You’re right to be confused over Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The same game? Different releases? It’s the latter, and we’ll have a chance to play Ground Zeroes next spring.
Ground Zeroes is a prologue to the events in The Phantom Pain, and will be released in downloadable form on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 for $30. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can also play, with a retail disc arriving for $30, but download versions only costing you $20.
“There will be a significant difference in what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain brings to the series,” said series creator Hideo Kojima in today’s press release, “so we want to ease players into the new open world environment and its potential, allowing them to fully benefit from all that the new game offers.”
Right now, there’s no release date for The Phantom Pain, though it’s hard to imagine we’ll see two Metal Gear releases in the same year.