Even people living under a rock have heard that The Phantom Pain is actually a combination effort with Ground Zeroes to make Metal Gear Solid V. This was revealed by Hideo Kojima during a demonstration of the FOX Engine at GDC. If you aren’t tired of hearing about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain yet, then you’ll be glad to know that there was some additional information on the mysterious project that was revealed in a Game Trailers interview between Geoff Keighley and Hideo Kojima. If you want to watch the full interview you can click here, otherwise we have pointed out the most notable information below.
The Phantom Pain Troll
- The Phantom Pain ruse was done to create activity and buzz within social media. It was also meant to force people to super-analyze the FOX Engine by itself without the hype of a Metal Gear game, as they knew that fans would be doing frame by frame analysis of the trailer.
- This plan was in the works for a few years after Kojima approached Keighley about assisting him with pulling it off.
- Kojima claims that they knew fans would figure out what the game was but just wanted everyone to play along with the joke. He was surprised that people were able to guess the exact title of the game as Metal Gear Solid V though.
- Keighley’s interview with Mogren was with a real person. He was a Swedish guy that Kojima hired to play the part. That was not an elaborate FOX Engine demonstration.
Ground Zeroes + Phantom Pain = ?
- Ground Zeroes is a prologue that takes place nine years prior to The Phantom Pain, but put together they make up Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
- The Phantom Pain is the larger part and will comprise the main focus of Metal Gear Solid V.
- When asked if one would purchase Metal Gear Solid V and receive Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain as a single game (similar to Metal Gear Solid 2 having the Tanker and Plant Chapters), Kojima smirked and stated that he could not comment on how they would be sold and distributed. I noticed that he said “they”, essentially separating Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain as well as potentially separating their sales and distribution channels, though that is purely speculation on my part.
- Kojima said that Ground Zeroes would come first and be a smaller version of what The Phantom Pain will offer overall. After that, The Phantom Pain would come along and allow players to take what they had learned in Ground Zeroes into a bigger scale. Whether he means first release date wise or simply referencing that Ground Zeroes is before Phantom Pain is still to be determined.
What is Metal Gear Solid V and why should I care?
- Ground Zeroes takes place almost immediately after Peace Walker, with The Phantom Pain set nine years after that.
- Big Boss’ new unit is the Diamond Dogs after MSF and mother base are decimated in Ground Zeroes.
- There will be many new characters for Metal Gear Solid V as well as plenty of familiar faces returning.
- This will be an open world stealth/infiltration game. The game will remove the “on-rails” fell of prior games and your infiltration strategy will now be affected by when you decide to infiltrate and how you decide to approach the infiltration site.
- Time passes within the game on a “real-time” 24 hour cycle. No further clarification was given on if the in game time of day will match up with the real world.
- Daytime and nighttime will play a significant role in affecting your stealth strategy.
- The entire game will be played as one character. Kojima says you can go play Rising if you want to play as Raiden.
- Kojima estimates that 80% of the game will be based in real world and real life and 20% will be supernatural, sci-fi, hallucinatory types of elements. No further details were given on what exactly he means by this. Personally I think the idea of a Bipedal Nuclear Robot is pretty sci-fi, but this is likely in reference to the flaming whales and floating people that we saw in the trailer.
Reinvention: A new Metal Gear
- David Hayter will not be returning as the voice of Snake, but Kojima said they could not announce who was taking his place. The reason given was that this is a new Metal Gear and they wanted a new voice to help reinvent the series.
- The shift from traditional numbers to Roman Numerals for the games title was to help reinvent the game and set it apart. Kojima also said that the V stands for victory as he wants a victory with this new direction for an MGS game. So don’t call the game Metal Gear Solid 5. It’s Metal Gear Solid V.
- This game will be a very different experience than what we are traditionally used to from Metal Gear Solid.
What does the future hold?
- Kojima could not comment on the title coming to the PS4, but said that it is being targeted for current gen consoles.
- Kojima really wants this to be his last Metal Gear game and before he hands the reigns over to the Tokyo and LA studios to take it further and free him up to work on other projects over the next 10 years.
What do you think of the information revealed in the interview? Are you disappointed that David Hayter won’t be returning to voice Snake? Are you tired of the slow leak of information on this project that usually just leads to more questions and makes this whole thing feel like another season of LOST? Let us know your thoughts and conspiracy theories in the comments below.
