So one thing I have enjoyed doing watching metal gear scanlon is noticing the multiple hints and foreshadowing of the ending in the game. There are the obvious ones of quiets actions in the beginning of the game and how you can see your reflection in your helicopter (how do you get that to work by the way trying to get my friend who like me was always more into the crazy anime metal gear story than gameplay by showing him that but can't seem to get it to work) but less obvious ones like everyone talking about other people being standins in the story. A couple interesting ones are collected here (along with some interesting thoughts on the ending - http://www.pcgamer.com/why-mgs5s-ending-is-one-perfect-moment-in-a-bad-story/) but I thought it might be fun to make a list of all the hints throughout the campaign. As time allows I plan to go back through and rewatch/skim the metal gear scanlon fives looking for them, but any you find post here and I'll edit this post to include a running list. Good or bad this was a planned twist I think that was foreshadowed throughout the story.

Foreshadowing of ending

1. Eli not being your son (was he supposed to be big bosses son)?

2. Emmerich calling you Jack but then saying no you are not him (good one!)

3. Ocelot being given two jobs

4. Paz subplot and first flashback with Paz (two big bosses)

5. Ishmael saying you are talking to yourself when asked who he is (oh wow that one is perfect!)

6. Cover of man who sold the world being used (perhaps the most clever foreshadowing)

7. Mammal Pod questioning if you are big boss

8. Holographic rather than real cigars (as you are a "hologram" of the real big boss - heh)

9. Maybe you were not the big boss we were hoping for (when you kill a mother base solider)

10. Three strap eye patch and ponytail rather than mullet (not sure might be just continuity errors but we will go with it)

11. Choice of Man who sold the World which is a song actually about doppelgangers (cute Kojima cute)

12. V has come too

Feel free to comment too on the pcgamer article I thought it was an interesting take on the ending but the comments on the article at pcgamer have been hostile (not unexpectedly though).

When they tell you that Eli isn't your son. My jaw hit the floor when they said that in the game but after the ending it makes sense.

Right off the bat, it was pretty obvious something fishy was going on. And, I don't know if this is a fault, but I just expected someone wasn't going to be what I expected, so I expected it. The whole thing didn't really hit that hard for me.

In the cut-scene where you find Emmerich at the Russian base The Boss AI says something like "Jack? No, you're not him."

As for the reflection in the ACC, I think it has to be night-time and/or raining to see your reflection.

Yeh thats a clue, at the time i thought "well only Solidus is a 100% perfect clone of Big Boss so it kinda makes sense?". Generally there was way to little Les enfants terribles stuff in this game, apart from the player knowing beforehand from playing the previous MGS games and a blond kid there kinda was nothing on that topic.

When you first meet Ocelot, he's like, "a certain man gave me a job to do. Two, actually. The first was to get you out of that hospital. The second... was to rescue the man himself."

It's kinda less foreshadowing and more bludgeoning you over the head with information they simply refuse to explain until the ending.

@bocckob: That line could easily be construed as Ocelot talking about Miller. As in Miller told him to rescue BB and then himself.

If I hadn't been spoiled i probably wouldn't have guessed it 100%, granted from the beginning it was a possibility but there was also a bunch more like being Solidus, Simply hallucinating from brain damage(this was my actual guess since it would explain big boss turning evil), the other guy being solidus, etc etc.

It was definitely there but there were other possibilities that were just as plausible and it could have all just been a red herring.

Not really cause he could have easily been talking about Kaz

That's really only in hindsight. A first time hearing of that line and its surrounding context implies the second man was Miller.

That prologue has a lot of aha moments. I guess that's the reason they let you play that part twice

Man on fire also stops once he gets close to Venom.

For me it was a genuine twist. I think it's cool that they do forshadow it. And in hindsight, they do talk about it a lot. Especially looking at the trailers! But there was always enough ways to interpret it that it was never obvious what was going on.

When they had the Eli DNA test bit I was like 'what?' But figured it would loop around and reveal he was your son and it was the patriots trying to misdirect you or something.

I would also like to know: how do you see Venom's face in the helicopter? Is that only a certain point in the game or what. I've never seen it.

When V saves Miller and he keeps asking V to say "kept you waiting huh" but V never does

The entire Paz subplot is pretty obviously foreshadowing the twist in hindsight. The medic has regret over failing to find the second bomb and envisions a reality in which he found both and Paz is still alive. Paz is now suffering from a disorder where she thinks she's a completely different person, just like Venom. Ultimately you find out the entire thing was a hallucination, and the final Paz tape you get has her telling you the hallucination of her was "just a phantom, a fragment of the mind you have lost.", and "the real emotion that is locked away at the bottom of your heart". Before the ending you assume this is just talking about Big Boss' presumed decent into villainy/madness, but in actuality is about Venom Snake's real persona the medic, which has been buried deep within his consciousness and replaced with this phantom version of Big Boss. Also because he was the medic and that person no longer exists in his mind, in this flashback the medic is portrayed with a balaclava over his face, a generic persona-less soldier. The entire Paz subplot I think is the best done part of the game's narrative by far, aside from the twist itself which is fantastic but with poor execution.

There's also a smaller but really fun one in the hospital at the beginning, when Ishmael starts talking to you. Ahab/Venom asks him a couple of questions and Ishmael repeats them back to you because that's how the real Big Boss talks.

Ahab: "What happened to the woman?"

Ishmael: "The woman? I - We - gave her a light. She took the short way down."

Ahab: "Who are you?"

Ishmael: "Who am I? You're talking to yourself."

Actually if you hit the action button when he asks Venom will say the line.

That's true, but the rest of the prologue already had me thinking I was a doppelganger or something, so I took it to mean there were three people when Ocelot was talking about saving two at the hospital, then going after Miller. Just like in the first episode of Metal Gear Scanlon V, Drew immediately guesses he's not really Big Boss. I think Kojima wanted to leave plenty of clues that something was up, but subtlety isn't his strong point.

They were so proud of themselves for the twist. So proud they reminded you every five seconds that you weren't Big Boss.

One, the game opens up with The Man Who Sold The World, but not the original, a cover. Which is by far the most clever indicator that you aren't Big Boss.

Two, you are told to design your "new identity", but you still see Snake's face, indicating that you aren't changing Snake's face to this new face, but rather the opposite of that.

Then there's the whole "You're talking to yourself" crap that they pull, and how Ishmael is super OP at everything he does, like Big Boss is.

The reflection in the helicopter as well.

The Paz side missions are very much foreshadowing because it just doesn't make sense if this were Big Boss, he'd have no guilt to feel(I mean he suggested downright killing Paz in the mission briefing in Ground Zeroes). But the Medic still felt guilt for not finding the second bomb, therefore hallucinating a reality where Paz lived.

Both the mammal pod and Huey question if it's really you or not.

Eli is revealed to not be a genetic match.

Venom Snake smokes holographic cigars, which, aside from being super fucking cool looking, was something Big Boss would never do. As he pointed out in Peace Walker to Huey, he only smokes the genuine article.

I forgot about that touch. In addition Venom also has an eyepatch with three straps, whereas Boss' in MGS3, PW and Ground Zeroes only had two, and he ties his hair in a ponytail rather than Big Boss rocking the mullet.

If I hadn't been spoiled, I don't think I would have picked up on it.

Probably would have written it off as Kojima strangeness culminating in something equally dumb.

I love the twist but man is it dumb.

The biggest, most obvious, and earliest is the fact that The Man Who Sold the World is playing, which is a song all about doppelgangers.

@zaldar: in the helicopter at night, pan the camera towards the window closest to you. You will see your reflection.

Something fishy is going on is quite obvious from the start. I was wrestling with two different theories, one is the doppelganger, the other is "it was all a dream"

Ishmael having the same voice and the talking to yourself line clearly meant he is "you".

Final Paz cut scene did lead me to think "it was all a dream," but it oddly enough it is only the part with Paz that is all a dream. Not sure what they were aiming at there with Ocelot and Miller showing up right behind you in the first Paz cut scene.

@atomicoldman: and it's a cover version. Just like Venom is the cover to Big Boss

I like how Cipher go so far as to give Kaz a trigger phrase "V has come to." and then blind him so he can't unravel the ruse til the curtain closes.

The more I think about this game the more it pisses me off. Almost wish I didn't even play it.

@TechnoSyndrome: I didnt take that as an hallucination but rather Big Boss sorely missing Paz wich he was in love with in Peacewalker. When he rescues the MB soldiers he gets these flashes of Paz as he knew her on old motherbase (without the pacifica ocean stuff). To Boss it hasnt been 8 years but just a couple of days since she got blown up and hes really torn about it. After collecting all the pictures he finaly come to peace with her being gone forever.

Her wound not having healed after 8 years was the first signal that this aint real.

I mean, right off the bat there's face switching funnyness, you hear Keifer's voice first in Ishmael, and Ishmael is doing all the Big Boss stuff... I mean, can you even call it a twist, really? It's blatant.