Directorial differences between Ground Zeroes & The Phantom Pain

A lot changes in 18 months. I remember the huge shock it was to hear Kojima saying he planned to ditch the most iconic aspects of the series from MGSV. Like the Alert noise, "!" and Cardboard Boxes, and getting a taste of it with them all absent from GZ.

One that I noticed was absent from TPP on my own during my first playthrough in 2015, were the character namecards seen in the E3 2013 trailer and Ground Zeroes itself. The moment I realised was the ending to Cloaked in Silence, when Quiet's namecard originally seen in this October 2014 release of that cutscene never showed up, even though the camera still holds for it. (Interesting in hindsight that "Words" is treated like a proper noun there, but not in Skull Face's speech in the final game).

There's a bunch of other small things, like making Guards you've held up to call over their allies (useful since Knocking wasn't in GZ), the stronger bullet drop, weapon names, UI elements, NVG's with infinite battery (the highest grade NVGs in TPP don't do that). Going up to a wall/cover while moving feels so much smoother in GZ, but way too easy to move away from.

But this is the one I just accidentally found/rediscovered while messing around in Ground Zeroes that just floored, and pushed me to make this post;

It is possible to take control of the APC in that game, during the main mission. Not only is this an unattended armoured vehicle you can take control of in the field, but if you get in it undetected and don't shoot or drive into anyone - it's a fully funcitonal disguise that won't draw suspicion from Guards or Cameras, meaning you can freely drive around the base.

I was gonna say; try that in Phantom Pain... but then I realised; where are any unattended Tanks/APC in TPP? We got shown said vehicles being left unattended (or possible even to hijack?) in the E3 2013 trailer. But in the final game, the only instance that springs to mind is Episode 30. So to check, I hopped in the first one in that mission and it was all good... until I tapped accelerate to instantly alert the sniper in that area and put OKB Zero on combat alert.

EDIT: Check comments below, the GZ vehicle disguise mechanic is in TPP with Tanks/APC you deploy with, but only in freeroam.

One last thing... check out how properly pitch black dark it gets very briefly at 6pm during the Phantom Cigar sequence of the E3 2013 trailer. Nightcycles in games need to be brave and do that; just a very brief moment where the moon isn't out, and if you're surrounded by nature, you'll need light sources to make anything out... then again, if you yourself are carrying the light source it'll make you the easiest to spot you could ever be.