STORY PREDICTIONS AND SPOILERS AS I PLAY AHEAD!

So it's September 2nd, 2015 - you know what that means:

MGSV: The Phantom Pain was released yesterday!

The following series will go through my understanding of the overall Metal Gear storyline and its relation to the crazy shit that's happening in MGSV. So early game spoilers beware! Read more for...more?

I'm In Chapter 5 or 6 now I believe - or whichever is directly after capturing the super secret Honeybee prototype weapon (AKA a stinger missile launcher). My understanding of this series' story is all over the place. Sometimes I react to big reveals with an appropriate "Oh shit" and many other time's it either flies right by me or I simply must ignore it due to the sheer amount of brain power it would take to comprehend.

Seriously, I'm the one who should be paid 60 bucks a game to even attempt to understand this thing.

Anywhoo the only big questions going on right now story-wise is: What the hell is Boss tripping on? And for that matter, am I even playing as Big Boss?

What the hell is Boss tripping on?

Fascinating question, loyal viewer. As for your well deserved answer: I have no god damn clue. From the very start in the prologue (hospital scene), you see some crazy stuff. First of all, you create a character avatar while recovering in the hospital after Boss' nine year coma. This makes sense since the good doc' says our face needs to be changed to ensure our full recovery and eventual survival as the entire fricken world wants us dead. Cool. So I made a character with a slight notion in my head that maybe this is some sort of Raiden switch-up MGS2 style or maybe I'm just creating my MGO character early? After seeing your finished avatar's reflection in a mirror and promptly switching back, everyone is slaughtered before your eyes and Jack Bauer - I mean you - I mean Ishmael - I mean....a fellow patient who has your voice comes and saves your ass and tutorializes you out of the hospital. Once escaping - he's gone. Tutorial hallucination? Maybe.

Metal Gear is fairly familiar with throwing supernatural curve balls at players. Though they've never been quite outside the realm of a explainable (although quite crazily explained) reality. NANOMACHINES! FOXDIE! Whatever it may be, there have been tons of unrealistic occurrences that have been explained by the world's technology. The problem with this story so far is that, unlike previous games, the characters openly acknowledge the weirdness and shout "What the fuck was that?!" along with you. With no explanation in sight, I guess I'll have to relish in this acid trip. Possibly a side affect of having a big ass piece of shrapnel embedded in my skull? Did I not take my prescribed coma recovery medication on the way out of the hospital?

To list the core of the potential hallucinations so far:

1. Col. Volgan, the Fire Horseman of Hell and whale tamer.
2. Fire whales (seriously this has to be mentioned again)
3. Creating an avatar and having it switch back immediately
4. The multiple encounters with the mini misty Psycho Mantisies

We'll have to see how this aspect plays out. But it's a very important component of the next conspiracy:

Am I even playing as Big Boss?

I don't have anything really direct to support a theory at this point - except for this: When Quiet (looks like Quiet, let's say it is) comes to kill you in the hospital, is she really trying to kill you? When you fall off the bed she reports in that the job is almost finished but "a patient in the other bed saw my face". Then she goes for you. So are you that other patient or are you her main target? Two ways this can be looked at: Kill the witness first because they can jeopardize the mission more or Kill the target first because that's the priority. Problem is, you could be either. So her statement doesn't directly put this down.

One reason to lean towards not being Big Boss is that when she mentioned the other patient that was after you directly watched her kill the doctor and made a big commotion falling off the bed. Ishmael was at the end of the room probably acting like a ignorant patient.

Ishmael also said "I - I mean - we [killed her]" after the player is choked out during Ishamael's fight with Quiet. Obviously "we" didn't do anything. I was passed out over here on the floor, hello? So is this a conscious hallucination correcting itself? Or someone trying to make you think it's a hallucination. Many have pointed out that Ishmael doesn't look like Big Boss, mainly that he has both of his eyes. I'm not saying he is or isn't, but one reason why that would still work is that he may have already had the facial reconstruction surgery and that avatar definitely had two eyes.

Apart from Ishmael calling you Ahab along with a few others letting that slip randomly, there are a few other little nuggets of info that will make you question the player's true identity. But once again, let's wait and see.

If there's one thing that's been a major part of Metal Gear, that's always having a game ending with some evil man behind a chair instantly proclaiming that we were puppets apart of a major Illuminati plan to take over the world. Aaaaannddd everything that happened in the game was a lie and all the bad guys were double/triple agents. Who knew?