Kojima Productions’ recently announced Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes will reportedly feature another subtle gameplay shift. According to series creator Hideo Kojima, day and night cycles will factor into the missions.

Eurogamer got the information from Kojima himself:

Ground Zeroes will also offer a day and night cycle, something that will boost replayability, Kojima added. Players will see differences throughout the world depending on the time of day, such as changes in enemy troop patterns.

Past Metal Gear Solid games have adjusted the stealth-based gameplay through various new features, including camouflage (Snake Eater) and actively-changing battlegrounds (Guns of the Patriots).

Since Ground Zeroes will be an open-world game, so it’s fair to assume that the day/night cycle will follow the exact time of whatever region your console happens to be connected. Previous installments in the series have usually featured a static time of day, no matter how long in-game missions took in real time.

Kojima also confirmed that Ground Zeroes would facilitate loading screens during gameplay. Again, that’s not a huge surprise, especially since the new Fox Engine will be running on relatively old hardware.

Source: Eurogamer