Metal Gear Survive has really stirred the pot if you know what we mean. It was developed by konami. Metal Gear Survive has gotten so much hate from some players and especially the critics and some YouTubers. We at X35 Earthwalker don’t believe in following the train for views like those YouTube channels do. We have our own mind and here we will give our views and opinions about Metal Gear Survive.

Metal Gear Survive is obviously nothing really like the previous Metal Gear games. There is no solid snake, all about survival and… there are zombies (well sort off). The best way to describe this is to think of a combination of Sims, 3rd person zombie survival and Metal Gear. Don’t listen to gamers who say that it’s nothing like the others. The sound effect you hear when an enemy spots you is there, the cardboard boxes are there and walkers and other things are all included. This game forces players to take risks, make many plans and manage many things at once. Every trip and mission you go on can easily go wrong but what you can gain is so worth it. You might get swarmed and die, you might get lost in the dust and run out of oxygen, you might even die due to infections, injuries and more. This game doesn’t go easy on players. You better be prepared.

The biggest enemy in the game is the Dust which is basically a toxic gas which covers the majority of the world of Dite. there is no way around it, you have to go into the dust only after you have acquired an oxygen tank. You have limited oxygen while in the dust so you have to be quick when you enter it. You can’t really go quick because while in the dust your stamina consumption is increased drastically so be careful of that as that also means running away from swarms of enemies is much harder to do. In the dust your visibility is greatly reduced as you can’t see that far at all ahead of you so getting your bearings is harder. It gets worse, your map most of the time doesn’t display your location in the dust, your marked spots and can’t place markers either meaning getting lost in the dust is very easy to do,  So plan before you enter. What’s worse is that enemies practically run the places in the dust so stopping to fight can put you at serious risk. The good thing though is that while in the dust you can see green and blue lights. green lights represent the location of where your nearest transporter or base is so look for those. Blue lights normally represent containers. The dust is a great enemy indeed. So why doesn’t the rain clear up the dust? hopefully the game will give us answers.

In terms of survival, players need food and drinks. You can die of thirst and hunger and we advise to let it get anywhere near zero anyway as the lower your hunger and thirst gets, the lower your max health and stamina gets. That’s right they are linked. Thirst to stamina and food to health which makes sense. No complaints here. Also your character may get infections or injuries that need attending to. For example if an enemy gets a clean dirty hit on you there is a chance your character may be bleeding which will prevent your health from regeneration until cured. This as you can imagine is a horrible condition in a fight. If you fall from too high you will get a sprain which represents your character from sprinting and your normal walk speed is decreased because you are limbing. There are far more negative conditions like getting an infection for drinking dirty water or food poisoning for eating raw meat or milk that’s gone bad (why would you drink bad milk anyway?). That’s part of where the game starts to feel like sims in terms of looking after your character. So make sure to craft medical equipment to handle any conditions that come your way. We like the whole survival thing going on. From the start players have to sort of scramble for supplies which we will get into more later.

Yes crafting is a vital part of the game and we at X35 Earthwalker love good crafting systems and Metal Gear Survive has one. Everything requires a decent amount of stuff craft like circuits, alcohol, chemicals, bottles, steel, iron, springs, nails, wood  and much more. The game is generous in letting you find so many materials very easily in the world of Dite. Damaged freights have some stuff inside, you could find stacks of items that need to be searched, some materials are just in some small buildings, some fall from small worm hole like things in the sky and many can be obtained through completing missions like where you must defend for a certain period of time while the worm hole digger mines. Materials are plentiful and if there is one material that is more rare and harder to find but you really need then you can use the material converter to change what you already have into what you want. The material converter is an excellent system for a game like this. X35 Earthwalker has  only used it twice and it was only because he had so much iron that he decided to give it a try. Materials are so plentiful that you don’t really need the converter but it’s always nice to have options. Aim to build stronger weapons than a rusty machete and pipe spear. before you know it, players will have hand guns, strong spears, bats and even sledge hammers for destroying your foes. Everything is about management and even bullets need crafting so don’t go firing of your loads on enemies any how you want, decide carefully when to use ammo.

There are stealth elements in the game. Walking creates noise, sprinting makes the most noise, crouching makes less than walking and king prone causes no noise. Sneaking up behind your enemies and stealth killing them is the best way to handle enemies. What’s great is that you can lure groups and even hordes of Wanderers to certain locations or directions by using ‘lures’ or kuban crystal fragments (which you always have supplies off) then pick them off one by one or light them all up with a molotov. So stealth and knowing when to strike is very big in this game because a swarm can easily kill you. There are parts in Metal Gears Survive where players must traverse underground dark areas which are full of monsters. Stealth is crucial here as making lots of noise could alert many and we mean many enemies your way and in tighter spaces, that could very well be the end of you. It’s also very easy to die in Metal Gear Survive. Wanderers can kill you in a couple of probably three connected sets of swings. Which is why a star is a bad idea. You might get grabbed by one and then caught in the middle of others and they knock you around like a ball in a pin ball machine. Negative conditions may cause you to die as in getting lots of infection due to drinking dirty water but clean water is hard to find and most of the time you have no choice but to drink the dirty thing.

Which brings our attention to some of the things we hate about this game or doesn’t make sense. Firstly is the drinking dirty water. Players have no choice but to at the beginning parts of the game. You can find some clean water but it will never be enough. You go to the camp fire and you see the option to make clean water from dirty water but you need a ‘hanging pot’ which you see but can’t craft yet. The game is teasing you. you have no choice put to risk infecting your character. Second what we hate is how long it takes to collect materials, crystals whatever from dead enemies and animals. It takes forever. too long. Sure there is an upgrade to speed this up but it’s not by that much, should be faster as it really slows down the pace of the game we once had a large pile of enemy bodies but left so many of them behind because we knew how long it was taking, making things boring. Third that we hate is why does going prone cost me stamina but our characters regular jogging doesn’t? We have gone prone to test this and it doesn’t get us tired. Going prone shouldn’t cost us stamina. It doesn’t make sense. Fourth is that it takes too long in our opinion to bring in new enemies. It took a while but we finally found some more that we wish weren’t in the game because of how horrible they are as in bad for our life expectancy. Fifth is that the iron watch towers are obviously stronger and better than the wooden ones but it look no where near as cool. The wooden one has a roof as shelter so at least you are dry up there. the iron one s just a flat platform. It gets worse, it look perfect for a machine gun to be placed up there for that elevated advantage but no, the game won’t let you place machine guns up on your platforms which we think is completely stupid.

In terms of enemies there are some. Wanderers are the basic common zombie like ones which are dumb, at times slow but dangerous in groups and can even play dead. Bombers are humanoid but have a really large swollen looking sack for a head which they use to hit you with but after enough damage their heads explode. There are some flying mechanical birds that fire projectiles at you, they are heard to fight because they fly around so guns, bow and arrows are the best counters but ammo is limited. Worse are Crawlers. Large spider creatures that stay in really big groups and look scary. They can curl up and stay on ceilings and walls and if you make too much noise, you will wake them up. When we encountered them in the dark underground all of a sudden Metal Gear survive turned into a horror game. trackers have enhanced legs which they use for speedy travel, jumping high and chasing you down. Last that we know off is a colossus monster know as the lord of the dust. This thing terrifies players. Where it shows up, you have to run. It’s far to large and powerful to fight. It’s colours may camouflage it in the dust so don’t accidentally walk towards it. We ain’t messing with that thing.

Eventually when you get further you will get the chance to find and rescue survivors. this will require players to manage their people and base to keep everyone fed, and alive. So that means stocking up on medical supplies, food and drinks. The people will obviously use up your stuff so that means being aware of this and preparing in advance. Also your people can also get sick and negative conditions which we hate. These people have a flu side they can help you get materials, manage the base and supplies (or more like help themselves) and even improve certain things like healing and food quality. So finding survivors is overall a beneficial thing.

The last thing we will talk about which is the other system that makes reminds us of Sims is the base builder. You can construct, place, move and organise your base how you see fit. Maybe have all the benches to the east side. Maybe have a line of fences behind them to protect them in case of an attack. Will you have short wooden fences to protect your base so you can strike over or just tall iron fences? Where will your water supply go? What about your farms? Which farms do you actually need? Eventually you will unlock watch towers, more spaces and even better stations for cooking. What’s awesome is that some of the meals you make in the game actually give you a buff like faster sprint speed, faster melee speed, reduce hunger consumption and even increase damage. Mum was right… never skip dinner!

Metal Gear Survive truly is a survival game. Large places and many areas to explore. Constant risk from multiple sides. Giant and even some scary monsters (we ain’t going underground ever again… until the next time). Many many items to craft and use. Lots of options in weaponry. Excellent graphics and it has so much in it. We even found Zebras! Like seriously Zebras are in this game. We also almost got killed by a bear. Can make and eat roasted gerbil. the counter ability is so awesome to watch and man is it brutal. Those wanderers got the hands! Notice we haven’t commented on the story because we have completed it yet (no rush) so we will withhold judgement for now; however we are excited to get our co-op going with our good gaming friends as that was what made us like the game from the start was the team work survival.

So once again we must make it clear that whatever these critics are saying, we don’t see it. they don’t know what they are talking about and those YouTubers are even worse all just copying each other just for views because many are hating the game so they want to pitch in. Metal Gear Survive didn’t destroy the franchise, the developers got experimental and tried out another direction and we believe they did a excellent job. Now w perfect game but a very good one indeed. To be honest it doesn’t matter how fortified your base is as it still won’t be able to keep out… the ‘Earth Walk!’