Metal Gear Solid 5 has been quite a mystery since series creator Hideo Kojima first announced both the prologue for the game, Ground Zeroes, and the main portion of the game, The Phantom Pain. While Kojima has claimed that ground Zeroes will be available in the spring of 2014, the legendary game designer and director has now given The Phantom Pain a release date window...sort of.

The Japanese website Weekly Famitsu asked Hideo Kojima during the PlayStation 4 launch in New York City why the game was being released as two separate packages, Kojima revealed that due to the huge amount of content in the game it will be some time before Phantom Pain will be ready, but giving players a taste of the game through Ground Zeroes was a reasonable goal:

"The main game -The Phantom Pain - is extremely massive and is still going to take a while. I discussed the situation with the marketing team and after much deliberation decided at least to let people play the prologue."

It appeared as though the majority of Metal Gear Solid 5 was complete once Kojima began showing off demos of the game and Fox Engine that will power the game, but in hindsight those demos may have been a bit premature. Kojima felt sudden pressure to complete the game and release it, instead of having time to properly fine tune the game. By releasing Ground Zeroes early, Kojima gives fans the ability to test out the game and learn the new mechanics that will be in Metal Gear Solid 5 before the main game is delivered.

When asked for a specific time fans could expect The Phantom Pain, Kojima gave a rather cryptic answer for when the game could be released:

"It looks like we'll be able to release The Phantom Pain around the time that the PlayStation 4 becomes widely adapted."

While Kojima is being purposely vague with his answer, it looks as though the game is still far away from being released on the Sony platform (along with the Xbox One). If the game is as truly massive as Kojima claims that it is, The Phantom Pain could be delayed into 2015 even, as it seems as though the developer does not have much of the game complete judging by his comments.

Look out for more news about Metal Gear Solid 5, Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain as Kojima and his team continues to work on the project.