Metal Gear Solid V: 7 Big Questions We Can't Wait To See Answered

4. Ishmael's Identity

The big question, and one that first let us hear the dulcet vocal chords of Kiefer Sutherland, except in the debut footage for MGS V he wasn't playing Snake (Or was he?), but instead a character wrapped in bandages who called himself 'Ishmael'. Fans have spun all sorts of crazy theories out of this escape sequence where the mysterious figure escorts Big Boss out of an infirmary, ranging from him being nothing more than a figment of Boss' imagination, to Grey Fox - or even the paramedic that helps stabilise Paz at the closing scenes of Ground Zeroes. He's clearly an important part of the story, and being his name is the same as that of Moby Dick's main character (himself a persona that provides many different readings of the work itself, as protagonist, narrator or fairly mystical figure), it opens the theory-book wide into thinking Kojima's version of Ishmael is directly meant to throw the player off, giving all of Boss' post-coma happenings a dreamlike aura. Throw in the fact that in all of the extended footage available we're yet to see more of this character, and the whole "giant flaming whale is Boss' own Moby Dick" analogy could relate to both him and a dream where the helicopter it swallows represents escapism or salvation - leading to every possibility of a mask-revealing "I am you" moment in the final game.