Metal Gear Online's Player Count Revealed

For those of you wondering how many frienemies you’ll be able to shoot it out with once Metal Gear Online launches later this year, we’ve finally gotten our hands on some official numbers. It looks like up to 16 players will be hosted on a map for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, with 12 players supported on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

This news comes from Videogamer, who stumbled upon the player count within the Japanese Konami website.

For whatever reason, Konami is billing Metal Gear Online as a separate entity that comes bundled with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. In case calling it Metal Gear Online has you confused, just consider it the online portion of Phantom Pain and move along. I suppose there’s a chance that Metal Gear Online and Phantom Pain will be offered as separate digital games at some point, but I’m currently chalking up the unnecessary delineation to Konami being Konami. This is also a Meatl Gear project we’re talking about so, by its very nature, it should be as confusing as humanly possible.

Both Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Metal Gear Online will launch on Sept. 1, in case you’re wondering which day to circle on your calendar.

Everything we’ve seen so far appears to be par for the course in a Meatl Gear game. Players will team up and maneuver around military landscapes in an effort to kill or at least incapacitate the enemy. New, smaller Gears were also recently shown off, turning players into a walking mini-tank. Metal Gear Online is also where players can team up and sneakily take down enemy outposts as a unit.

While the 16 player count might sound kind of small to Call of Duty or Battlefield vets, that actually sounds like a decent roof for a Metal Gear game. Despite being an online competitive mode, the series’ trademark stealth and tactical gameplay still play a big role in the proceedings, meaning you don’t want to crowd the landscape with too many bodies. Hiding in cardboard boxes, crawling under jeeps and leaving traps to distract the enemy are all part of the action, making for a slower-paced, more methodical experience.

Given the recent tornado of news surrounding The Phantom Pain, it’s nice to hear something that isn’t related to the unfortunate departure of series creator and long-time director, Hideo Kojima. Then again, given the series we’re talking about here, I wouldn’t be surprised if even that wasn’t some sort of bizarre, meta advertising for the game and Kojima/Konami are still on good terms. But that’s probably just wishful thinking of the highest caliber.