showed us just how important Mother Base is to The Phantom Pain. After the events of Ground Zeroes, Big Boss and friends aim to rebuild their off-shore military fortress bigger and better than ever, and this fully explorable facility is massive.

As you Fulton soldiers to recruit them into your army, you can assign them to different departments, like RD, Medical, and Intel. Assigning them to the right department will determine the kind of upgrades you're able to research - so if you feel like snagging that rocket launcher sooner rather than later, perhaps it's best to shift your employees around to make it happen. Plus, there are specialists out on the field, capable of unlocking unique gear and special features within Mother Base. The Phantom Pain even has its own version of Dragon Age: Inquisition's War Table, allowing you to send combat troops out on timed missions to earn items and make Big Boss' life in the field a little easier. Many of these missions can take hours, though, so while you're off doing important life stuff (like sleeping), make sure your soldiers are working hard before you sign off. When you log back in, you'll find the results of their excursions waiting for you.

While the shift to open-world stealth gameplay means blowing out certain aspects of Metal Gear Solid’s design, it also means scaling back on others, and in The Phantom Pain's case, that means dialing down the cutscenes. Not that there won't be any long-winded monologues, but the first 16 hours or so of the game puts a much larger emphasis on the gameplay, and you won't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the action to get going.

For a nice change of pace, The Phantom Pain puts a lot of its secondary information on cassette tapes, rather than dumping everything on you via hours of static codec conversations. Want to know more about the political landscape of the early 1980s or what happened to your comrades after the events of Peace Walker? Pop in a tape while you're travelling across Afghanistan or exploring Mother Base.

Unlike other Metal Gear games, Big Boss won't be funnelled down a linear path from the beginning of the story to its end. Instead, you'll choose from a variety of missions from a menu, similar to the PSP entry, Peace Walker.

You get a series of story-based mission that will further The Phantom Pain's narrative, but you also have a huge variety of Extra Ops to choose from, ranging from assassination missions, to recruiting specific soldiers, or even hunting down old members of your squad. Completing these missions will reward you with additional resources, which you can then use to build extra weapons and gear. If you're stuck on a particularly difficult story mission, take on a few side quests, research a rocket launcher, and blow up your problems with ease.

While we know the, ahem, clothing-deprived Quiet and Big Boss' horse can help out in the field, two other buddies can accompany Big Boss in his stealthy endeavors. If you're observant, you'll be able to find and recruit your own wolf pup, who can then be used to either distract guards or attack them on cue. Taking any of these buddies with you on missions will make them more loyal to you, and the higher their loyalty level, the more responsive they are to your commands.

The other buddy is a bit less… organic than the others. After a certain point in the story, Big Boss will get his hands on what looks like a mini-Metal Gear - a bipedal battle tank with a built in tranquilizer. Despite its default lumbering gait, it's surprisingly versatile, allowing you to speed across vast distances with its boosters, or to sneak across the battlefield by activating its 'silent running' option.

The latest feature revealed for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will make Snake a nigh-undetectable master of stealth and subterfuge… and will also make him look completely ridiculous. Konami recently revealed the glorious chicken hat, a piece of equipment which players will be offered if they get killed or otherwise fail in Snake's quest for vengeance too many times.

You're free to pass on the hat, but you'd be giving up one of the most versatile tools in tactical espionage action that isn't made from corrugated paper. Guards don't tend to get out of sorts when they see Snake wearing it (unless he sticks around too long or starts shooting at them), because they think he's just a harmless chicken. Just a harmless, man-sized chicken with an eyepatch and a robot arm. Apparently there's no penalty for wearing the hat other than occasionally catching its weary stare as you try to follow otherwise serious cut scenes.

Looking for formation on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain? Click on for everything we know about the game.

At The Game Awards 2014, a new trailer for Metal Gear Online - the multiplayer companion to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - was shown. Right off the bat, it looks like you can have eight players on a team - if the above image is any indication. The developers did confirm that the Metal Gear Solid characters themselves will be playable, so you won't be running around as a bunch of generic-military-shooter-men (though there are still plenty of those).

In the ensuing firefight, a variety of traps and tools were shown. Early on Snake hijacked what very much looked like a tiny Metal Gear built for one, and rode it around the battlefield wreaking havoc. Not necessarily the stealthiest way to go about it, but it sure looked like fun. As for traps, the opposing team deployed a balloon mine that, when triggered, hoisted an unsuspecting player up into the air for easy shooting. They also had a… um… stuffed dog toy that they just dropped on the ground. This seemed to function much like the dirty magazines of yore, leaving its victim hopelessly infatuated (and ready to get shot down).

Looking for formation on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Just click on to the following slides for everything we know about the game.

There's a fresh gameplay demo of Metal Gear Solid 5, and it's stuffed full of new features. You can watch the video underneath this article, but here are some of the highlights... It shows a typical mission in one of Phantom Pain's open-mission areas. Snake is sent in to extract a hostage, and he takes new female companion Quiet with him. She has the ability to evaporate into a cloud of smoke, and reappear at set locations on the map. So, as Snake progresses through the woodlands in this demo, Quiet moves around the level to cover him with sniper fire.

While Snake can take out most enemies himself, Quiet is used as a back-up or for removing multiple threats at once. The hostage, for example, has two guards. Snake coordinates with Quiet, picking a target each to eliminate them at the same time. Apparently, there will be other allies that can be used as support characters throughout the Phantom Pain. Before you ask: it's unlikely they'll be human-controlled characters.

The demo shows off several interesting gadgets and moves too. We see the Phantom Cigar in action, which Snake can smoke to pass the time. This will allow you to change the conditions for each mission. In the demo, it's a dank, rainy day to start with but, as Snake puffs on his stogie, time passes. Night comes and goes, and the next day is much more clement. It's understandable that you'd want to tackle some missions at night, but it's unclear if the weather or time of day will have much impact on the gameplay.

Another nifty gadget is the Active Decoy. In the demo, Snake uses it in two ways. The first, rather amusing use, sees him bump a guard off a cliff-edge with the decoy. It then inflates in the shape of a person, drawing the attention of another near-by enemy. Snake then zaps this distracted fool with a power-glove. Later in the demo, Snake deploys three decoys while he's being chased by a group of militia. While they shoot up the inflatables, causing them to wither in a comedy fashion, Snake flanks his opponents and shoots them dead.

Even Metal Gear fans will admit the series history is really hard to nail down, so let's make it clear right now: The Phantom Pain's Snake is Big Boss, aka Naked Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3, the star of Peace Walker, father to Solid Snake, and the villain of the original Metal Gear game. It's set in 1984, 11 years before Solid's first battle with Big Boss. In The Phantom Pain, Snake is just trying to rebuild.

According to early sources, his nickname for MGS5 appears to be Venom Snake, likely because he's filled with venomous rage in a quest for revenge on the people that killed and tortured those closest to him. He plans to do a lot of damage, but he's got to do a lot of rebuilding first. In fact, Snake himself has been rebuilt this time, including a newly acquired cybernetic arm and some very different gameplay.

The Phantom Pain appears to begin with Big Boss/Snake dead on a stretcher. He's eventually revived and but is in a coma for the next nine years. When he awakes, he's missing an arm and has to quickly relearn his motor skills, because the hospital he's staying in is under attack. After escaping, Snake is set on revenge on the mercenaries that did this to him, so he starts to rebuild his army, this time under the David Bowie-esque moniker Diamond Dogs.

The Phantom Pain seems to be a lengthy tale of revenge on the part of Snake, as he slowly builds up the private military group that will presumably become Outer Heaven. As he rebuilds his reputation on the battlefield, Snake will meet friends old and new, as well as taking out armed guards with tranquilizers and CQCs. But will he find the mysterious XOF team that seems to be responsible for all his pain?

Classic Metal Gear games are known for sneaking in tight corridors and quiet hallways, though the series opened up more and more with each sequel. The Phantom Pain makes the world bigger than ever by adopting a truly open world gameplay. Snake gets dropped into a base and can explore it however he likes, planning his approach however he chooses, using new tools like the iDroid to mark waypoints along the way.

The changes feel natural for the franchise because the combat is still there, you just have way more places to hide. MGS has always been about giving players room to experiment, and Phantom Pain's map is apparently bigger than every previous Metal Gear combined. That's a lot of space to drag around bodies.

It took years before MGS creator Hideo Kojima announced The Phantom Pain, but he was talking up the game's technology long before we ever saw Snake's new arm. Kojima built the Fox Engine to be a flexible set of tools for making games for both 360/PS3 and Xbox One/PS4, able to create natural looking environments and realistic fabrics with ease. Now that we've seen the fifth Metal Gear Solid in action, we have to admit that the Fox Engine looks like a success.

MGS5's prologue, looked incredible--even the rocks were worth gawking at. Facial animations were marvelous, as were the weather systems and shifting time of day. Early footage of Phantom Pain seems to only build on Ground Zeroes visuals, looking better with each new trailer and screen. The series has always looked great and MGS5 doesn't look to ruin that reputation.

MGS5 has some insanely huge maps, so it's a good thing that Kojima isn't forcing Big Boss to crawl around the miles of open world. For the first time in series history, MGS5 adds in drivable vehicles, putting Big Boss behind the wheel of jeeps and tanks. He can even ride a horse around the world, as we've seen in an early Afghanistan level, and the horse defecates in real time--seriously, new-gen horse poop.

Snake can also take to the air via helicopter. Though Snake is alone on his tactical espionage missions, he can call for help from his team, including airstrikes via copters that he can ride along in. How will all these transportation options change the gameplay? And what other planes, trains, and automobiles will be available in the final game?

Snake already had to deal with losing an eye, but when he wakes up in his hospital bed he has to come to terms with losing his left arm and having chunks of shrapnel embedded in his skull. His prosthetic is pretty advanced for 1984, with all the maneuverability of a normal arm, but with special abilities. Do you recall how Snake normally taps on a wall to call over a curious guard? Well, that arm can now make that arm wherever, no wall needed. How's that for advanced?

Snake's cybernetic enhancement fits with a series full of augmented characters like Gray Fox, Raiden, and Revolver Ocelot, and the tech advancements don't stop there. Snake's iDroid is a great asset for planning out missions, summoning weapons, or listening to emotionally draining conversations. And to help time pass in game, Big Boss now has an e-cigar that he smokes while the in-game clock quickly advances.

The whole of MGS 5’s narrative is split and seems to be pre- and post-coma. Before Snake heads off to dreamland, he’s seen assisting a familiar face in the accompanying hospital bed. Master Miller (a.k.a. Kazuhira Miller) had teamed up with Big Boss prior to the Peace Walker incident to form Militaires Sans Frontières. When Boss awakes, Miller has been kidnapped and Snake has save his old friend from being tortured to death. And Snake gets help from his classic frenemy, Revolver Ocelot.

With Ocelot, Miller, and other familiar faces hanging around, the game still finds room for new characters. There's The Quiet, a controversial femme fatale that seems to have a complicated past. There's also a character that looks a bit like Psycho Mantis, as well as some other potential bosses with wacky names, such as Skull Face, Code Talker, and Eli. We look forward to hearing their life stories in separate 40 minute cutscenes.

Many Metal Gear fans skipped over the PSP entries in the series, which is too bad, and not just because they were fun. Peace Walker appears to be very important to the plot of The Phantom Pain, and MGS5 is even adopting some of the portable entry's most ambitious ideas. Namely, MGS5 has the return of the Mother Base and Recruitment systems.

As before, Snake and his team operate of Mother Base, and the giant tanker has been rebuilt using resources Snake finds in the field. Big Boss can acquire new soldiers and items via the returning Fulton system, which basically means you can attach a balloon to anything and it'll fly to Mother Base. It works on people, cars, anti-aircraft guns, even goats. Yes, goats can become members of Diamond Dogs.

The first publicly available taste of MGS5 is already available and... so far so good. As detailed in our , Snake plays better than he's ever played before, with everything from combat animations to moment-to-moment movement feeling more realistic when exploring Camp Omega. The game also delivers on its promise of taking the previously linear Metal Gear series and transitioning it into a more open-world, player-decision driven progression path. And though there isn't much by way of story here, Ground Zeroes' narrative treads the same thought-provoking ground you'd expect from a Kojima game.

Plus the game sets up a ton of plot points that Phantom Pain will no doubt explore. You learn the fates of Peace Walker characters Paz and Chico, you meet the despicable villain Skull Face, and you witness the attack on Mother Base that puts Snake in his lengthy coma. This is all essential info for Phantom Pain, plus it gives you ample time to adapt to the new controls.

When the star of 24 was confirmed to be the new lead in MGS, director Hideo Kojima had this to say about Kiefer Sutherland as Big Boss: "I wanted Snake to have a more subdued performance expressed through facial movements and tone of voice rather than words," Kojima said. "The game takes place in 1984, when Snake is 49 years old; therefore, we needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s."

Sutherland will not only lend his vocal talents to our favorite spy, but also his movements as well--Snake's animations will be modeled after motion captured data. "It's an honor to be able to play this character," Sutherland said. "This character has an unbelievable legacy, but there's a real personal quality to this character that I've connected to. I'm not a gamer and I even knew about this game. I was certainly keenly aware of the legacy of these games." For fans of David Hayter's portrayal, you can hold out hope that Hayter still technically remains the voice of Solid Snake.

Yeah, we've heard this before. Hideo Kojima is claiming that Metal Gear Solid V is his last Metal Gear game, and that he'll pass the franchise off to his staff after this one. Before you get too worried, you should remember that he said literally the same thing when Metal Gear Solid 4 was announced. Kojima saying he's making his last MGS game is like The Rolling Stones saying they're on their last tour.

Kojima claimed that the reason he's making it at all is because he wants to reinvent the series before he leaves. That's why it's Metal Gear Solid V instead of 5 (V is for "Victory," in his mind), and that's why he's leaving David Hayter in the past. But will he really go to all the work of redefining Snake only to abandon him?

We still don't know everything, though. Can you... ever know everything about Metal Gear? What do you think? Let us know in the comments what you think about Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

And if you're looking for more, check out .

So you've already had our , which means that in the interests of fairness (and, you know, doing our jobs to a proper and complete degree), it's time for Microsoft. Now finally back on its feet after a very rocky new-gen start, MS is in a position to really impress this year. Brand new games were teased at the 2014 show, and we know that one or two big franchises are due to return sooner rather than later. But there's got to be more than that. So what will it be?

Click on, and we'll tell you what we expect. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh again, but all being well there will at least be zero reference to putting TV in your TV so that you can... You know the rest. And make sure to check back throughout the week for our run-downs on Nintendo and the third-parties too. It will be great!

If you're playing E3 Bingo at home, this is your free square. With coming by the end of the year, we're bound to see some kind of gameplay at Microsoft's conference. But that's not where the Halo news will end. First, there'll be some kind of apology for the launch of the Master Chief Collection, which will be instantly hand-waved away by explaining how much better is now.

Microsoft will also stand behind the collection as a platform for Halo, announcing new plans for the Halo Channel, and maybe the addition of Reach to the MCC. And Halo Wars, if Microsoft gets really desperate.

You can already pick up the Xbox One for less than a PS4, thanks to various retailer bundles and promotions, but E3 will signal an official offer of ‘increased value’. Now, we deliberately made that vague because… an actual price cut is fairly unlikely. What we expect to see is some kind of juicy ‘trade in your Xbox 360 for big bucks off the Xbox One’ style offer.

See, a lot of people still haven’t moved on from the last generation, and Microsoft wants to keep its 360 players in the family. So, 18 months since XO’s nightmarish launch, expect to see MS make a big play for the folk thinking about upgrading. Because if Microsoft doesn’t do it, Sony definitely will.

This is followed by the new Gears of War: Cogs of Destiny card game coming to mobile and iOS this Fall. But don't confuse that with Gears of War: Destiny of the Cog, an MMO shooter that ties into the new live-action Gears of War series exclusive to Netflix (starring J.K. Simmons as a man who is angry).

Then there's the Gears of War breakfast cereal, and the Gears of War lawn maintenance kit, and the...

Forza Motorsport 6 will be a glossy act of reparation in some ways, walking back the damage done by the transaction models and content disparities of Forza 5. Beyond that, it’ll mark another round of actual human beings saying ‘drivatar’ without bursting at a molecular level.

Oh, and kudos to the poor trailer-making folks that have to think of yet another way to show cool cars doing their thing. There’s only so many ways to swoop over pearlescent paint jobs and jiggle the camera as a Nissan GT-R roars by. Not that we don’t enjoy that sort of thing.

Yes, we get it: Minecraft is a big deal, and Microsoft needs to show off what it’s got planned for its shiny new billion-dollar purchase. That won't change the fact that the Minecraft booth will continue to be a bigger wasteland than Pripyat.

Still, that exclusive aardvark will be adorable.

Take a sandbox game. Now make it the size of the Milky Way galaxy. That's the basic premise of . With that in mind, Microsoft will give the floor to series creator David Braben to drum up hype for Elite: Dangerous - and in doing so, accidentally spoil another much-anticipated space epic set for release in 2015. See, he's a big sci-fi fan and knows some people working on Star Wars.

Braben will play up the freedom to do almost anything in the vastness of Elite: Dangerous' universe, including the creation of a galactic Empire and the piloting of various starfighters. "You can even explore a player-driven narrative in which you recover the melted mask of a previous leader, resulting in..." - and just when Braben's about to inadvertently spoil the ending of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney's lawyers will yank him offstage by cane in 1950s cartoon fashion.

Listen, we're going to hear a lot of ‘The Nights’ by Avicii at E3. Given the number of montages during the show, it’s a statistical certainty. Also, all the Woodkid songs are taken.

Microsoft’s independent game montage will be different, however, in that it’ll claim exclusivity over several games both for Windows 10 and Xbox One. And, going by recent ID@Xbox releases like Nero and Lifeless Planet, it will demonstrate a need for weird, not-quite-great games that didn't make it past Sony’s seemingly stricter curation. With any luck, might even be a game featuring ‘The Nights’ on its soundtrack. Corporate view of the zeitgeist, nailed!

After a few less-than-successful attempts at reviving prior classics (like Conker and Perfect Dark) and a few less-than-successful attempts at creating new franchises (like Kameo), Microsoft has shunted Rare off into whatever circle of hell requires its denizens to work on Xbox Avatar clothes for the rest of eternity.

But no, finally, Rare has its chance at redemption, showing up at E3 with a new entry in the nostalgia-inducing Battletoads franchise. Now, the frustrated clerks at GameStop will actually have a copy of the game, so please stop crank-calling them.

If we've learned anything from the announcement of a new Phantom Dust game at E3 2014 and its almost immediate delay/cancellation (we're still not sure which), it's that Microsoft is committed to almost giving fans what they want by rebooting cherished franchises that they definitely sort of remember. In keeping with that mission, expect the company to announce the return of Blinx, Vince, and Brute Force through beautifully pre-rendered cutscenes that tell you nothing about the games in question, but really grab your interest.

That way, when the projects are canceled within months, and leaked footage shows they don't look anything like the trailers you saw, you'll be even trigued than you were at the start. Wait, actually, 'confused' is probably the word we’re looking for.

From mandatory peripheral to dirty little secret, the Kinect has apparently become press conference poison as far as Microsoft is concerned, so don't expect it to exactly be a show headliner.

In fact, you probably shouldn't expect to see at all, outside a few snapshots of it sitting next to an Xbox One, before it's immediately covered up by a picture of Master Chief's helmet and Lara Croft getting chased by something.

It’s a year of great potential for Microsoft. Having shifted its mantra from ‘TV, TV, TV’ to ‘games, games, games’, the company will now surely try to make good on last year’s promise of having more exclusives and more reasons to play.

It will do that partly by showcasing last year’s teases in proper depth. Scalebound will be an incredibly pretty grab at the Monster Hunter market, with slick Platinum combat,, while Crackdown will crank up the neon and deliver some serious kinetic spectacle.

Interest will immediately wane when the presenter brings up the game's companion TV program, and shows off a three-minute trailer that does its best to coherently mix 24 with Agents of Shield. The trailer will be followed by several seconds of silence, and the audience will clap politely once the Defiance flashbacks stop.

Microsoft's Games with Gold rewards program is like the little sibling to Sony's Instant Game Collection on PlayStation Plus: try as it might, it can't live up to the standard set by its superior senior. In either case, free games every month are nothing to sneeze at, but where Sony consistently offers new releases on the house, Microsoft seems insistent on lagging years behind the gaming zeitgeist.

To further cement its commitment to offering the best games from three years ago for free, a Microsoft representative will excitedly mention plans to bring Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, and The Walking Dead (Season One) to Games with Gold in 2015. The camera will pan to an audience that can appreciate both the timeless quality and relative age of these titles, including a close-up of a fan who bought all of them at full price on release day shedding a single, bitter tear.

New realities are the future, and the future is now. Or rather, the future is Q4 2015/Q1 2016. Valve, Oculus and Sony are all poised to move into the burgeoning virtual reality market with their own headsets, and Microsoft would do well to not be left behind. HoloLens compatibility with Xbox One would go a long way to making that happen.

Now, that being said, we can’t imagine that such an announcement - if it’s to be made - will be more than conceptual in nature. The HoloLens was in very early stages when it was demonstrated to press last year, and the fact that it works using augmented reality instead of virtual reality means a whole other slew of problem, solutions and technology that needs to be developed. Still, if Microsoft wants this new technology to take off, getting early excitement from technophile gamers would be a very smart foot in the door.

Once upon a time, Microsoft was pretty good about backward compatibility, taking the time to make <(i>some) Xbox games playable on Xbox 360. Then it realized that good lord is that a lot of work, and so stopped, and basically just hoped you kept your old systems lying around. (Which, in fairness, we did.)

Now that the Xbox family has more than enough older titles to justify it, Microsoft will announce a streaming game service similar to PlayStation Now. Pay a certain amount each month and you’ll be able to access Xbox games you didn’t catch the first time around, like Breakdown, Crimson Skies and, of course, Phantom Dust.