head to head
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain asks more than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the gap is reads.

Optimization · Practiced Mastery
A sprawling open-world crime epic with RPG-style character stats across a whole state.

Optimization · Practiced Mastery
Open-ended stealth sandbox built on base-building and adaptive AI.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery); Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery).
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Flying school and drive-bys need decent hands
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Stealth and shooting inputs both matter.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain leans clearly harder on reads.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Gang AI is scripted, never adaptive
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Guards adapt loadouts across missions, light modeling.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Territory wars and traffic add light randomness
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Patrols, weather, supply drops randomize runs.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Stats, gym, weapon skill, and routes reward systematic play
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Mother Base, loadouts, fulton economy deeply solvable.
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.