from the very start? As soon as that avatar selector came up I knew everything was not what it seemed. Following that throughout the game I began to think about if mattered where its was Big Boss or not and soon began to realize it's the symbol not the man that mattered. All that crap with Ismael and whether he was even there or in your head it all began to piece together and people not quite recognizing Big Boss. As long as his legacy lived on that's all that mattered. Whether this is what Kojima totally intended is another thing all together. Maybe I'm simplifying things too much but the way the game started got me hell bent on that idea and nothing else.

By the end I wasn't in the least bit surprised I was just like "yep ok here we are back in the hospital" The only thing that got me was my actual name was on the back of those photos and I honestly can't remember if I actually told the game my name or if it was somehow pulling from Xbox Account. One other slightly odd thing I picked a black avatar but pre-surgery my arm was still white....

Yeah I knew when he said "I'm you" and had your voice, Quiet before that says something like "the other one saw me" meaning she ins't her for you that put me on edge, then Ocelot said something along the lines of "I came back for the Boss , now lets go" basically telling you to come on but not calling you the boss.

There's a ton of hints dropped that things aren't what they seem, from Ishmael's voice and dialog to the fact that you can see the reflection of your avatar in the ACC's window. Actually, quite a few people guessed that you played as the Ground Zeroes medic all the way back to the reveal trailers in 2012.

The avatar creator really gave it away for me, maybe not down to the exact details, but the minute it was like 'create a character!' I went "well you aren't Boss I guess."

But you are!

Hm, can't find it now, but someone made the prediction like... I think before even Ground Zeroes came out.

For just a minute I put my head in my hands and went 'wh... what did I get wrong? But I th-ooooohhhh' haha, yeah, I guess you're right.

It's a flimsy thing, for sure. My own brain spoiled it for me about 20-30 hours before I actually finished the game. I saw someone refer to "Big Boss" as "Venom", and remembered the iDroid lady saying "V has come to", and I started considering it as a literal name instead of just a title, and it all sort of clicked in my mind all at once. Sorta that weird feeling you get when you see something like that and go "I can't put it into words right now, but subconsciously I know every exact detail right this second".

I didn't put it together right off the start, but I figured it out when I got to the flashback bits with Paz (which are apparently optional, and you might never see them if you don't explore the MB medical deck??). The way the scene was shot was bizarre in a way that made it seem like Big Boss was a separate person, like there were two Bosses in the helicopter and you're only following the perspective of one of them. That made me think back to the intro, like the character creator, and then back to Ishmael - specifically how you never see his face, how he disappears after the intro, and how he knew better than your character how to do stealth and infiltration.

That was the point where I went from just thinking there might be some sort of twist to really strongly suspecting that you're playing as a different person entirely.

Fun fact: every question on the Internet the starts with "Am I the only one who" should be treated rhetorically.

I rarely try to puzzle out twists before they're revealed. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to playing a game for 80 hours.

People predicted it years ago, dude

Drew literally guessed the twist not even 5 fucking minutes in. That was hilarious

I turned off the "trying to predict what will happen" part of my thinking and just had fun going along for the ride. Especially with Metal Gear, I just sit back and have fun with whatever happens. There's clearly something off from the start and a few moments (the biggest was the AI pod calling you out as not really Snake).

But for me at least when I made the avatar I was thinking overall that it was probably for multiplayer and they just start you off with everything from there. Like I said I don't like to worry so much about twists and if I guess it right away that doesn't mean the twist was bad either. There was a lot of cool elements around it in the story.

There's a ton of hints and similar identity issues all over for it to be really enjoyable to watch again (I like the D-Dog being a wolf or a dog debate). And lots of hints from the other characters.

True...but puzzling out the twists keeps some of us going for that long!

@frostyryan wow you really are frosty :P

So can anyone explain to me why you would think you were even playing as Big Boss from the start seeing as he doesn't have A) A giant metal horn sticking out of his head B) a bionic arm (from what I remember) and C) severally less face scarring than Venom Snake.

All of that more then anything lead me to believe we weren't playing as Big Boss.

I saw plenty of the speculation about the medic when only Ground Zeroes was out, and figured that the medic was some guy keeping watch by Big Boss's side, and that the avatar creation stuff was something for MGO. I figured it was a possibility in the back of my mind since it was brought up a lot, but never thought much about it until mission 46 said "Starring Big Boss".

I figured it was retconning, which it still is even with the revelation. Solid Snake still fights Venom in MG1, with the bionic arm, horn, and all, unless someone is convinced that he got surgery through the duration of MG1.

@fugoy: I liked how he spun it into you being an imposter who's trying to pull a fast one on ocelot & miller though. :)

@terin: At that end sequence they seem to show Venom right before his death at the end of MG1 and he has the horn so yeah. That isn't explained or shown in a way that makes sense.

Which is fine to me. Metal Gear can be sloppy connecting some dots and all which is part of why I have my "lets see what happens" attitude vs trying to predict things.

Let's not forget the AI when you go to get Huey. She says something like "Snake? You're not Snake.... Are you?" But definitely having the beginning introduce a character way more skilled than you, with the same voice, say "You're talking to yourself" was a big giveaway.

The thing that did it for me was Mission 12 when Venom meets the mammal pod. The pod doesn't recognize him as Jack.

Surely you're not, even Drew's on the right track in his thought process.

I didn't see it coming until Drew brought it up because I'm blind, kinda wish I hadn't seen that first Metal Gear Scanlon V until I had finished the game

Beat it yesterday, after 105 hours (I like taking my time and being sneaky), and I actually did not see it coming. Not fully. I knew something was wrong with the intro, but I though it might be the horn making him hallucinate bits of it. So I went into Mission 46 with the expectation to see how he actually pulled all of that off himself. So to me it was actually a pretty damn good twist, one I now see that I should have seen coming for a long time.

I too try to not overly analyze these things before actually reaching a conclusion. I love twists, and it's not as fun when you figure them out long before they happen. Anyway, I loved the ending, mostly because of the reveal surprising me.

When it came out that Eli's blood didn't match Venom's, I thought Kojima had made it so Liquid had actually been lying the whole time. But I do that sort of thing a lot!

Nah man, Quiet is there for you. She thinks that Venom is Big Boss. That's the entire point of the ruse.

@berserker976: That is not how I see that scene. She radios and says "not yet, the patient in the other bed saw my face. Of course, consider it done" I took that as skull face telling her to kill you as well. We were the only ones who saw her face and on the left side the curtain would've blocked Boss's view.

I'm always interested in outlandish Metal Gear theories, but I'm afraid this one is very easily disproved. If her target is the guy with the bandaged face that looks nothing like Big Boss, why does she ignore him and focus on killing you, even after he attacks her? If her main priority was to kill Ishmael you'd think she'd be more concerned with killing him than the crippled nobody that saw her face.

But mainly, it doesn't make sense because Quiet was sent to kill Big Boss by XOF, which means Skull Face, and Skull Face thinks Venom is the real Big Boss.

For me the twist felt too obvious to the point where I felt like it was trying to lead you into thinking you were playing as Big Boss' double and was expecting some crazy shit at the end which never came. I ended up slightly disappointed with the story but I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game.

@berserker976: Hey I'm not saying it makes sense I'm saying that's exactly what she says and no one but you saw her face. She was there to kill him and you saw her face after that fact you had to also die. She's clearly trying to kill both of you and she disables him and then starts to strangles you . After the hospital maybe they did think it really was Big Boss in Afghanistan or maybe Quiet never mentions you as the second one. She can easily blame you for what happened to her you don't have to be BB for her to want revenge and she definitely can't find him but you she knows were you are.

The point is what she says can only mean she knows you're not the big boss, or it's a mistake by Kojima.

They were kinda lazy with the skin models.
the biker jacket has the hands of a white man. The ninja costume still has the face of a white man.

(yeah I know who the ninja is but the game still lets you play as your created character-not as Frank)

Seeing as people guessed the twist right when the first trailers were coming out, no, you weren't the only person who saw it coming.

@junkboy0: I think you're just misunderstanding the scene a bit. Ishmael is on the hospital bed next to yours. He's the one that she's referring to, not you.

A spoiler gave it away for me, but It was always a possibility but it wasn't telegraphed IMO. With pyscho mantis and all the weird reality perception things going on, it could have easily been him hallucinating. I was thinking that it could have been a metaphor for his decent into darkness as well, where he kinda got a split personality where he goes from hero to villan. I thought the avatar was for multiplayer, and that's how i got spoiled with a simple "Can you use your avatar in multiplayer search" I didn't think anything of it honestly, and even after i got spoiled i hoped the whole time the guy didn't know wtf he was talking about lol.

@flameboy84: No you're clearly not the only person to see it coming considering that Drew called it 5 minutes into the very first episode of MG Scanlon V

The part where Eli tests negative for the DNA test kinda seems like a giveaway.

The combination with all the beginning stuff and the fact that when you are at the character select screen you are just A++ on everything. Big boss is supposed to be the ultimate soldier isn't he? There are people that you can select that have better ratings than you. Not even sure if that was supposed to be a tip off though.

Yea that was amazing, lol.

I never think much about the story, I'm just 'OK, Kojima, whatever you want, man'. And that way I'm enjoying it as well.

@jbuds: In Peace Walker you get soldiers later on that are better than Big Boss in every stat.

You're not, tons of people realized this before the game even came out...that's kinda one of the problems with the ending.

Re-played GZ's yesterday, and i swear keifer does the medics voice in that too....

Yeah I could tell from the start as well. A combination of the avatar creator, what the doctor tells you, the fact that Ishmael's face is covered in bandages (what is he hiding) and his sneaking skills in that prologue!