After three long years one of the most beloved video game sagas in the history of the medium will come back to the current generation of consoles (No, Metal Gear Rising doesn't count, since it's a spin-off) and, with the trailer that was revealed last week a lot of questions came up; What the hell is going on? Who are those characters? What happened to Big Boss? Why the *beep* isn't David Hayter doing the voice of Snake? So many questions and very few answers. So, with the little information that we have so far about the game we'll try to uncover some of its secrets, and speculate about the next installment in what is arguably the greatest videogame saga of all time.
First, A Little Background
After Metal Gear Solid 4 closed the story of Solid Snake, the fans didn't know what would happen after that. The game closed the tale of Solid Snake with a great story and, being the smart man that he is, Kojima wasn't going to release another game "just because", he needed to have the right story, and a right way to deliver it to the fans. So, in 2010 we got Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, one of the greatest games in the franchise (it wasn't a surprise to see the game featured in the HD Collection) which continued the story of Big Boss, the creation of Militaires Sans Frontieres, and the development of the second Metal Gear. Peace Walker successfully linked Snake Eater and the first Metal Gear, while still leaving room for more adventures. For two long years we didn't get any important information. But everything started back in February 2012 Kojima productions started recruiting staff using a poster featuring the beloved Big Boss, and not only that, Kojima said that he was working on something called "Project OGRE." From that moment on we started getting more and more info on the game, some rumors about the plot (that it would take place in the late 70s, than it would show the rise of Outer Heaven), the gameplay and the characters. There wasn't too much information, and we could only speculate. Along the year, Kojima revealed the logo of a new unit under the name "Diamond Dogs" and some pictures showcasing the incredible Fox Engine, which only augmented the rumors about the game.
Finally, in August of the same year, during an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the franchise the first official trailer for the next Metal Gear Solid game was released. According to Kojima, "Ground Zeroes" will be the prologue of Metal Gear Solid V, and it would have Big Boss as the main character of the game. Aside from the incredible graphics, the really awesome news that it would be an open world game and that it would be on current gen consoles, we didn't get many answers with the trailer, and actually more questions were raised at the time: Who are XOF? How long has been after the events in Peace Walker? Who is that creepy guy with the burned face? We'll go to the speculation a little bit later in the article, don't worry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXXJPbmNKHE After this incredible trailer, we thought it would take a while until we saw more relevant information on the game until a few months, maybe even until the next year. However, during last year's VGA we got a glimpse of what could be another clue from the upcoming game. The trailer for the unknown game "The Phantom Pain" got a lot of attention from the people because not only the graphics resembled a lot to those using Fox Engine, but also the main character of the trailer was identical to Big Boss, and not only that, the name of the CEO of the company behind the game, Joakim Mogren, was nothing but an anagram of Kojima. And to top it all off, during Konami's after party of the VGA, people wearing T-Shirts of the company were spotted in the VIP seccion.
Again, the internet just blew up with the news, speculation on whether or not this one was Metal Gear Solid V was so big that I bet at least 4 out of 5 conversations on the internet where about the game. We didn't get any news of the game until a couple of weeks ago, when apparently Joakim Mogren said that he would be at GDC and that he would show a new trailer for The Phantom Pain that would
"answer all of our questions." And the rest, is history...During Kojima's presentation at GDC, he presented us with a new trailer for both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, and while it was very nice to see a new trailer for the most anticipated game of the year, it only raised more questions that answers.