Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) (PC) (Kojima Productions)
0Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is one hell of a game, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm 30 hours in and have progressed far into the main story but still feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer; not just in terms of the 100+ optional side missions but also in terms of mechanics and systems at the player's disposal. Kojima Productions somehow managed to add base building, resource management, troop assignments, multiplayer invasions and Pokemon-style collect-'em-all features on top of what might just be the best goddamn stealth action the world has ever seen. In many ways, the sober aesthetics and unapologetic complexity of MGS5's approach to open world design makes the game feel more like a spiritual successor to Far Cry 2 than yet another installment in the cartoony, cutscene-heavy Metal Gear saga.