So it’s come to my attention that MGSV Ground Zeroes (prologue to MGSV The Phantom Pain) main mission will take all of 2ish hours to complete. Game Informer reiterated to Kotaku that they got their hands on a close to final build of Ground Zeroes and, aside from side missions and the exclusive DLC, GZ only took 2 hours to complete. As was stated by Game Informer:

“Judged just by the core story mission, Ground Zeroes is short. We completed it in just less than two hours.”

So barring extras, the prologue seems to be shorter that expected. Well I mean, it IS a prologue, which seems reminiscent of the Tanker chapter in MGS 2. But to it’s credit it was first a free demo which game with a full copy of Zone Of The Enders (ZOE). Nobody pays for a demo version of a game, hence Demo. But Konami are selling this short ride for $30 per disc, $20 for the digital versions, across the board. Kojima has stated that since The Phantom Pain was taking a bit of time to develop that he didn’t want his fans to wait too long, which is why he decided to split the game in two parts, to which GZ was born. Though, as disheartening as this may be, it could be the raddest 2 hours of our lives. There’s only one way to really judge for ourselves.

MGSV Ground Zeroes drops March 18, 2014 for PS4, PS3, XB1, and 360. Whether or not my wishful Definitive Edition happens or not remains to be seen. Till then I will most likely be snatching this up around release.

Source: Kotaku ° Game Informer