(SPOILERS) Prerelease MGSV: TPP Spoiler Discussion

Anyway, I've really only had the main point of the twist spoiled, and I'm striving to keep as much else unknown to myself at this point. It was already well speculated (and hinted at in trailer, for that matter) that the twist was coming, and from the sound of it, the game hints at it heavy-handily throughout, too. I'm excited to see how it plays out and how Kojima pulls it all off in the end. Besides, the gameplay is what I'm most excited for. Until then, I'm gonna play this other MGSV for next few hours.

Anyone want to discuss how this whole thing fits into the thematic overcurrent of the series? I'm happy GB isn't losing their collective minds because everyone else on the internet is blowing up over the twist.

I actually like it quite a bit. I appreciate when creators do something they know will piss off their fanbase, but do it anyways because they think it is the best choice. The most boring things about prequels are how you always know where it is going,

Kojima clearly anticipated our expectations of this game being Big Boss losing his mind and going on a rampage given the marketing for it all. But the twist completely recontextualizes everything, not just this game, but the very nature of Big Boss's downfall.

Metal Gear as a series is about what in life defines us. Gene, meme, scene, sense, peace. I read somewhere a great argument that MGSV tackles 'Face' as its main theme. Face in the sense of your literal identity, but also in the broader context of your public persona, your legend. Everything in Metal Gear comes back to legends and cults of personality that are built up around normal people, and how those legends take on a life of their own and bring about ruination for all who get caught in the web. The Boss realized this; she didn't want her legend, her face, to carry on. She 'laid down her gun' and as Big Boss realized all too late, she wanted the world left the way it was.

Big Boss turned his back on the Patriots because of Zero's manipulation of his face. Zero made Big Boss a figurehead, a legend. To secure that legend, Zero commissioned the genetic clones of Big Boss, something that disgusted BB so much that he left the organization. Big Boss goes off and begins his own interpretation of what the Boss wanted; a place where soldiers could always be free. But then at the end of Peace Walker he turns his back on her and starts down his own path. Big Boss becomes so consumed by his ideology that he is willing to do anything to build his legend and secure his place in history; inbetween GZ and TPP Zero commissions a memetic clone of Snake by transforming a man into his double. Rather than reacting with disgust like he did to the almost identical Les Enfants Terribles project, Big Boss approves of it. He uses the double to build his legend and legacy and allows him to draw the fire of the Patriots while Big Boss founds Outer Heaven, the full realization of his ideology.

In the end, we did see Big Boss's downfall. He became so consumed with his own fabricated legend that he stooped down to Zero's level to feed it. He was complicit in taking the face of one of his most trusted men, replacing the man's ideology with his own. He took the double's identity, his face, his ideology, his emotions, everything about him. Big Boss used a soldier to protect himself, an act that is the very antithesis of his previous morality. The Big Boss legend grows to consume another, and then it continues to grow until it sparks the events of MGS1-4.

Only in the end does Big Boss realize his mistakes. He tells Solid to lay his gun down so that the legend cannot perpetuate. He ends himself and Zero to stop it from growing again. He lets his face die so that it can no longer grow to corrupt the world again.

I think Kojima was making a statement about legend, about face. We as an audience had all these preconcieved notions of Big Boss and his story based on what we learned from the other games, but these tales were at best myths. "The legend rarely lives up to reality" is something Snake says in MGS. I think it's really cool that that same concept is what Big Boss's story ends on. He wasn't the legendary soldier, he wasn't a one man army standing against the Patriots, he wasn't a blood lusting warmonger. He was some mixture of all of those, but he was also a coward and a hypocrite that let his ideology consume his humanity. No different from Zero.

GENE > MEME > SCENE > SENSE > PEACE > FACE

So yeah I like the twist.

Also, can we talk about how fucking cool the logo design for this game is? Yes, the V in the title is just an exclamation point, but it is also two branching paths from one event. The bottom is Ground Zeroes, then the two paths deviate, one is Big Boss's path, the other Venom Snake's. Also, the 'V' is distinctly different from the arabic numerals used by the other games. 1,2,3,4,V. V stands out as a fake, a phantom of 5. It also obviously stands for 'Venom Snake'.

Very cool stuff.

I've put a few hours into Phantom Pain, one of the things that stands out to me is that Venom looks quite a bit different from Big Boss. For one thing he looks younger, even after 9 years have passed (supposedly). So seems like they are just broadcasting this. I find the game a bit frustrating to play, hopefully once I level up a little things will get a bit easier but in the first 10 missions or so this game makes me want to throw my controller.

@thefantasticfillip: that was an amazing write-up!

If konami makes more MGS games I wondering Kojina planned the theme around that. That it can go on without "the legend" that is kojima.

I mean we all know that's completely untrue but, it's an interesting idea.