It looks like Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will be getting more exclusives, but of a different kind. In a new post on the European PlayStation Blog, Konami Community Manager Su-Yina Farmer revealed that those who pre-order the PS3 version of Ground Zeroes will receive a free digital copy of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD.
Aside from this currently being a regional exclusive, there’s a secondary catch to this offer. The only way to receive Peace Walker HD is if fans pre-order Ground Zeroes through the European PlayStation Store. In the Metal Gear Solid chronology, Peace Walker is the precursor to the upcoming Ground Zeroes, and expands on Big Boss’s military organization Militaires Sans Frontières, and the formation of Mother Base. The combined experience of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will theoretically form the link between the “Big Boss Saga” and the “Solid Snake Saga”, as The Phantom Pain will supposedly be last chronological title before the original Metal Gear on NES.
For the rest of the world, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD can be purchased through the PS Store for $19.99, or can be obtained through the Xbox 360 version of Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection. There doesn’t appear to be any pre-order bonuses for the North American version of Ground Zeroes, however each manufacturer version (i.e. Sony and Microsoft) will include version-specific content. Sony consoles will receive the additional “Deja Vu Mission”, featuring the original PlayStation character model for Solid Snake; Microsoft consoles will get the “Jamais Vu Mission” which features the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance version of Raiden as a playable character, in a reality-bending “what if” scenario involving aliens.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has been under fire lately due to the dramatically decreased amount of story content in comparison to other MGS titles. However, Ground Zeroes only serves as a prequel and taste of things to come within the much larger The Phantom Pain. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes releases on March 20 in Europe, and March 18 in NA for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.