The Paz Story is a stupid retcon! Or: It came out of nowhere!

No, she's still super dead.

There was no retcon here, Paz is in fact dead. Many people who captured all of the former Mother Base soldiers simply missed the last picture in the hallway and never saw the proper ending. Basically, Venom Snake went to an abandoned hallway and hallucinated all of the Paz related events due to his head tauma and guilt over failing to find the second bomb in Paz. He was the field medic on the job, so it was his responsibility.

Failing to find that bomb lead to the deaths of Paz and Chico, Big Boss's nine-year coma, and let Cipher become the de facto dominant world power. That's a gigantic weight for one man to bear alone, and the events of his hallucination end up providing him the solace needed to continue shouldering that burden.

If you actually thought Paz was still alive and that the explosion was triggered by an RPG, perhaps you didn't pay attention to the opening. The doctor explains that the explosion shot fragments of human bone and teeth throughout Venom Snake's body, literally carrying that burden of guilt within himself.

Condemned to be free.

Freedom can be exciting or boring, depending on how it's approached.

Very rarely is an open-world game able to present a cohesive narrative without sacrificing some freedoms. You either have a well told, linear story, or you have a looser story that facilitates freedom. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain experimented with a different method of storytelling by making it on-demand and available during game play.

This means players have to find the story themselves. For people who enjoy combing over tapes while hunting for resources and doing prep work for their next mission, this is awesome. For example, I enjoyed listening to Huey's interrogations while destroying the comms, anti-air radars, power generators, and stealing AA guns from areas that were likely to be involved in upcoming missions. Before, I'd have to stop and sit in a menu while I listened to a codec call, so I found The Phantom Pain's design to be more entertaining in general.

Unfortunately, some people find this overwhelming, there are tons of cassettes to pour over, and not all of them are directly relevant to the story. Even those that are aren't always cleanly labeled with the yellow, story-denoting indicator. Furthermore, some people may not like playing while listening to the cassettes, instead preferring to listen to them while sitting in the ACC. Which is understandable considering there just aren't enough buttons to quick pause the tape on the field when someone interrupts your listening. To each their own, but I can see how someone would have vast stretches of game play without any story to break up the vastness of the open world.

While Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's story is undeniably incomplete, it is far from the worst in the franchise. An MGS game normally takes the controller out of your hands for long stretches of time while it holds your head under the torrent of information it regurgitates onto you. This one reverses that trend and tells you to grip your controller throughout, allowing you to enjoy the best game play ever put into code while you pick and choose how much story to indulge in, on your own terms.

What do you think? Chapter 3 aside, does The Phantom Pain do a good job of telling its story? Are there plot points you think don't make sense? Leave us a comment below.

Skull Face was a wasted villain.

Skull Face is a different class of villain.

Skull Face stole the scene whenever he was around. He's delightfully evil in his pursuit of revenge, but many think his end was anticlimactic. He was crushed under a tower by Sahelanthropous after Mantis ditched him for Eli. Skull Face begs Venom Snake to kill him, only for Venom and Miller to team up and remove his limbs via gunfire. In the end he's killed by Huey, which only serves to highlight that miserable coward's true nature.

That normally would be a lackluster ending for any villain, let alone a MGS villain. Liquid Snake, Solidus Snake, and Volgin all got their big showdowns, why not Skull Face?

Because Skull Face isn't a Captain Zod type villain that fights the hero face-to-face with sheer muscle. Spoiler, Big Boss would have wiped the damn floor with Skull Face, and so would Venom, Ocelot, and probaby half of Mother Base. Skull Face is a scrawny linguist with a crippling physical deformity and an air for the pretentious. He's the evil mastermind class of enemy, a Lex Luthor sort of fellow to carry on the Superman analogy.

On top of that, the effects of Skull Face's actions are felt long after his death, culminating in arguably the most emotionally distressing moment of the series. His role was to embody the Phantom Pain and to illustrate how revenge failed to fix anything for anyone in the entire series. To that end he filled his role perfectly.

The parasites were just wannabe nanomachines and the story served no purpose to the overall narrative of the series!

Parasites were the inspiration for the nanomachine viruses and super soldiers of the future.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain sets the precedence for several plot points explored in the titles.that come after it chronologically. In a conversation between Zero and Skull Face on one of the cassettes, we learn that the vocal cord parasites were of interest to Cipher only until they began making advancements in mapping the human genome and understanding DNA. The vocal cord parasites were too unreliable and could result in massive, unintentional deaths when used in biological warfare, a fear that proved to be reasonable as seen in Bwala ya Masa.

The idea of a biological weapon that could target specific individuals eventually became perfected in the form of the DNA-based, nanomachine virus Fox Die, which was far more precise and reliable. Nanomachines would also recreate some of the Skull's powers, as seen by Vamp and the totally canon Senator Armstrong. Optical Camo was another advancement derived from the abilities displayed by the parasites that Cipher had been researching. So if the parasites seemed like nanomachines, that's because the nanomachines were engineered from data and ideas obtained from researching those parasites.

Additionally, both versions of the S3 plan have their origins revealed here. Venom Snake is the precursor to Raiden, a soldier who was groomed into the Big Boss of his era through mentally training an experienced soldier. Phantom Big Boss was proof that the concept could work. He wasn't tied to Big Boss genetically, and while he was a great soldier at MSF, he became good enough to take up the mantle of Big Boss through the power of implanted self-efficacy alone.

However, the Solid Snake Simulation was a ruse. The Patriots already knew that it was possible to create a new Snake in this manner, as Cipher had done so before, so the idea was passed along as misinformation to cover up their true objective: Selection for Societal Sanity, research into controlling responses to situations and the filtering out of undesirable aspects of society. Guess where this started? With Cipher's research into the vocal cord parasite.

As you can see, the events of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain are more important to the overall canon than most realize.

I really wanted it to be Frank Jeager, why wasn't he in the game?

Frank Jeager was found by Big Boss in Mozambique, after The Phantom Pain's time.

Frank Jeager is significantly younger than Big Boss, and thus wouldn't make a great body double for a 50 year old man. Besides, we know when and where Big Boss reencounters Frank Jeager and makes him into Gray Fox: In the 1980's during the Mozambique Civil War. There was never a chance that Venom Snake was Frank Jeager.

Frank Jeager was a bit of an enigma. Why did he join Big Boss in Zanzibar Land after the events of Metal Gear? Long story short, Frank was loyal to the real Big Boss when he went to Outer Heaven, so there actually wasn't a flip flop. He fought against Phantom Boss in Metal Gear and for the real Big Boss in Metal Gear 2.

For all the flack The Phantom Pain catches about loose ends, it wrapped up the events of Outer Heaven, and Frank Jeager's flip-flopping nature, in a neat little package.

Why did Skull Face attack Mother Base again? Why is Zero acting like friends with Snake?

Big Boss never knew how much of a friend Zero was to him.

Zero had a falling out with Snake, and tried to use Paz and Zeke to force him into cooperating with Cipher, but never did he want his best friend to actually die. Zero had nothing to do with the XOF attack on Mother Base. In fact, the attack on Mother Base was an act of aggression towards Zero. It turns out that Cipher had grown a little too big, and a little unwieldy over the years.

Skull Face hated Zero for what he made him into. He gleaned a lot of information from Paz's interrogation at the Cuban black site, and In an effort to draw out Zero, Skull Face attacked Big Boss. When Zero came out of hiding to do damage control and whisk Big Boss to safety, Skull Face was finally able to locate him.

Being posted in Africa gave Skull Face the perfect weapon with which to strike back at Zero. In Africa, he would re-open the cipher research into the vocal cord parasite and made Code Talker work for him to eradicate English. It would be the perfect way to destroy Zero's legacy and strip him of everything he held dear.

Zero put himself at risk and went to great lengths to protect the man he regarded as his best friend, even visiting him in the Cyprus hospital. Big Boss would never learn of this and thought Zero hated or feared him up until the end, but it was Zero's friendship with and sacrifice for Big Boss that ultimately put him into the vegetative state Big Boss discovered him in at the end of MGS4.

The Venom Snake reveal was stupid, It came from nowhere! Or: It was too telegraphed!



You were never the real Big Boss.

Venom Snake isn't the real Big Boss. When Volgin gets close and realizes this, his desire for revenge disappears and he finally dies.

The fan base is somewhat divided on this twist, either it came out of nowhere or everyone saw it coming but was disappointed with who Venom Snake was in reality. If you didn't see it coming, lets look at some of the foreshadowing:

The version of The Man Who Sold The World that plays in the opening is the 1982 cover by Midge Ure, not the original by David Bowie. Leave it to Kojima to drop hints to the big twist from the start of the game and tie said hints to 1980's music trivia.

Ishmael's voice and comments about talking to himself. He sounds like Big Boss, he acts like Big Boss, but is he a figment of Ahab's imagination or is he real? He dispatched Quiet in a blaze of not-glory and exhibited several Big Boss staple moves, and if you get Ishmael killed, it results in a Time Paradox, hinting at his true identity.

If you murder a Mother Base comrade or flee from a mission you'll be scolded by Ocelot. “I guess you weren't the Big Boss we were hoping for…” drops the hint that you're not the real Big Boss, you're a stand in.

Venom Snake can't speak Russian. Ocelot tries to explain away this snag by saying it could be due to his shrapnel horn impacting the language centers of his brain. Except the horn does not appear to be hitting the major language centers. There are several portions of the brain that each correspond to a portion of language, and it is a commonly held belief that the left frontal cortex is responsible for language processing. Venom Snake's horn is on the right. Besides that, language is not encapsulated, meaning Venom Snake likely wouldn't process English if his brain trauma were bad enough to forget speaking Russian at a native level.

The Mammal A.I. pod recognizes that Venom Snake isn't Naked Snake. Venom also doesn't have a PTSD episode like the real Big Boss likely would have. In fact, Venom doesn't respond to anything mentioned about the events of MGS3. You know, because he wasn't there. Also, that Volgin thing.

The most damning evidence is that Eli, better known as Liquid Snake, is not genetically related to Venom Snake. We know he's Liquid, and we know Liquid is in fact a clone of Big Boss, so that only leaves one option. Also, When Eli asks to see his father, Ocelot tells him that he's not there even though Venom is on base. You could say that Ocelot didn't know Venom Snake was back yet, but he knew that all of the children had been brought back by him, so he had to have known Venom had returned.

Finally, at night you can see Venom's real face in the window's reflection on the ACC.

The Man On Fire's story just stops abruptly.

Was anyone surprised by this one?

Big shock, that flaming corpse of a man in Volgin's outfit, with Volgin's bandolier's melted into his flesh, is actually Volgin. You know, the electricity-wielding villain of MGS3 who burned to death after being struck by lightning. If you didn't see that one coming then it's no wonder you missed these next parts of the discussion.

The story attributed to the Man On Fire is not Volgin's, but The Third Boy's plot thread. Volgin survived the end of MGS3 by clinging to his desire for revenge on Naked Snake. This isn't too unbelievable in the world of Kojima's MGS. We've seen normal, highly trained humans survive impossible situations countless times before, and Volgin is a freaking superhuman. His survival gets a pass. Unfortunately for him, he was stuck in a charred immobile body, deep in a coma with his impotent rage.

As luck would have it, the stars would align for Volgin. His body was in transport along with The Third Boy (whom we all know as Psycho Mantis), when he passes within range of Big Boss, who is also in a coma and right pissed at Cipher. Psycho Mantis is then overwhelmed by the extreme hatred emanating from the two comatose men. Feeding on the rage of Volgin due to his proximity, he used his telekinetic powers to move the super human's useless body in order to allow him to pursue his revenge and create more hatred.

Volgin didn't get his own story line because he was just a tool for Mantis.

Volgin was just a tool for Mantis to get more hatred to gorge himself on. Need proof? At several points in the story, Volgin becomes completely immobile or disappears when in the presence of someone that's exuding more hatred than himself. Throughout the story, Volgin is at Skull Face's beck and call because Mantis is feeding on the XOF leader's greater hatred. Volgin wants revenge on one man, but Skull Face wants revenge on a scale the size of nations, willing to kill one third of the world's population. That's how Skull Face controls Sahelanthropous as well.

At the Devil's House, Volgin is temporarily immobilized when Mantis becomes enthralled by Shabani's anger at his suffering, and this is later repeated when Volgin comes face to face with Venom Snake in Mission 30. Volgin is just steps away when Eli arrives in the chopper with the Diamond Dogs crew, and he again becomes immobile as Mantis turns on Skull Face and Volgin in order to feed on Eli's “lust for revenge.” After this point, Volgin is nearly useless to Mantis and is marched to his seeming death.

The last time we see Volgin in action is when Venom Snake is sent to extract his corpse, which to his surprise isn't quite dead. Even after being crushed, his desire for revenge lets him cling to life, and he finally gets his hands on Big Boss, only to give up and finally die…?

Well, that's because…

If you somehow haven't heard by now, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is an amazing open-world game that deserves your purchase. It also features a lot of cut story, seemingly an entire third chapter, that results in one of the biggest loose ends in video game history. Many people have gone so far as to claim Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's storytelling is jilted and features one of the worst plots in the franchise.

Well, that's total bullsh*t. Instead of long-winded cutscenes that can take upwards of a quarter hour, gameplay is emphasized. Most of the story is told via radio calls on the field, listening to enemy conversations, or playing cassette tapes on your free time, with very few true cutscenes making it into the game's final release. The biggest problem is that many people simply missed out on a vast majority of the story because it has a unique presentation compared to the rest of the series. The distinction between game time and story time is gone. Your mileage may very, but this isn't necessarily a bad change.

The radio and cassettes have replaced the codec conversations, where the vast majority of MGS story has always been told, so there hasn't really been all the much change in presentation. However, you have to pick and choose when and where to listen to a lot of the story, and some of the really important stuff is buried under MGS's usual geopolitical fluff. This new found freedom to not participate in a large part of the story, paired with a surprising amount of subtlety for a Kojima story, has lead to quite a bit of misunderstanding among fans.

For that reason, we're going to set out to address some of the most common misunderstandings and complaints about the story of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Needless to say, we're diving into just about every single spoiler in the game here, so reader beware.