Will Kojima pull another "Raiden" in Phantom Pain?

I might be pulling this bet from my wish fulfillment jar, but with the rumors that Kiefer Sutherland recorded not that many minutes of dialogue (bearing in mind this series tradition for voice acting of the main character) and the fact that they chose one of the most prolific voice actors in the industry to be Revolver Ocelot, is there a chance that we might play the majority of the game with Ocelot and not Big Boss?

of course the minutes rumor might be only a rumor and maybe they would not get Kiefer if he knew he would not be the main character. But still, I really like Ocelot's character and I wouldnt mind playing from his devious perspective in this one (and it wouldn't be a total "Raiden" since we know him and he is cool).

still, odds on that?

(btw, first thread ever, dont laugh too hard please) =P

That would be an interesting twist, but I also don't see the point of it. Raiden was the playable character to basically troll players and throw this character at them who is a complete unknown to them. Having you play as Ocelot would be like a game where you randomly play as Meryl; they're an established supporting character, but it would be kind of random to make them the playable character.

I guess it's possible, but if a bunch of this game is about the formation of Outer Heaven and Big Boss' final transition to super villainy, playing the whole game as someone other than Big Boss would be strange.

@bisonhero: Makes complete sense what you a are saying :). Then again, we did not knew the "Meme" cornerstone of Sons of Liberty before release. There's something about this MG that seems strange, some kind of void, that is there from day 1 (that trailer and Joakim Mogren). I am almost certain we will get a twist. Of course not sure it will be as big as playing as Ocelot (for the many reasons that you stated).

@cfilipec: I do agree that Kojima is almost certainly pulling a fast one on us. Like, the MGS3 reveal ended up being kinda exactly what it looked like, same with MGS4 and Peace Walker more or less. They had some late game twists, but they were basically the game they appeared to be from the trailers.

Phantom Pain still feels like it has revealed VERY little gameplay and settings (especially when a lot of the early trailers in 2013 were largely footage from Ground Zeroes). You're right, the reveal trailer and Moby Dick Studios and Joakim Mogren sets a weird precedent for the game, so I fully expect some weird shit is happening that isn't what it appears.

I'm still wondering why Kiefer Sutherland stated that he worked on Mortal Kombat when Ed Boon has confirmed that he didn't.

@dudeglove:

What do you mean?

My money is on the game turning into a retelling of the original Metal Gear about 1/3 of the way through, and you play the remainder as Solid Snake, voiced by Hayter.

@dudeglove: Kojima is an equal opportunity "horrible person." Both sexes get abused just as much throughout the series.

I don't see the point of another Raiden but who knows. If anything Kojima is great at subverting expectations.

I'm pretty sure you'll play as this kid (possible child soilder) and he'll be killed. I think he's been shown in the trailers too.

As much as I like to play arguably one of the most important characters of the series, I doubt we'll be playing as Ocelot. We're likely not going to hear Big Boss speak much because codec is replaced by a one way radio in which the exposition will be told by Miller and Ocelot hence why Troy Baker recently joked that players will hate the sound of their voices by the end of the game.

I like the idea of Troy Baker being so sick of his own voice he only communicates through text.

Maybe the feature from Peace Walker returns, which allowed you to (re)play missions as recruited soldiers; only this time around that would also include fully voiced folks like Ocelot, Quiet and who knows who.

being honest with you ive got it in my head enough that half way through this game you would play as solid snake that if i found out that was not the case it would be a bigger spoiler.

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when all these ridiculous predictions don't happen. I bet the time skip that a lot of people want won't even happen. And if Solid Snake does show up, it'll be him as a child, voiced by someone else.

And Kojima said he wanted players to inhabit Snake. That he'll be closer to a silent protagonist so Snake can be the player. Which is nonsense, that was never the case and I don't want Snake to be a finance guy. He's a god damn hero. This is another role for Kiefer, whereas it was Hayter's role of a lifetime.

I don't know about playing as him, but I feel Solid will be a big part of this. Big Boss trained him, after all. I just know there's more to this game than they showed so far. If this is the definitive MGS experience, I expect everything possible will be put into Phantom Pain.

@csl316: I expect the ending to amount to something like the end of Peace Walker. Where it's sort of open and implies the whole Outer Heaven thing. It'll probably be some thing "Well, we're here in Africa, some shitty stuff happened; but I guess it's time to construct a main base here." Or something.

Maybe the twist is that the Diamond Dogs base isn't the only base that you'll build, but Outer Heaven too.

I hope Messi is unlockable, as the FOX Engine is also used to make PES from now on.

@alkusanagi: Came in here to say that I would not be surprised if that happened, and actually might be surprised if it doesn't.

@dan_citi:

They don't want Kiefer Sutherland to talk because he doesn't sound like David Hayter, that much was evident as of Ground Zeroes.

Though I've tried to keep myself in the dark about a lot, who is this prolific voice actor for Ocelot?

@pierre42: The actual reason is supposedly a bunch of different things. Mostly because they have the motion-cap for face stuff now. So that why Big Boss doesn't need to talk as much; because he doesn't actually need to say how he's feeling all the time. And that's also presumably why Kojima wanted a real actor for the role.

I wonder if Adam Scott has anything to do with the game, as he was the guy who announced the Phantom Pain trailer.

Is it a Parks and Rec spinoff?

That's an interesting theory, but I kinda doubt it. Troy Baker doesn't always voice the character you play as, and he happens to be pretty good at sounding like a 40 year old Revolver Ocelot.

I've always thought that dude should play Snake if MGS ever got made into a movie, which it apparently is.

I highly doubt it. Big Boss became a god to the fans and if there's one thing Kojima likes it's the adoration of his fans, which explains his narcissistic personality. Personally, I would have left the character alone after MGS3. I feel MGS5 should have been a sequel to 4, with a new main character.

@ezekiel: He could just do an entirely new IP at that point. There's no point in making a game post-MGS4 unless you really want to milk the series.

In before "duuuuh haven't they already been milking da series?!!!!". No. The stuff post-MGS3 pre-MG1 is intriguing and important. If they start doing post-MGS4 stuff you end up with tacked-on crap like Revengeance.

I disagree. Peace Walker was lame and didn't add much to the story. We could already infer why Big Boss turned on his country from the ending of MGS3 and the list of events before the credits. Peace Walker was filler. The connections the prequels made, such as Big Boss knowing Otacon's father and Metal Gears existing twenty years before the Outer Heaven incident, are ridiculous. It lessened the significance of Metal Gear as a revolutionary new weapon. The futuristic AI, including that of The Boss, was also ridiculous for the setting. MGSV appears to continue that trend. It's boring knowing what's ahead (MG1 and 2). Big Boss isn't as likable as Snake, because Kojima tried to make him like Snake, down to the same lines and voice. If he should sound like anyone, it would be his perfect clone Solidus.

I wanted to play as an original character against futuristic soldiers and robots. MGS4 had the Shadow Moses level, but the robots weren't that great. Kojima had the opportunity to improve them in a sequel. In a sequel, the story wouldn't have been as restricted by set events and there could have been more surprises. The Patriots are gone, but that doesn't mean the world is at peace. There will be a lot of disorder as the people try to govern themselves. That would have been an opportunity for a world conflict or terrorism.

He's not going to make any more Metal Gears anyway, since he's leaving Konami at the end of the year.

I think what Kojima has said about the game and the reasons for why he made those changes are uninspiring and disappointing enough that I believe them. He wanted to have Big Boss emote more through facial animations than dialogue, so he got an actor to do it and rudely told someone to meet with Hayter to say "You're done." Kojima's love for Hollywood is known.

He wanted to make an open-world game and looked (like so many other developers these days) to games like Skyrim and other successful open world-games to design the game around. Open world games are the shit right now. This resulted in a more silent protagonist, you're gonna be doing a lot of running in large areas. Collecting shit, farming for Outer Heaven resources and doing a lot of backtracking (now the mission is at night!).

There will be less cinematic's, less voice acting from Snake, less of everything, and the game will be designed around player initiative a lot more. There are no more codec screens. There is "detective vision." The game will go in slow motion when a guard sees you and you can shoot or take down the guard during this window.

Whatever people think is going to happen, it will probably not. Since this is Kojima after all. However, the game we've been seeing and the design choices behind everything we have seen so far support the silent snake and less voice acting info to a tee. This is going to be an open world game and all the baggage that comes with an open world game is not what we usually expect from an MGS game. But that is what this game is going to be, better face the reality sooner than later.

I am curious, but I'm not looking forward to The Phantom Pain. And that bums me out.

Three quarters through the game a 10 year old Solid Snake shows up, still voiced by David Hayter. Play the rest of the game as Solid Snake child soldier.

Metal Gear has always primarily been about the characters, and only contingently about the setting. The "war economy" setting of MGS4 was only there as a back drop for what happens to Solid Snake & Friends. The soviet invasion of Afghanistan is only there to flavour MGSV. It's not the central concern. The environment has always seemed like an afterthought. I don't care about what happens after 2014 in the Metal Gear universe. Snake is presumably dead not long after MGS4, Ocelot is gone so there really isn't any big-baddies left, and Raiden was implied to have made up with his family (and un-cyborg-ified). But of course Revengeance throws all that progression out of the window for the sake up saving a gaming project that was failing. In retrospect MGS3 was unnecessary too, but now that it's here the gaps have to be filled in. And I really don't think there's enough in MGS3 to justify Big Boss making an entire country for soldiers as he did in MG2. And now that there has been an entire game dedicated to Big Boss already, we might as well see his side of the story through to it's conclusion.

I don't think anything post-MGS4 is as necessary as anything pre-MGS3 either. Like those people that want a game starring The Boss. There's nothing to tell. If you want to play as an original character against futuristic soldiers and robots, there are a lot of other games out there for that. And most of them seem to do story telling in a way that people actually like at first glance.

@cfilipec: I'm sure it will be a terrific game without any sort of twist like that, but it would be more interesting if there were something.
If there has to be some sort of twist, my money is on the game taking place in a training program or something, what with the absolutely not at all period appropriate holographic UI of the iDroid. MGS has never been absolutely grounded in reality but having something like that in the 70's requires far more suspension of disbelief than I recall any other game in the series needing.

@kasaioni:

Yeah but it's not often about detecting how someone feels through voice. Also they portrayed facial emotion fine before mo-cap.

When playing Ground Zeroes it definitely detracted from the experience that Big Bosses' voice did not sound like the character I'd come to know and love. It didn't sound suitably gruff in my ears.

They also gave him next to no dialogue. I'm being crazy paranoid but I literally think it's because they don't want to highlight the 'wrong voice' as such too much.

@dudeglove: Jimmies were rustled. Congratulations.

@alkusanagi said:

That'd be so rad! It's so weird that the MGS games reference that story heavily, but the only easy way to experience that story is through wiki articles.

No dice. People say all this nonsense but in Japan it is the same voice actor Snake has always had and he has the same reduced amount of Dialog. There are tons of scenes out there in videos if you search showing you from Big Boss's perspective in tons of different areas and story beats.

If there is a "gotcha!" character switch I imagine it will be a short story segment thing, or happen at least 50% of the way through the game and you will eventually return to Big Boss either way.

I'm kind of amazed everyone still thinks there is a big conspiracy about the fact that Big Boss doesn't talk a lot. Kojima has stated multiple times, even within video interviews, that he wanted BB to be far more silent this time, instead expressing with his face his emotions far more. This is why they invested so much into facial capture, and also ties into Kojima wanting this to have significantly less cutscenes/dialogue than the other games, so that it is much more for a punctual, gameplay driven experience. Nothing more, nothing less.

I still wouldn't be surprised if Hayter is in a post-credits scene as Snake though.

@pierre42: I can see where you're coming from. But I do think it's one of those situations where Kojima just wanted to do this because he wanted to do this. That he wanted actors that would be more cinematic for the game. I think another one of the reasons was that he thought David Hayter's voice wouldn't fit the tone of the game as well as before, but don't cite me on that one.

Keep in mind that, as much as Big Boss won't be talking, so won't the Japanese voice actor (Akio). In that sense it seems his reason for changing the voice are likely story of thematically centered. He changed the voice to match the story, not the other way around. But no one has to accept that yet, and can better judge the decision when the game comes out.

And if Kojima is changing dialogue for the sake of the voice actor's voice, then people who say that Kojima doesn't care about Big Boss's voice actors have to carry that judgement to Big Boss's English and Japanese voice actors.

I think this is correct. If Kojima's team truly wanted to pull another Raiden-esque bait-and-switch on the players, the "voice actors amounting to a clue" thing would have to be pursued with the Japanese cast as well. I think it is just a matter of them wanting a high-profile actor, to further increase the cinematic allure of the game.

I totally get that people are upset over it though, and want it to be something more meaningful than that. Snake is an iconic character, and Hayter did a fantastic job giving him an iconic English voice as well. Personally, I'm thankful I get to play the Japanese version and simply hear good ol' Ôtsuka Akio pulling off that deep growl. If he had been switched out, I would have been pissed as well.

@kasaioni:

Oh no I don't subscribe to the "no Hayter means he's voicing young Solid Snake theory"

I just think Kojima made a mistake with Sutherland, as he doesn't sound good enough for me. This one might be really dark but Peace Walker was going that way and I have every reason to believe Hayter's voice would have fit.

I don't know much about Otsuka Akio though, does he have acting experience to justify this whole mo-cap face nonsense? Wikipedia doesn't seem to think so. At least nothing compared to Hayter's acting career.

absolutely not. I'm gonna say, 100%.

God I hope so because fuck Big Boss.

Umm ok sure? I'm not disagreeing, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.

TC was wondering if there's a connection between less Snake and more Ocelot, with main protagonists usually getting a ton of dialogue. Kojima's explanation is why we're supposed to expect less Snake dialogue, so it doesn't mean we'll be playing as Ocelot just because that guy will talk more.

And I'm just bummed that Hideo went that route, but we'll see how the final product pans out.

The thing is, most of both Snakes' dialogue has been through the codec. With the transition to a one-way radio (as seen in Ground Zeroes), this would explain why he's not going to be talking much. I can't speak for cutscenes, maybe he really won't talk much during those either, but yeah we'll see how it is when it's released.

In some of the scenes shown in trailers it does look kinda awkward when Big Boss doesn't answer people or talk back. Sure I get that Kojima wanted to make him more of silent protagonist but it can look pretty stupid in some cases.

@cirdain said:

I'm pretty sure you'll play as this kid (possible child soilder) and he'll be killed. I think he's been shown in the trailers too.

My theory is that this is in fact Solid Snake, and that you'll play as him for some parts of the game. Snake would be in his pre-teens during the events of the game and the change in skin-tone could be attributed to nanomachines, a cloning side-effect or some other Kojima-crap.

I do like the "play as Ocelot" theory as well. Whatever the case, I'm sure that we're not being shown the full picture just yet.

I have to agree with @kasaioniabout the Japanese voice actor part. Though, does that mean they mo-capped both the English actors and the Japanese?

I thought if he would pull anything it would just be that Sutherland was just a ruse and that Hayter had voiced him all along. But the tone of everything I have seen so far does sway me towards Sutherland being a good fit.

@cirdain: That wouldn't surprise me if a "child soldier" was a big part of the story - the only reason I think it is unlikely that you'll play as a child soldier is that Konami would be releasing a video game...where you are a CHILD SOLDIER

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the kid in the screenshots you posted is Drebin who mentions that he was once a child soldier, or if indeed Raiden pops up as a child soldier somewhere too

@wackojackman: Akio's voice work is dubbed onto Sutherland's face mo-cap. Which is funny because in MGS3, the English voices were being dubbed onto Japanese lip-sync. What a complete switch. Although I do think that lip movements will be different to fit each language.