Alright guys, I got fed up with all of the misinformation and people playing this like an action game. I have recorded the first 2.5 hours of the game, which is Chapter 1-6, while playing it like a Metal Gear game. I sneak around, backstab, avoid, and distract, and I have no issues with food, water, and oxygen and have no need to grind. In my opinion, this is the most optimal way to play, the most interesting, and probably the way the developers intended. This is an open world game with many tools at your disposal, so it can be played like many others are by putting up fences or standing up on rocks and using their spears and spending minutes harvesting corpses. I would argue, however, that this is not an efficient nor fun way to play the game. Now, I don't expect anyone to watch all 2.5 hours, so I have included timestamps to notable segments in the video description. I would have started a new thread on this titled "Metal Gear Survive Played Like a Metal Gear Game" to highlight this Metal Gear play-style, but I don't have thread creation privileges. If someone else would like to do that, that would be great!
https://youtu.be/t_-CFh1HoF0