10 Massive Video Game Spoilers The Internet Totally Ruined
8. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The major spoiler: You're Venom Snake and Big Boss is Ishmael
Phantom Pain might be three years, but one fresh enough in our minds to remind us of the subsequent fan debate that led to the careless spread of spoilers across various online spaces.
As the prequel to the first Metal Gear and the supposed conclusion to the 'Big Boss saga', The Phantom Pain was always going to pack a heavy narrative punch that would bind the two eras together, but no one really expected it would be that left field. The game opens with the player assuming the role of Big Boss (or so they think) after the fiery conclusion of Ground Zeroes. The player is asked to undergo reconstructive surgery, but is never shown the significance of the task as the they're still in control of someone with Snake's features and characteristics.
That is until we reach the end, where we're promptly shown that we were the medic onboard the helicopter with Snake in Ground Zeroes the entire time, tasked with being the Boss's 'phantom' whilst he embarked on the events that would lead to the Outer Heaven uprising. This of course got plastered everywhere online just after release, through a combination of fervent fan discussion insensitive to questions of spoilers, as well as the usual run of the mill internet trolls.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
