Ground Zeroes Wasn't Just A Glorified Demo, It's One Of The Best Metal Gear Solid Games Ever Made

thegamer.com:

At the southern edge of Cuba, along a rocky, rain-battered coastline, lies Camp Omega. In this grim US-run prison camp, detainees are beaten, humiliated, and brutally interrogated. They wear anonymous orange jumpsuits and have sacks pulled over their heads. Rats scurry between the bars of their cages. Invasive spotlights roam back and forth. It's a stunningly bleak setting for a video game, and an obvious parallel to Guantanamo Bay—which, eight years after Ground Zeroes was released, is still operating thanks to an executive order signed by Donald Trump. Despite Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa's fetishism for military hardware and weaponry, Metal Gear has always been strongly anti-war—and Camp Omega is the series' most overt, provocative manifestation of that.

Ground Zeroes launched on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in March, 2014. Serving as a prologue to Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain—which would be released in September the following year—it was somewhat controversial at the time. Some players balked at the idea of paying $30 for what, in their eyes, was a glorified demo. There's only one level—the aforementioned Camp Omega—and you can beat the main mission in an hour. Maybe even less. But there's a lot more to Ground Zeroes, which becomes clear when you finish that first mission and realise that your game completion is only at a paltry 8 percent. When I was done with it, and felt I'd seen everything, Steam told me I'd played it for a grand total of 35 hours. Some played it for hundreds. Not bad for a demo.​​​​​​​

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In Ground Zeroes you play as Big Boss: a former CIA operative, a legendary soldier, and the genetic father of Solid Snake. After being betrayed by