No one really asked for Metal Gear Survive

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“ Metal Gear Survive suffers from an identity crisis.

“ The Fox Engine was built for stealth action, not mowing down hordes of mindless enemies.

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“ "Survival" action doesn't need to be at the expense of "tactical" action.

“ Despite any fun co-op potential, it ultimately lacks heart.

This admittedly early build still felt a little unbalanced and stiff, but the squad dynamic and loadout customization have the potential to create some fun multiplayer moments. I just can’t shake the feeling that other Metal Gear games, including Metal Gear Online, have already nailed most of these same elements, but better. Kazuo Umezu’s horror manga The Drifting Classroom , only instead of spiraling into a terrifying Lord of the Flies-esque fight for survival, the mercenaries get to work gathering resources, crafting strange new weapons from the remains of their old base, and trying to figure out a way to get home. It’s weird, but not weird in the way that originally captured our hearts in previous Metal Gear Solid games, with their effortless mix of absurdist humor and socio-political themes.While Metal Gear Survive does have a single-player mode that I wasn’t able to spend any time with, the multiplayer seems to be the core of the experience. At the start, each player gets to customize their specific loadout. I was told there are no classes or preset loadouts, so the responsibility of deciding roles is entirely up to the four-player squad, which could make for some really interesting and specific team compositions. But in my preview, we did have to pick from one of four loadouts the developers had setup for demo purposes. I went with one of the shooter builds because I felt I would be more useful with a standard assault rifle, but there were also builds equipped with shotguns, revolvers, bows and arrows, and a host of weird melee weapons like my own soldier’s electrified baton. Each character also has a hunger and thirst meter, but we didn’t get a chance to see how these survival mechanics factored in.What I ended up playing was something less well-rounded, needlessly rigid, and at times worryingly simple. My team’s first goal was to capture an outpost, which required us to run up a hill and shoot two or three Wanderers — crystal-headed zombie soldiers — and then build a Wormhole Generator at its center after fortifying the base with chain link fences, sandbags, and other barricades. On my character, walls were bound to the left bumper of my gamepad and were easy to plan and snap into place, which is good considering the amount of hectic rebuilding we’d have to be doing. Then the first wave started.The most fun I had with Metal Gear Survive was when things got a little out of control during the third wave. Enemies broke through our barricades and I found myself frantically setting up mortars and fire traps to keep them away from our Wormhole Generator, relying on a couple good shots from my handgun to take out stragglers. Moments like this felt the most like Phantom Pain, when an attempt to quietly infiltrate a base goes horribly wrong and you’re forced to think quick as dozens of enemies are alerted to your location. With three other players there with you, the opportunity for some cool emergent moments and hilarity are multiplied. We ended up winning the match and somehow S-ranking it despite all the friendly fire and destroyed barricades, which I’m a little suspicious of. I hope it will be a little harder to score so highly in the final game than it was in our demo.Metal Gear Survive is still a bit of an enigma to me. My albeit brief demo failed to live up to expectations set by the Metal Gear association in both gameplay and personality. The disregard for the Fox Engine’s strengths are particularly disappointing. It isn’t as if Metal Gear games need to stick to one specific style, but even with all the interesting and sometimes risky ways the series' unique brand of action could be and has been applied, it’s always kept its heart. Even if Metal Gear Survive ends up fleshing out its wave-based co-op in more complex ways, it might just be too dull for me to care.

Chloi Rad is an Associate Editor for IGN. Follow her on Twitter at @_chloi