Metal Gear Solid V review round-up: a fitting close for one of world's most-loved franchises

Game has been released to almost universal critical acclaim, with some calling it 'perfect'

The variety of options available really makes you feel like a commando behind enemy lines carrying out covert missions

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has only just come out, and is already being hailed as a perfect close to one of the greatest series in the gaming.

The game has already racked up a score of 95 on Metacritic, the aggregation site. It describes that score as “Universal acclaim”, but many have gone even further — calling it “perfect”.

Hideo Kojima, the creator of the series, has said that the game is "closing the loop" on the saga, and heavily implied that it would be the last game that he works on.

“In that sense, this will be the final 'Metal Gear Solid'," he said. "Even if the ‘Metal Gear’ franchise continues, this is the last ‘Metal Gear.’

“Incredibly, unbelievably, what we have here is a nearly perfect finale to the Metal Gear franchise,” wrote PlayStation LifeStyle.

Game Spot said that it was far better than its already hugely-loved, critically-acclaimed predecessors.

"There has never been a game in the series with such depth to its gameplay, or so much volume in content," the site wrote.

The Washington Post picked up on designer Hideo Kojima's previous comments that Metal Gear Solid was his "biggest failure". It came to define his career and meant that he was often forced to develop new games in the series — despite not necessarily wanting to.

But Michael Thomsen wrote that it was "the best possible ending for Kojima’s biggest failure". "No matter how exciting, offensive, or incoherent some of his turns have been, there has always been something beautifully true to life in his willingness to try."

Reviewers on Steam, the online PC game store, also voiced their opinion. Those mostly consisted of people saying “A Hideo Kojima Game”, as Kotaku pointed out — a reference to the fact that those words wereinitially on the box art but were then removed.