Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Punishing Systems
Repetitive Structure
Tedious Gameplay
Throwing out much of what made Metal Gear interesting in the first place, Survive has nothing left but a monotonous gameplay loop and undercooked survival. Those who are into thirst meters might find something redeeming here, but most won't get beyond the first few hours.
Has flickers of brilliance, but the painfully slow and gruelling survival simulation routinely snuffs them out.
So much of Metal Gear Survive is repeating the same thing over and over again in single- and multiplayer. Defending the same points from the same zombies. Exploring the same zones for the same materials. Mining the same resources for the same small amounts of gear. But after learning the ropes and learning to set your own personal goals within that loop, there's an odd comfort in the formula, and I can see myself returning to expand my end-game base out of my own completionist urges. Survive might not compare well to the tactical espionage action that's defined the Metal Gear series we know and love, but its oddly hit-or-miss combo of some solid old ideas and some clumsy new ones has at least some appeal.
Thanks to overbearing hunger and thirst systems, unintelligent enemy AI, and an utterly forgettable story, Metal Gear Survive is the worst game in the series yet.
Metal Gear's first post-Kojima outing plays fast and loose with the formula, with results that are equal parts brilliant and baffling.
A decent survival game with a rewarding, if uninspired, grind to its resource collecting and base management.
Metal Gear Survive has plenty to do, but the story mode is a dud and the endgame loops don't hold up
There's a weird, enjoyable story in Metal Gear Survive for players who make it past the game's grueling opening hours, and there are flashes of a great survival game. But with a threadbare connection to the 30-year history of Metal Gear and a comparatively shallow game made in the shadow of The Phantom Pain, it's hard to recommend enduring the whole thing.
Metal Gear Survive's punishing systems drag down what could have been a good survival game
