With Metal Gear Solid V's release well over three months ago, now seems like a great time to entertain a completely ridiculous theory that likely has no legs to stand on, but hear me out.
[WARNING: METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD]
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At the end of the game, we come to two realizations: the abrupt ending where fans were confused by Kojima's lack of closure and the fact that Kojima played us like a damn fiddle: throughout the entire game, Big Boss only made an appearance in the first and last missions where players instead took on the role of his phantom. A little unusual, right? This caliber of trolling, we can expect from Kojima. This well-played move both upset and satisfied the fanbase (depending on how you felt about the revelation). Regardless, certainly an interesting twist.
However, the longer The Phantom Pain stays on the market, the more things people unearth regarding easter eggs and content on the disc. Very interesting. The fact that an entire part of the game appears to be missing says a lot. And why would Kojima suddenly use a roman numeral to number his game? When you create Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Metal Gear Solid 4, Metal Gear Solid V shows an unusual shift. To use the "V" for Venom? Perhaps. But now that I have entertained my rhetorical position, I'll get to the conclusion: What if...Metal Gear Solid V is Metal Gear Solid 5's phantom? What if the meaning of The Phantom Pain extends to the idea that the game shows Venom's pain where the true Metal Gear Solid 5 features Big Boss?
"Whoa, put the brakes on for a second...that makes no sense. First of all, Konami owns the IP. Making a sequel would likely result in Konami suing the new Koji-Pro".
Well, yeah, but the ending is actually the very reason I may believe in the possibility of a real MGS5. In the ending, Ocelot hands Big Boss a copy of his phantom's passport with his face before becoming Venom Snake. Ocelot tells him that he will need to do something about his face when going into hiding as Venom continues his legacy as him. What if--bear with me on this one--what if, that sets up to use Big Boss' character without actually calling him Big Boss? If at the beginning of Kojima's new game, you're prompted to create a character? Now we know that, following going into hiding, he needs to maintain as little contact with his former allies as possible. That could effectively allow the narrative to develop without needing to use characters owned by Konami now. Kojima would only need to allow voice actors to return (like Troy Baker) or have "Big Boss" talk about "a rival he met back during the Cold War". A very sneaky setup, indeed. I certainly share doubts with a lot of people, but still, the idea does not seem that impossible. The ending and atmosphere of The Phantom Pain seem to allow for that. In essence, Kojima would be able to continue the narrative as a spiritual successor. The Phantom Pain, though a fun title, left many questions unanswered. Perhaps Kojima caught wind of developing tensions between Konami and himself early and prepared accordingly. 5 years seems pretty common nowadays for developing one game, especially when a game spans 5 platforms. And yet somehow, the idea of Kojima finally putting down Metal Gear without fully closing the loop seems unlikely. I would say him not trolling everyone comes off as 'out of character'. This theory likely has very little legs to stand on, but I do believe that, if Kojima wanted it, it can happen based on the simple fact that The Phantom's ending and exclusion of a third part suggests some closure would come from that and instead left a strong air of ambiguity for his own reasons.
...Just thinking out loud here.
The Prince returns, and, boy, does Evil Empire do a great job with him.
While E3 is gone, Geoff Keighley, lord of The Game Awards, has tried to replace it with Summer Game Fest, a nebulous collection of reveals and mini-events that does have one main showcase full of its biggest slate of games, and that aired yesterday.
It was…not great. 65% of Keighley’s own Twitter followers gave it a C or D grade in a poll he put up.
How about this, gaming community, what's up with people trying their best after the Big 3 go their own way and stop supporting events in general in favor of their own shows not being good enough when no one else is trying at all?
I think the community needs to look at the status of the industry and realize that we're where we are because of how much the competition has shrunk and how the bigger companies focus more on their own presentations over that of community-focused events.
Were these games the AAA bangers people wanted to see? No. But you know what it was? It's the people that get overlooked like crazy trying their hardest to put out games for people. Thank you to those developers who work on games and took the time to try and show us something some of us might actually like. Thanks Geoff for actually trying.
More than I can say for the community that, at times, only complains.
Well I've said this in the other post.
I get it there's 2 sides to this. One side, we need the AAA showcases to give reason to own these consoles. Something that 9th gen has struggled with more than any other. Regardless ppl need reasons to buy the machines.
On the other hand AAA games have been bland, predatory, over hyped, deceitful marketing, especially the bad marketing. We a scream for triple A and new IP then we get burned almost every time due to lies and exaggerated marketing and PR. We often times get lost lost in the AAA space I know I do. We fantasize what new worlds, characters, gameplay mechanics there can be. Unfortunately AAA is hardly really creative because of shareholders and making a certain type of AAA that continues to make them money, LS.
Hell look at SF, the fact that the game is releasing its expansion this fall and is suppose to be the game that everyone wanted, tells me SF should of released this fall instead of last fall. I guess they were pressure to release the game a year early or were afraid of yet another backlash of a delay?
Anyway, maybe we do need the AA guys to get creativety back on track, devs keeping their jobs and us having fun playing these games again and having new kinds of experiences.
I see both sides.
E3 should’ve never died. People enjoyed the show and while there were some cringe moments it was fun watching the big 3 go head to head and seeing all the game reveals.
I agree with Christopher on this issue. Keighly took the time to get a show together which is more than other ppl did or have been doing. You think it's easy to get companies to greenlight exclusive reveals on a specific show? It's not. Even the fact he gets rated a C is very decent for someone trying to do what he's doing. The gamers are spoiled brats who will say a showcase tanked if not every game is to their liking. I'll say we'll done Jeff.
Microbird Games' upcoming dungeon-crawler/social-sim ARPG Dungeons of Hinterberg is shaping up to do right by all of its obvious influences.
Interesting to say the least. Although, I personally believe he is moving on to new things.
The theory would hold water if Ground Zeroes didn't exist. But it does. And you do play as Big Boss in Ground Zeroes and the full title is Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.
However, I do think that Kojima would have gone on and developed a Metal Gear Solid 6. Unlike with MGS4, he never stated MGS5 would be his last MGS game. A lot of people were expecting Gray Fox or a young Solid Snake to appear in MGS5. Also MGS5 is unfinished and a lot of stuff we were hoping to experience weren't there.
MGS5 was pretty much the story of Diamond Dogs led by YOU the player.
I caught my reflection in the helicopter, when it was storming, so I knew what was going on about twenty hours in. I actually put the game down for a couple of weeks, because I have a connection with 'Naked Snake' and the notion that I wasn't him made me feel... idk.. Just had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about it.
Well, there's also the thing in which Peace Walker was called MGS5. Honestly, PW had a much more gripping storyline, casts, and dialogue compared MGSV.
Very interesting... and can we really put anything past Kojima? He's been 'trolling' us for years.