Ground Zeroes was an interesting self contained sampler for the big game to come. I'd never played it until recently so it was nice to finally experience it.

The Phantom Pain however... I guess it's no coincidence that I got pretty much to the same point as I did before calling time on the first time I played it. I think the biggest roadblock for me was how many seemingly inconsequential missions there are coupled with the bland open world. Setting it in an arid, brown landscape with little variety soon wore me down. I had been enjoying it for the most part, and I enjoyed the side bit of expanding your base, gathering intel etc, but it was far too repetitive and took way too long. There felt like very little progress in the grand scheme of things, for the amount of time I'd spent with it.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of what I played, but it I felt like the time and effort going into this could easily have gone on something I enjoy a bit more. And playing Breath of the Wild again recently showed me just how much of chore this game can be. I know it's a lazy comparison, but both are open world games with stealth elements, but one of them utilises that world, the other doesn't.

Every time I almost went to play this again, I decided I would prefer to play anything else. I cannot muster up any further enthusiasm. At least we'll always have Snake Eater.