What Are The Best Games Like MGS5 Phantom Pain?

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain signals an end of an era, but it shouldn't mean the end for the subgenre of open-world games and tactical action shooters.

If you’re a fan of the Metal Gear series of games, or just a fan of amazing open-world game design, then you’d have probably heard and played the crap out of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Ever since its release three years ago, it has been hailed as one of the best games of all time, winning several ‘Game of the Year’ awards from major publications and award circuits.

Although the devastating news that series creator and lead developer Hideo Kojima has parted ways with its publisher Konami in a series of silent yet well-publicized disagreements has seemingly killed off any hope of any new mainline Metal Gear games, any fan looking for games like it is still in luck as there is still a plethora of both old, new and upcoming releases that are sure to fulfill that open-world tactical action goodness. And no, we do not speak of Metal Gear Survive.

Here are fifteen games like MGSV: The Phantom Pain, including some that are arguably better than MGSV in their own way.

15. Left Alive (PS4, PC) – 2019

Left Alive gameplay demo TGS 2018

Square Enix’s return to their famed Front Mission franchise, Left Alive is a third-person action shooter video game with mechs as their primary selling point. In the same vein as MGSV, Left Alive lets you choose how you approach missions set primarily in an open world sandbox. Whether or not you can call on support from a Mother Base-like operations center remains to be seem, but If you’re a fan of getting into third person shootouts, sneaking through derelict buildings set in the game’s highly globalized and dystopian timeline, or wrecking stuff and causing as much chaos as possible while inside a futuristic and heavily armed Wanzer – mechs in the Front Mission universe – then this game is a must-play for you.

Similar to MGSV in that: it has a militarized setting overseen by secret and often very powerful cabals, future wars, their very own mechs, freedom in gameplay decisions, and general third person action.

Better than MGSV in that: the story is mostly self-contained and doesn’t require playthroughs of past games, three separate protagonists for better immersion of the story through different points of view, REAL, ACTUAL MECHS that you can control instead of just fighting them.

Stealth Approach: One of the game’s three playable protagonists, Mikhail Alexandrovich Schwarov, infiltrating a base guarded by a Wanzer – the game’s mechs – in one of the game’s missions that can be completed through a wide variety of options.

Different Mission, Different Character: The game lets you control three different protagonists to complete the various missions in the game, much like the system introduced in Grand Theft Auto V. Pictured here is Olga Serveevna Kalinina while she is infiltrating a derelict building.

Full-on Mech Battles: Wanzers, or the game universe’s mechs, are heavily featured and will play a core component in the overall game design. In addition to fighting enemy Wanzers, you will be able to control your own should you choose to go into a mission guns blazing.