I Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain er det helt op til spilleren selv, om man vil snige eller skyde sig gennem eventyret. I et interview med CVG fortæller Kojima, at han vil skabe et stort spil, hvor spilleren selv vælger hvordan tingene skal udspille sig.
"Whether you want to go in gun-ho or go in stealthily that's really up to the user. That's something that the player gets to decide. There's a goal, and you have to go in and out, but whether the player uses stealth or goes straight into it - that's up to the player. So it depends on the player's play style."
En af de største forandringer i forhold til forgængerne (udover at Kiefer Sutherland nu lægger stemme til Snake) er nok, at spillet denne gang foregår i en stor åben verden. Fans af serien er vant til en lineær oplevelse, og det er derfor Kojima Productions også laver Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Det skal fungere som en slags prolog for at introducere spilleren til verdenen, siger Kojima.
"So Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes is an interpretation to really give them a very short, smaller version of that scale. In The Phantom Pain there are real-life day and night cycles but in Ground Zeroes the weather doesn't change and it's at night time. This is to help the past Metal Gear fans to get used to the fact that it's now open-world."
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain er under udvikling til PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One og Xbox 360. Det har ikke fået en udgivelsesdato endnu.