Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

This is an exceedingly massive and ambitious game that can seem daunting with its scope but ultimately provides more and more wrinkles on the same basic action. Unlike previous entries in the series, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is truly an open world that you're free to explore and play in as you see fit. You're encouraged to play as stealthily as possible and avoid detection to successfully complete your missions; if you try to go rushing into bases and outposts with guns blazing, you'll frequently be gunned down. It behooves you to take your time, use your binoculars to study guard patterns, and notice all the possible ways infiltration could backfire. It might sound repetitive, but it's exciting and so challenging that it feels as if you're given more and more chances to prove your skill, not your patience.

Thanks to this being an open-world video game, you can evacuate wild animals, gather resources, and grab audio tapes (both for intel purposes on missions and also just to listen to music). There's also your burgeoning base to defend and explore. The more people you recruit out in the field (by "fultoning" them, or parachuting them into the sky for retrieval by plane), the more weaponry, gear, and items you can craft for yourself. This sparks a constant tension between these two open worlds. What do you want to do? How would you like to do it? These are the questions the game asks, and then it gets out of the way and lets you enjoy. It's a great title that asks a lot of thought-provoking questions, but it's definitely for mature audiences only.