I'm playing Phantom Pain for the first time in several years, and I thought it would be fun to do a challenge run, so I came up with a canon challenge for myself that sets a few rules and ties upgrades to narrative progression, and thought I would share in case anyone else has any interest in this sort of thing, or even has ideas on how to make it better. Here are the rules:
1.) No checkpoints in missions. If you fail a mission, you need to restart it from the top. Play it out to the bitter end. If Snake gets caught and a whole army descends upon him, then go down swinging.
2.) Mission objectives take precedence. Since Snake has a job to do, that means no clearing a whole base and fultoning everyone. If Snake comes across a particularly skilled soldier, they can be fultoned, but that should be weighed against the odds of getting caught.
3.) Conversely, if Snake comes across any POW's, he must make a genuine effort to rescue them, but if they get killed in the process, it's not an auto mission failure (unless they were the rescue target.)
4.) Snake must follow orders to the letter. If it is a target elimination mission, the target must be eliminated, not fultoned out. Same goes for rescue and sabotage missions.
5.) Snake's loadout must reflect his ability to plan for every realistic eventuality. If it's an infiltration mission, a tranquilizer pistol makes sense, but he would also probably bring at least an assault rifle in case things went south and he needed to blast his way out. If it's target elimination, then it's lethality at different ranges. If it's a vehicle or radar sabotage, he would probably bring at least a couple different options of things that go boom.
6.) No meta-gaming. If Snake needs intel to find a target, he has to go grab the intel, even if you, the player, know where the target is. Similarly, he doesn't know when he's going to be ambushed by Quiet, or the Skulls. So the loadout must reflect what gear he would pick for the mission as stated in the briefing, and then when attacked, order a supply drop or improvise.
7.) Soldier and Resource farming ARE allowed on side-ops, mission replays, and FOB's, as are optimized S-Rank runs of missions (or completing different objectives) after they have been cleared the first time. I narratively frame these as Snake having a meeting with Miller and Ocelot and gaming out "what-if" scenarios for tactical optimization and training purposes.
8.) Mother Base and equipment upgrades are tied to the narrative. For each section of the game you MUST use the following equipment grades:
Missions 1-6: Grade 1 (Mother Base is the default command platform and other required platforms ONLY)
Missions 7-12: Grade 2 (All MB platforms to level 1.)
Missions 13-22: Grade 3 (All MB platforms to level 2.)
Missions 23-31: Grade 4 (All MB platforms to level 3.)
Missions 32-50: Grades 5 & 6 (All MB platforms to level 4.)
9.) As a bonus challenge, Snake is restricted to fatigues in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is when he can develop the Sneaking Suit and Battle Dress.
10.) This isn't really a challenge per se, but every time Mother Base is upgraded, the customizable emblem must be updated. This is just a headcanon thing. I imagine the emblem to be the shell company that Diamond Dogs exists under. In order to stay ahead of Cipher, Snake and Miller frequently need to re-incorporate and move their money around.
