Ok so I've finished MGSV.

Chicos absence has really peaked my interest, but it appears the rest of internet is less interested, because I could'n't find anything of note. I can't find anything cohesive about his 'Chest Jack', presumably something to do with parasites.?

His apparent death seems a bit too easy, and he is practically written out of The Phantom Pain. Does anyone have any good theories worth sharing?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere, I did reasonable due diligence.

I'm with you that I don't get the absence. There's not really anything to go off of so the conversation kind of stalls out there though. I mean, there is already a lot going on and Chico didn't really tie into any of that.

The only talk about the chest jack I heard was Dan mentioning he asked Kojima about it when he was at Game Informer and Kojima said it was taped to Chico's chest or some dumb answer. I guess Chico just didn't factor into the story and Kojima didn't care enough to send him off in any way. Didn't seem like there was really any thinking about the chest jack thing either, but who knows if we should even take that answer that seriously. I would not be surprised if it was just a cool visual thing and that didn't go anywhere so that's all it ended up being. Ultimately it wasn't in TPP.

Thinking on it myself, they could have done something with Chico in the whole Paz side story in this game. That would have made sense given that bone fragment connection and all that they are drawing from with Paz.

My head cannon isn't as strong for Phantom Pain as the rest of the series, but as I understand it the headphone jack in Chico's chest remains unexplained. Perhaps simply a bizarre part of Skullface's torture?

Also I'm under the impression the lil guy was flat out blown up in the explosion and that those bone and teeth fragments inside V are what remains of him.

I think you might need to play Ground Zeros :)

I'm gonna assume finished means completed Mission 46.

I don't see his death as that convenient. Miller is the only one who got out of that helicopter crash relatively okay, Big Boss and Venom Snake were in a coma for 9 years and then the other MSF soldier in the chopper died. He wasn't written out...he died...he was never that important of a character in the grand scheme of things, not compared to Paz. I thought Skull Face found out about the parasites after Ground Zeroes but apparently it was before so yeah, he might have using Chico as a guinea pig for something.

Yeah I get the current explanation, just seems like he got short shrift, and every other character in the series generally gets more than one line of recognition. Maybe Kojima felt his GZ cameo was enough, maybe he felt it would be hard to deal with a child character that had been through so much? Something just feels off though, maybe left deliberately open for further expansion or maybe just left open for idle speculation like this :)

@dudeglove: yeah Chico goes down with the chopper and does not make it out. There's a tape that talks about it. Venom says he ultimately knew the risks but he hoped Chico didn't die for nothing and his role in PW would be remembered.

Wasn't there a tape where Miller talked about having to tell Amanda that Chico died in the helicopter crash? Or am I just crazy and am misremembering things?

@friendlyphoenix: you're remembering correctly. "What Happend to Old Mother Base Members" -- > "Chico and Amanda"

Yep, apparently no one else heard that tape because that's exactly what happened.

@dudeglove: I didn't remember Huey's death til you mentioned it. Now I remember it.

Yeah, that's pretty horrible!

He was already just a plot device in GZ, so it never bothered me all that much past the initial reveal that he unceremoniously died off-screen. I'm sad that Amanda and Cecile didn't show up, despite them being apparently alive still. Cecile didn't even get a mention, so looks like poor ol' Miller never made it to the bone-zone :(

@dudeglove: Reminder that Big Boss, Venom and Miller are all adults with years of combat experience under there belts, whereas Chico is an unexperienced kid who was emotionally and physically broken after weeks (or more, I don't remember) of torture, and also he had bolts in his ankles to cripple his movement so he couldn't keep himself afloat even if he managed to not die in the impact of the crash. Also Chico is a nothing character anyway so he didn't have the Plot Convenience Gods looking out for him.

@csl316: I like that they gave Ocelot a "What goes around comes around"-esque line in the exile scene, because if you know how he Huey ends up, it turns the whole "We're letting him off easy here" concept on its head.

@teddie: Would you really want Amanda in the game compared to where she ends up, having liberated Nicaragua and basically won Metal Gear.

Guys, Chico is dead. Get over it. He's not coming back. Let it go.

@blackout62: I mean she did all that before PP if the tapes are any indication so... I dunno? Cameo would've been nice, but then MGS4 this is not.

It felt like they got lazy with the character, and gave him a completely unsatisfying end which is a shame since they could've done some really interesting stuff with him.

Chico became Quiet. It's like you guys didn't even read the pages of conspiracy theories from before the game's launch.

Ha! I remember that, so dumb.

chopper crash was serious enough to kill him, that's good enough explanation for me.

Dead as a can of spam, being a chopper crash does that.

Chico's whole story really felt like it was going to go somewhere (weird headphone jack thing, his sellout of Big Boss/Mother Base, Amanda's revolutionary success) and I really feel like it was cut early in development, hence the quick wrap up in a tape. His story could have easily fit into Huey's, wherein they discover (after giving Huey the boot, probably) that it was actually Chico who leaked an assload of information about Mother Base, its resources, and troop placements, on top of Huey's general scumbag tactics.

Not that I'm overly disappointed, but I just get that vibe. Could be wrong, as not everything has to be cut content, after all.

This is what I'm leaning towards to, because of the headphone jack most of all. In a game where they gave us forty minutes of explaining WOLBACHIA and MALE TO FEMALE PARASITES, not explaining the fucking headphone jack in a 12 year old's chest stands out as odd. I really have to imagine they were going to explain or at least expand upon it in a later part of Phantom Pain that got cut.

@TechnoSyndrome:Naw, ol' Skully just gave that hole in his chest to Chico so he wouldn't trip over the cable when it wasn't plugged in! He's really a swell guy once you get to know him.

@mirado: I actually forgot Chico spilled MSF's secrets in GZ, which makes me wonder how much Huey actually did have to do with that stuff. Then again I think the point of that character was to make you hate him until you read a little deeper and see how it might just be wrong place/wrong time kinda stuff. That doesn't mean i don't think he doesn't deserve "Biggest Video Game Asshole 2015" or anything, though.

@TechnoSyndrome said:

Yeah, the split between what they decided to really lean into and what they glossed over or decided not to finish can be really strange. Eli fucks off with a giant nuke robot? No resolution. All of those battle gear scenes for something that amounts to filling a checkbox in the deployment screen? Ehh, just leave 'em in.

Oh no, Huey absolutely wins the "Character we WOULDN'T want to party with" award for 2015, regardless of how much blood he actually has on his hands. It's totally possible that at least some of what went on (specifically the Mother Base invasion; my current guess is that Chico told Skull Face where to go and how to get close enough to plant C4 without being detected, but that Huey cleared the choppers request to land) isn't solely Huey's fault, but I think the Strangelove stuff was pretty clear cut, and the parasite mutating radiation leak was highly suspicious as well. He never, ever gave a straight answer, either ("She committed suicide!" "Skull Face killed her!" "I couldn't open the door from the outside to save her!" "I discovered she was dead by opening the door!" "I don't have a son!" "Strangelove took my son!"), which obviously doesn't help anything.

Nah, Huey deserved his morbid pool death. Mostly.

haha, I was wondering how long that would take.

Well I guess chest jack will remain a mystery for now, and we'll just have to assume little chic'ers got atomized in the explosion, his bone fragments and teeth getting implanted in V...eek.

I really thought that the hole in Chico's chest was just simply a way of coping with being tortured and imprisoned. Skull Face took away his Cassette Player, the only thing that brought him solace in those hard times. He probably picked at an injury until the headphone jack fit in, making it seem like he had his cassette player back. It's a coping mechanism during times of extreme stress.

Yeah, I initially just thought he was listening to his own heart for comfort, I'm not sure if that would work, and I'm sure as fudge not going to try and find out.

@dudeglove: He died in the crash along with Morpho and his co pilot

Chico was rescued by the Decepticons, who used his conciousness to build Soundwave before his body was ground up by Coffee-Grindo-Tron to provide biofuel for whatever other stupid thing you shouldn't waste your time worrying about.

I found it really weird how Chico and Amanda were basically written out of the story in this as well. I mean, coming off of MGS4 where literally every single character in the history of the franchise came back and got a bunch of screen time, it seems strange that they weren't a bigger part of this story. Personally, I thought that TPP would involve Amanda a great deal. Wouldn't she arguably be even more motivated than Big Boss for vengeance against Skull Face -- the man who captured, tortured, and subsequently murdered her brother? It seems really weird that she doesn't participate in the quest for revenge.

Thank you for freeing me from frivolous exchange, now I must return to the mines, breed and await death.

And consume. Don't forget to consume.

He was in the early stages of parasite incubation, and i agree him dying in the crash that simply while makes sense just felt like a cop-out. Him and Paz are nothing but plot devices to the show off kojimas "war is hell" theme with the child torture.