Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes serves as a prologue to the series' final chapter, sending Big Boss on a tense infiltration mission to rescue prisoners from a heavily guarded black site. Its open, sandbox-style mission design was a shift for the series.

Players approach the objective with freedom in how they infiltrate, using stealth, gadgets, and improvisation to adapt to guard patterns. Its compact but dense mission set previews the larger, open-world direction of its sequel.