Metal Gear Solid V Possibly A Vita Title (The Phantom Pain)

If you didn't bother to watch the VGA's, you probably still saw some of the stunning trailers that came out of it. We got an awesome The Last of Us trailer, and of course a mysterious The Phantom Pain trailer. If you read our previous article we were one of the first to tell you that this game was actually Metal Gear in disguise. Well after watching the hints roll in and constantly watching the trailer over and over, we have an idea. Perhaps this game is for Vita!

What? No! It can't be. We know you are saying that right now, but lets dive into the details and see why this is possible.

The Visuals Don't Match Up

It's obvious this game is running off the same engine as Ground Zeroes, the Fox Engine. Yet why does it look nowhere near as good as Ground Zeroes? A bunch of jaggies everywhere, and the details are lacking. Textures in the distance become blurred rather quickly.(check out our points in the picture below)

The most important thing to look at is the models. Look at how clean models are in your favorite games, and how clean they are in Ground Zeroes. Not look at the screen below and see all the issues with it. The fact is they didn't have enough poly's to work with here. The good news is the lighting and techniques behind the Fox Engine make things look fantastic. Without these secrets, the same game looks rather bad.

Official Screens Released in Vita Resolution

The official screens from the game finally released, and all of them are in the Vita's native resolution. The Vita outputs at 960 × 544, the screens are sitting at 960 × 540. Why would you release such a fantastic looking game at that resolution? The official screens of Ground Zeroes are sitting at 1280 × 720 (HD 720)

Remember Kojima Said His Next Game Features Transfarring

IGN had the initial talk with Kojima when he was first showcasing Fox Engine. Throughout the presentation Kojima stressed that the engine is cross platform and will be set to help on all kinds of platforms for the future. He mentions Peace Walker, but at the very end of this interview he mentions something important. He notes "my next game will be multi-platform, and will feature transfarring." He says that last part right at the last second.

Transfarring is the ability to save a game on the PS3, then transfer it to the Vita and continue playing. So far no other transfer was noted.

Perhaps Kojima Already Confirmed It

Check out this interview with Kojima about Fox Engine. Again notes transfarring and includes Vita.

He notes “We have a plan moving forward, where all of our major titles will have this transfarring functionality. So you’ll buy the next big game from Kojima Productions on PS3, and there’ll also be an NGP version [PSVita] and take it on the go. (sic)”

Kojima is a huge supporter of Vita. He has demonstrated PS3 level games running on the system early, he had projects going for the system, and has shown love for it. He obviously liked the PSP, so why wouldn't he like the Vita? It is awesome to see, and its not hard to believe a game of this caliber is running on the system. If Sony was working closely with him, then its entirely possible.

Metal Gear Solid V Instead of Metal Gear Solid 5

Looking back, Kojima hasn't used Roman Numerals for the full title of Metal Gear Solid. During the E3 teaser for Rising they still used numbers to represent everything. So obviously putting V instead of 5 means something. Kojima is the king of making you honestly believe one thing, then telling you it all meant something else. Metal Gear Solid Vita?

Check out the hidden logo here.

The Screen Analysis (click to enlarge picture)

Points A - You can see the lack of polished edges. Sure games run into this at times, but this is rather dramatic and was easy to see in the trailer. Ground Zeroes didn't suffer as bad with this issue for example. Watch the trailer again and pay attention to the edges, it happens a lot.

Point B - Very sever lack of stuff in the environment. What is there has really no detail put into it. A lot like the initial Fox Engine demo. (Currently trying to find that video)

Point C - Again lack of texture and depth like the Ground Zeroes trailer. Still looks great, but could use more presentation value.

Point D - An example of the light giving something extreme depth and detail. The entire purpose to Fox Engine was lighting making things look great.

The only real negative side of things is the fact the Moby Dick Studio website now states "All footage is shown running in real-time on hardware equivalent to current generation consoles (PS3 & XBOX360)." They also only have PS3 and 360 logo's at the bottom, no Vita or PlayStation in general. So the question is, what do you think? Will this title (whatever it may be) be released on the Vita as well?