Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain review – greatest stealth game ever made

The latest Metal Gear instalment somehow lives up to the hype and expectations, providing a luxurious cinematic gaming experience without equal

When Hideo Kojima was a young boy, his parents introduced a daily ritual. Each evening, the family would sit down to watch a movie together. Kojima wasn't allowed to go to bed till the film had finished, even if it contained sex scenes. His experience was, he has said, the "opposite" of how it is for most children. Those kids had to finish their cauliflower. Kojima had to finish his Coppola.

This childhood ritual seeded in Kojima a deep love of cinema, which can be seen running throughout the Metal Gear series of military-themed video games that he's directed over the last three decades. These expansive games of khaki-coloured hide-and-seek are routinely interrupted by an overabundance of exposition-laden cutscenes, something that has led some to suggest that their creator is just a frustrated film director. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain puts an end to all that talk. This is sumptuous, deluxe, groundbreaking game making, and proof positive that Hideo Kojima is a master of the medium.