Only a few days now until The Phantom Pain comes out and I believe the world will change.

Maybe it's the wait that makes you crazy, but I started seeing patterns and threads connecting all sorts of events with Kojima and Konami leading up to the release. Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize the end of an era for Konami, whom I adore as being one of the kings of the arcade... or maybe there's something to it?

Read on!

Kiefer Sutherland

I recently re-watched "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" starring Donald Sutherland. That movie is without a doubt one of Kojima's favorite as he's basically made a game about it with Terminators and one of the unlockable missions in Ground Zeroes is literally about taking out Body Snatchers.

Is the presence of Kiefer Sutherland merely because Kojima is pursuing a lifelong dream to work with an actor related to one of his favorite movies, or is it a clue... That the Big Boss you play as in Ground Zeroes isn't the real Big Boss?

In the video introducing Kiefer, he never explicitly state himself that he is playing Big Boss.

The Medic

For some reason they really went out of their way to obscure the Medic's face throughout this whole cut scene. When he speaks, you can easily make out that it's Kiefer Sutherland pitched down a bit.

The sequence ends with the medic taking the brunt of the explosion and having his face burned. Will he turn out to be important for the story?

The Doctor

The doctor at the end of the trailer bears a striking resemblance to a Dr. Sergio Canavero who has been been brought to the attention of media across the world, because he's planning to perform the worlds first head transplant on something called "Project Heaven".

I won't go in to all the details here, but there's a thread on NeoGaf about the similarities between this "real world" doctor and the one in Metal Gear.

At the start of the marketing campaign for The Phantom Pain, Kojima himself also had his head "replaced" as part of the whole Joakim Mogren ruse.

Of course, Dr. Sergio Canavero denies having anything to do with Metal Gear and Kojima, but what if it is a trick?

Kojima's magnum opus would without a doubt be to trick the world and showing us how information can be manipulated and skewered through modern media in the current, socially connected world. If every news outlet could fall for the story about head transplants, then what other stories could he have brewed up?

"Truth" is a concept that springs from facts as much as opinion. As long as enough people share the same opinion, it will ultimately be deemed as being the truth.

Konami

Konami's been making big waves in gaming news, ever since Kojima's name was scrubbed from the game cases, he's evidently been removed from the board of directors, P.T. was taken down and Silent Hills was cancelled.

A lot of bad news about their work ethics have since surfaced, which it turn has turned out to be not so bad by Japanese standards and even odder is the fact that Jim Sterling has some alleged contacts inside Konami who says the Nikkei article is false.

It seems like they pulled a lot of bad stunts, which might be why they removed themselves from the stock exchange back in April, but is this because they're actually restructuring Konami to be some kind of Yakuza front, or is it because they are protecting their stock until The Phantom Pain comes out and shows that it is all another Kojima trick?

P.T.

The critically acclaimed horror demo for Silent Hills starring Norman Reedus seems to have mysteriously vanished as Silent Hills was cancelled. It seemed like another, elaborate, scheme for Konami to purge Kojima's name from their company, but there's a few questions left:

What does P.T. stand for? They told us on stage during the presentation that it stands for "Playable Teaser, of course", but I don't think that it says than in writing in any of the game's related material.

Why does the letters PT along with a symbol for fear appear in the latest Gameplay Demo for The Phantom Pain?

Sunset Riders

As fans of the Game Room on Xbox Live will tell you, Game Room can be launched today and you'd still see trailers for this classic Konami arcade game, without any option to buy it... could this be another clue?

Let's look how these two games stack up

Could the Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain in reality be a secret Sunset Riders sequel??

All these questions will hopefully be answered when The Phantom Pain comes out.