It was originally intended for Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain to be a single game, but the game's designer, Hideo Kojima, wanted people to experience the game near the launch of the recently announced next generation of consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One). Ground Zeroes was also considered for the PlayStation Portable, but development proved to be much tougher than expected, and that version was cancelled.

However, in 2023, Kojima stated on Twitter that he originally intended for Ground Zeroes to not just be released separately as a prologue to The Phantom Pain all along, but he also intended it to be the first installment of an episodic series. His reasoning for this was due to lengthy development times for recent games resulting in ideas changing over the course of production. His original plan was to produce the first episode to gauge audience reactions, and then develop two more episodes while receiving feedback, but due to criticism over the game's short length and pricing, and subsequent confusion over whether or not Ground Zeroes was considered a full game, this plan was scrapped.