During E3 2015, Konami release a 40 minute Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain gameplay video that had commentary by the developer. The first thing addressed was the new addition of microtransactions. It is quite clear how a lot of gamers feel about microtransactions, so fans were understandably worried about this.
Konami replied to these concerns with: “While it is true that a few microtransactions option due exists, the entire game has been carefully balanced to be fair and enjoyable with or without using these options,” Konami went on to say, “There’s no pay to win option. Rest assured that every single item, weapon, and mission in the game is available to all players without paying a single cent.”
Well, this so far is good news even though I am still on team no microtransactions. They concluded the talk of microtransactions by saying: “However, due to the sheer scale of the game and the time required to explore it all, microtransactions were added as a completely optional feature for players who might not be able to spend as much time with the game, nothing more, nothing less.”
The video did not only discuss microtransactions, it also was a great video if you wanted to see the buddy system, side missions, weather and everything else that is new to this Metal Gear Solid.
I’m still on the fence about this. I feel that they are unnecessary in general, and completely unnecessary in this. If they are only there to speed up the time you get items, then either the items took too long to get or you’d just have to play longer to get them. There isn’t any microtransactions in Dragon Age, or in any Final Fantasy game and I still somehow find a way to sink about 90 hours into Inquisition, so I think gamers would play the game for it’s length anyways. Maybe it’s because I hate the idea of microtransactions, but I guess we’ll see.
The Phantom Pain launches worldwide on September 1st. It will be on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.