do I need to play Ground Zeroes first?

[StarBreaker]

does this directly carry on from Ground Zeroes or does it not really matter. will the game still make sense if i just skip ground zeroes and play this instead or do I need to know what happened?

[Blockhead]

Phantom Pain is set 9 years after Ground Zeroes, but otherwise continues directly on from it. Playing Ground Zeroes give you bonus content in Phantom Pain, so there's a reason to play it first. The game will make sense if you haven't played it, but you'll be aware of things that Phantom Pain doesn't tell you immediately.

[Bricky strong]

no.

[TheOrangeBox]

Yes, it's the preamble to The Phantom Pain

[Lucius Caesar]

I played Ground Zeros recently and was very disappointed. You do not need to play it at all to enjoy Phantom Pain. there is ONE story mission and its over in like an hour. The rest is just filler side missions.

[Silverlight]

You don't have to but it's like the coolest cold opening ever.

[Original Cast Recording]

If you think you might want to ever play GZ, play it before. The controls and interface are a bit different from TPP and it can feel weird to return to it.

Story-wise, TPP will summarize GZ, but there are some details which are not repeated. So it just depends how much you care about that.

[テレビダンサー]

Originally posted by StarBreaker:

does this directly carry on from Ground Zeroes or does it not really matter. will the game still make sense if i just skip ground zeroes and play this instead or do I need to know what happened?

I'll recommend you to play GZ first, since it's in an area that you will NOT get to visit in TPP, and it will give you the basic understanding of the conflict in TPP.

As others have mentioned, you don't have to. Besides, if you play GZ first, you get to unlock a Sneaking Suit through the Data Save Upload/Download feature to use in TPP that if I remember correctly, you cannot get otherwise.

[Lucius Caesar]

Originally posted by Panzer Hog:

Originally posted by StarBreaker:

does this directly carry on from Ground Zeroes or does it not really matter. will the game still make sense if i just skip ground zeroes and play this instead or do I need to know what happened?

I'll recommend you to play GZ first, since it's in an area that you will NOT get to visit in TPP, and it will give you the basic understanding of the conflict in TPP.

As others have mentioned, you don't have to. Besides, if you play GZ first, you get to unlock a Sneaking Suit through the Data Save Upload/Download feature to use in TPP that if I remember correctly, you cannot get otherwise.

Stats wise it is identical to the other Sneaking suit, but you can get it earlier and it looks different. So if you can get it, cool, but not really missing out if you don't

[Devsman]

I mean, it's the tenth installment of a Kojima series. Continuity is literally his thing.

I would say bare minimum you could understand the most important parts of the story by playing these:

Metal Gear 1 or 2
Solid 1
Solid 2
Solid 3
Peace Walker
Ground Zeroes

But honestly, the only one that's just straight skippable is Rising. Maaaaaaaaybe Solid 4. And of course the noncanon/retconned ones.

The good news is, most of these are like 8 hours or less blind watching all cutscenes so it's not like it'll take you a year.

[StarBreaker]

I know the story, I've played all the other games up until these 2. Just didnt know wether to just skip gz, which i think im probably going to after what you all have said, thanks guys.

[Wipepod]

you get some special items if you import a save into TPP from GZ with certain task completed (EDIT: if curios just look up mgsv ground zero rewards and click the IGN page)

[Wipepod]

*curious

[Phate]

If you played Peace Walker i would at least check out the story in GZ since it involves Paz and Chico.

[pyraelly]

i suggest you play it, it's short but it's also very cheap if you know where to buy it

[LSD]

Originally posted by StarBreaker:

will the game still make sense

...
It will make the same amount of sense, but it won't make sense, whether you play GZ or not.
GZ is like a tech demo. It's short, it's fun, and it has very little in the way of story.