world on missions to find resources, recover survivors, and further whatever story Konami's baked up.

Metal Gear Survive is the first Metal Gear game Konami has made since the acrimonious departure of Hideo Kojima - who is busy making the wacky-sounding Death Stranding instead - and has been met with a fair amount of scepticism and suspicion since it was announced due to its dissociation from the series creator.

We're happy to approach it with an open mind, though, and if it really is a decent survival game built out of MGS5's excellent mechanics, we can imagine having a fair amount of fun. We'll certainly be taking a look at the beta in late January.

Metal Gear Survive itself is due out for PS4, Xbox One and PC on February 20.

Editor-at-Large

Tom is probably best known for the 15 years - FIFTEEN YEARS! - he spent at Eurogamer, one of Europe's biggest independent gaming sites. Now he roams the earth, but will always have a home here at AllGamers. You can try and raise him from his deep, abyssal slumber through tom.bramwell@allgamers.com or he's also on Twitter.

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