Metal Gear Solid V – how Kojima Productions is blowing apart the open-world video game

The latest title in the legendary stealth adventure series is set in an intricate, highly explorable Afghanistan, filled with intelligent enemies - and goats

I fell in love with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain the moment I tranquillised a goat and then kidnapped it. The latest title in Konami's 40m-selling stealth action series is set in a remarkable open world loosely based on 1980s Afghanistan, and wildlife dots the landscape. The animals are beautifully realised and, because this is a video game, they can also be collected.

To capture my caprine victim, I crept forwards on my belly, lined up the perfect headshot, and poomf! down it went. I attached a cord to the prone beast, from which a giant balloon inflated, and lifted it a few feet in the air. At this point the goat woke up, looking pretty startled, and had a few seconds to hang there eyeballing me hatefully, before the balloon shot off into the sky with its cargo. The sound effect, a strangled cross between a bleat and a scream, trailed off as it disappeared into the heavens (where a plane would pick it up).