It was March 2013 when David Hayter, the iconic voice behind Solid Snake and later Big Boss, first hinted that he may not be reprising his role in Metal Gear Solid 5. Then a few days later during GDC 2013, Hideo Kojima confirmed a new voice actor which resulted into outrageous backlash from fans and critics alike but somehow people believed that this is all part of of Kojima’s tricks, and Hayter is secretly involved as a young Solid Snake.

In the last two years, David Hayter has teased his involvement a number of times only to deny later, gave several interviews where he mentioned how he wants to come back to the series and how he is wrestling his demon. There is literally a ton of stuff that Hayter has put out there which I can keep on writing about and as the game’s release date is approaching, it’s becoming obvious like sunshine that he is in the game. In fact, Quinton Flynn the voice actor of Raiden, who is also Hayter’s friend was told that he is still Solid Snake and more recently Troy Baker gave a very interesting response to Hayter’s recasting. Personally speaking, it’s very unlikely that a Hollywood professional like David Hayter will stretch a minor hiccup in his career to this extent. The fact that he is still talking about The Phantom Pain is weird, at least to me.

So, Hayter has yet again tweeted something interesting. The tweet which you can check out below is self explanatory so I won’t go into the details. I completely understand that this may be a random tweet but the choice of words is interesting. The tweet means that he is Solid Snake which goes in line with the theory of a young Solid Snake appearing at sometime in The Phantom Pain. I know this is speculation at best, but when we tie with all the teasers and denials Hayter has put out in the past, it adds more fuel to the fire.

On a related note, Kojima released a few screenshots from The Phantom Pain showcasing Big Boss ready to take off in a helicopter. There are a few interesting details that you may have missed out such as the AK series rifle and the grenade launcher which looks extremely similar to the ones that were used by the XOF soldiers during the destruction of motherbase in Ground Zeroes. This could be another hint that Big Boss and Skullface might be working together, so they are also sharing the same weapon technology.

The image also shows further customization of motherbase from the one we saw earlier. If you look closely, it seems that the construction is not done yet, possibly indicating that construction of the new motherbase is time bound. And finally, the helicopter has been fully camouflaged which might be a factor in deciding your success ratio in missions. Such type of camouflage are usually used in desert areas and The Phantom Pain will feature plenty of them in Afghanistan and Africa.

Metal Gear Solid 5 is due on September 1st, 2015 on PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. PC players will need to wait a bit longer as the Steam version will launch on September 15th.