Metal Gear 1 and 2 are old games and not many people including fans of the series actually got to play them. Kojima considers them canon, though and attempts to weave in the story of the old games into the big picture.

What if Phantom Pain not only leads to but actually goes into the events of those games but from the perspective of Venom Snake who we are meant to believe to be Big Boss?

There are numerous theories out there saying that Venom Snake is not Big Boss but instead Grey Fox, another clone or someone else tricked into thinking that he is actually Big Boss.

Kojima loves his protagonists making huge sacrifices in the end of the games, what if we play as the evil "Big Boss" from MG1 and MG2 and are supposed to die in the end having found out that the real Big Boss will live on hidden to reappear in MGS4?

That sounds like the worst thing they could do in this game.

I still think that MGSV will end with a part credits scene of Solid Snake sneaking up on the Outer Heaven you spent all of the game building up.

This what I think I want too, that or something Kojima crazy that I can't possibly anticipate.

That would be pretty boring if this game is a veiled Metal Gear 1 remake. A reference to those events towards the end? Sure. But I don't want the game to be about that at all, I want this to be about Big Boss on the front foot. That being said I don't think it is out of the question having a young Solid Snake show up. Maybe Diamond Dogs Daycare will have a lil baby Solid and Liquid to take care of chao garden style.

That would be an interesting "Say whaaat" if the last mission of the game or the last third or something was actually Metal Gear from another perspective. I've never played either of the originals though so I have no idea whether it would suck.

I'd almost prefer if it references future events without making a big deal of it.

"Snake, we found a new mercenary to help us on the mission. He calls himself Machinegun Kid. Dirty Duck has worked with him in the past, and he's also trying to recruit a former partner named Jungle Evil."

And then we can move on with our lives.

I've never played the original MG1 and 2 so I don't know how deep they go story wise. But if Kojima can put them into MGSV without doing any crazy story edits, I'd be ok with that. I'll probably never go back to those two games. I'd rather read their stories on a wiki. So yes, that would be pretty cool.

Considering this is an open world style game and you'll be building mother base over time like you did in Peace Walker, the end will probably stay in the 80's so that you can continue to do stuff after the story. The multiplayer probably necessitates the need for you to continue building your base.
I predict a nod to a character or two from those games at least though.

I think a lot of the people looking for the "Venom Snake is not Big Boss" twist are just trying to predict another MGS2 scenario at the cost of the point of TPP's story. Its supposed to be about a legendary hero's fall from grace, not how he was body switched and then whatever else that theory is.

The Mother Base they've shown in prelease footage is an oil-tanker/Big Shell looking structure similar to the Mother Base from PW, while Outer Heaven was a military base in South Africa. Everything we've been shown of TPP takes place in an arid environment, Afghanistan, which is pretty far from South Africa assuming no more MGS4 type globe trotting.

I hope we get a post credit scene with Big Boss briefing Solid Snake but I can't image they would build the entirety of Outer Heaven, a linear level in an open world game. Also if Big Boss were in charge of Outer Heaven, what would he be infiltrating against?

Too bad that Metal Gear Fan-remake was shut down.

Well, haven't we seen the African Jungle environment? Who knows where exactly in Africa this takes place.

If that happens then the series will come full circle and I'll be happy not buying any Kojima-less MGS games.

I just know that something crazy is going to happen, and that because of that, I'll have to avoid any gaming websites for 2 weeks for the PC release. I wonder why they have yet to allow pre-orders on Steam. It's seriously the only game this year, along with Persona 5, that I'm willing to put money down on before release.

This is an interesting question, but I think it's improtant to remember that early-on in this game's PR cycle Kojima had said he was willing to contradict what had happened in previous Metal Gear games. I think that he was referring to the original Metal Gear and more specifically the boss in that game that was called, Dirty Duck. Dirty Duck utilized boomerangs to attack Snake behind three hostages, (I wish I could say that I remembered this from playing Metal Gear, but I looked at the Metal Gear wikia.) To me it seems that this Dirty Duck could easily be replaced by Revolver Ocelot, seeing as how a boomerang attack could be translated to a ricocheted bullet attack. I know this is pretty specific and a huge leap in logic, but this is Metal Gear after all...

I've spent a little more time looking at the Metal Gear wikia, seems like, "Shotmaker," might be the Ocelot replacement, or rather, who is replaced by Ocelot...

Kojima has gone to great lengths before to hide huge things, and while it's wrong to expect anything knowing Kojima's body of work, I think something big might be up under the sleeves of Phantom Pain. For all the stuff we've seen of PP, we sort of haven't...seen,..anything of it? I think a lot of that game is under the rug right now.

I agree. Think about the MGS1 level in MGS4 and how many areas of the game we've seen pre release.

What if the last boss is Solid Snake? And of course you can't win.

@rigas: There's a sick part of me that hopes it ends in a beyond-MGS2 style and the post-credits scene is Kurt Russel as Snake Plissken waking up and remarking "What a weird dream. Gas mask wearing psychics, vampires, a BEE MAN!? What the Hell did I eat last night?" Cue MGS3 "duh-duh-duh-duuuuuuuuuuh" stinger. End.

@locorocker: Keep in mind though, the areas in TPP are (as he claims) supposed to be extremely large. And this game is also coming out on PS3 and freaking 360. If these areas are as large as he claims, then I don't think we'll get much more areas than have been revealed already. Unless the 360 version comes on multiple discs or something; which no was mentioned.

Near the end of one of the trailers we see Snake get off a jeep and we see a Metal Gear Rex in the background....or am I wrong? Maybe he's gone evil at that point and it's his new weapon to take on the world? AKA Metal Gear 1. PAN TO DAVID HAITER!!!! HAI THAR I AM BACK. KEPT U WAITING UH?

@basketsnake: It's not Metal Gear REX, but it does look like a model that will eventually lead to Metal Gear REX (which leads me to believe that Kojima was willing to retcon out Metal Gear TX-55 and Metal Gear D from the MSX games). But Big Boss's army has already built a Metal Gear (Metal Gear ZEKE) in Peace Walker. So this is just another Metal Gear they're building I guess.

The killing of Kojima Productions and general konami shittiness really makes me worry for the post-launch support of this game. What a shame.

True, I really hope Konami doesn't end up releasing an unpolished game to save money on debugging

@nilazz: That would be a really cool way of having everything come full circle. I'm sure we will see solid snake in one way or another, since we already got Liquid in there.

Shirtless fist fight on top of Outerheaven between Big Boss and Solid Snake.

What if the last part of the game is just a MG remake and you play as Solid