When comparing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag vs Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the Slant community recommends Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag for most people. In the question“What are the best open world games on Steam?” Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is ranked 6th while Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is:
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Intuitive stealth gameplay
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are.
While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again.
Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Pro Cool naval combat against other pirates out on the open seas
Naval battles with your own ship and crew are expanded here in Black Flag after they were first introduced in Assassin's Creed III. You're a pirate this time, so you get to explore the open world with your ship as much as you want.
The bread and butter of the game involves you as the captain of your ship, navigating out in the open waters to get from place to place, as well as getting hands-on with the full mechanics of steering while firing off cannons at enemy ships. There's a full crew aboard with you, helping to give plenty of liveliness to your surroundings as they shout in anger, sing shanties, and cheer in victory as you go along, along with dynamic weather like raging storms that adds to the realism and intensity. It's a lot of fun and serves as a nice way to break things up from the usual stealth missions on foot.
Pro Innovative multiplayer with online co-op for up to four friends
The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag offers a unique experience. It mixes the series' stealth mechanics with cat and mouse gameplay through a few different multiplayer modes.
Manhunt is the most interesting one, where you play one round with one team of four as the hunters and the other team of four as the hunted. The hunters have to kill as many of the opposing team as possible in the allotted time, whether it's through pure speed that offers fewer points, sneaky doses of lethal poison for tons of bonus points, and plenty more. The hunted, if they spot their hunters, can use certain defensive abilities like smoke bombs and disguises to outsmart their opponents, stun them, and then run away.
Other modes like Wanted offer a pure PvP experience with you against the full lobby of other players, where you try to stay hidden while making kills. For all gameplay modes, there's the neat, but chilling effect of hearing whispers as an opponent gets closer to you; trying to distinguish which way they're coming from while staying hidden. This and the sheer unpredictability of the gameplay makes the multiplayer incredibly addicting and fun.
Pro Freedom in approaching a mission
Metal Gear Solid V gives players multiple choices on how to approach a mission.
You can choose to use stealth, taking out enemies only when it's absolutely necessary. You can run in guns blazing, killing everyone on sight. You can get on a high vantage point and take out everyone with a sniper rifle. Or you can call in air support to do all the work for you.
The choice is up to you and the game doesn't penalize you for sticking to a single way. This helps keep the gameplay fresh for a long time.
Pro Allows players to create their private military company
Throughout the game, you will be trying to rebuild your private military company.
Your base of operations is the "Mother Base", which is a giant structure similar to an oil rig. You can expand it and add new facilities such as Research and Development.
You'll also be managing your personnel, allowing you to recruit (capture) enemy soldiers and assign them work in their area of expertise. This can be research, development, various upkeep tasks around the base or earning resources out in the field.
All of these things truly make you feel like you're running a PMC.
Pro Reflex system helps you stay unnoticed
Time will slow down for a short time if you're spotted by an enemy. This allows you to take them out before they can sound the alarm or alert other soldiers. This is quite refreshing compared to other stealth games, where messing up means an immediate end to being stealthy.
Pro Enemy AI adapts to your playstyle
The enemy will pick up on your habits and react accordingly. For example, if you use tranq darts to knock enemies out, they will try to wake up their comrades at first. Do this for a couple of missions and they'll immediately run to sound the alarm when they spot someone knocked out. This way the game expertly keeps you out of the comfort zone, having the later missions feel as tense as the first.
Pro Large assortment of weapons and tools
MGS V has a lot of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and sniper rifles. There are both lethal and non-lethal variants, allowing you to find something suitable for any playstyle.
There are also many tools such as the Fulton device, which allows you to capture enemy soldiers and animals, sending them to your base. It's a ton of fun experimenting with new gadgets.
Cons
Con Multiplayer is pretty much dead
Unfortunately, the multiplayer is all but abandoned by the player base. Even though the multiplayer itself is really cool and fun, you won't find too many people playing it these days. Since the game originally came out in 2013, it's quite old now, and it doesn't help that the devs don't actively update it anymore. The Assassin's Creed multiplayer base in general is also splintered between this game and the other installments with online play. So if you're a new player trying to get into things, don't be surprised if it takes a long time to find a match.
Con Dull story that rehashes the same old conflicts
There's nothing new here, just the usual war between the Assassins and the Templars. This was okay in previous games where the writers at least cared enough to put in more in-depth modern day scenarios that kept the war relevant, giving us a reason to explore these historical settings in the first place. Instead, the past portion with Edward would be completely boring without his entertaining personality, and the modern day stuff is so phoned-in that the devs shouldn't have even bothered in the first place. This game is great for the gameplay, but not at all for the narrative.
Con The setting isn't that great for climbing around on top of buildings and exploring
Getting to play on and around the islands of the Caribbean setting sounds cool, but it's not all that fun from a gameplay perspective. The wooden buildings and huts are quite small and basic, with only some taller churches in the bigger cities like Havana. Scaling them doesn't take much effort, and it doesn't reward you with a huge, beautiful view comparable to previous locations like Florence and Rome during the Italian Renaissance. Despite the unique history and culture in these places, they're weak settings to play through.
Con High learning curve
MGS V can feel really overwhelming at the start. First the controls have various nuances such as different ways of crawling. Then you get a bunch of mechanics thrown at you, such as stealth, base managment, etc. It will take quite a while until you can fully enjoy the game.
Con Micro transactions make multiplayer pay-to-win
You can buy bundles of in-game currency, which can be used to gain an advantage in multiplayer. This makes multiplayer not fun for the players who don't intend on spending extra money. It also makes it boring for the ones who spend the money. Both of these things negatively impact the longevity of the multiplayer.
Some of the bundles go for $79.99, which is more than the game's price. It's sad seeing Konami milk their fans with microtransactions like this.