In the onslaught of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain info coming out of Cologne at the moment, Konami have released a 30 minute long gameplay demo, showing off the amazing depth of customisation players can go into when constructing their own Mother Base. In the demo, along with seeing how you can customise your base to compliment your Diamond Dogs squad, we also got a greater look at how the online component of Mother Base will work as well. In The Phantom Pain, as you build up your floating military base, you must also account for other players’ squads trying to invade and sabotage parts of your sea fortress. So, you must prioritize building gun emplacements, traps and even training some animals you found on on your travels to fight for you as well as making sure you have the latest weaponry and support out in the field.

You can manage every aspect of Mother Base yourself, assigning every single soldier to specific departments or development tasks or you can leave Miller to sort that out for you. In the demo, you also get a glimpse of the logo creation feature for your version of Diamond Dogs, with keen eyed viewers noticing that the logo in the demo pays homage to Kojima’s recently canned project, PT. I’m surprised that slipped past Konami’s head office but it’s nice to see that Kojima at least has some levity about the whole nasty business. There are even little minigames to complete like finding scattered diamonds around the base or completing shooting galleries to hone your skills and test out new weaponry between missions. Make sure to not only keep yourself fit and healthy, but to keep the morale of your soldiers up too. Taking showers between missions and quelling staff bust ups is key to keep you and Mother Base running at peak efficiency.

Forward Operating Bases or FOBs at as the MMO component of Mother Base, with players being able to expand Mother Base outwards to collect extra resources, outsource production and stake your claim on the world. These are the areas of your growing military nation which can come under attack from other players, with other squads launching assaults by air and sea to plunder your precious resources. It seems like a mix between Dark Souls’ Invasion system and the base defence of XCOM: Enemy Within and looks like a great addition to the already massive package Kojima and his team are offering in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. You can take the fight directly to your aggressor, launching counterstrikes to hamper other squads’ production or steal resources for your own ends. This element of The Phantom Pain looks like it could start great rivalries between different players, as players go back and forth in order to assert their power as the true military superior.

There is a lot more information in the demo walkthrough so watch below and keep an eye out for any hidden details. We will no doubt learn even more about Mother Base and Snake’s latest operation as we get every closer to The Phantom Pain’s September 1st release.