Skull Face

Skull Face was a heavily scarred man and the commander of the military group XOF during the 1970s. He had apparently suffered extensive injuries in his past, which had caused numerous scars and burns across his face and neck, a broken nose, and wounds near his mouth resembling a Glasgow smile. In addition, his natural skin color had changed to an unhealthy bluish hue. He is also described as "A Ghost without a Past."

Early life
The man who became Skull Face hailed from a village which had an oil seed field and a factory, with his parents as factory workers and his frequently visiting with his friends. However, one day, an aircraft destroyed the factory under the pretense of it secretly developing weapons (specifically repairing them), as stated by various spies. Although he and the workers tried to escape, a huge crowd of people blocked him, and he was eventually kicked in the stomach. He would hear his name called when the factory was destroyed. Upon being taken to an infirmary, he heard, in what was ultimately his final recalled instance of his mother tongue, a nurse stating that he really needed to be put out of his misery in a tone that indicated that she frequently said this towards her patients. By this point, most of his prior identity had been stripped, which resulted in the nihilistic philosophies that he eventually adopted. His already deformed features, which resulted in him being virtually incapable of feeling pain, were worsened later on when he was tortured by foreign hands. At some point, he relayed his backstory to a prisoner that he attempted to recruit to his side. He at some point met Zero and Big Boss under undisclosed circumstances, outside of his eventually wanting revenge on them both.

At some point after the Peace Walker Incident in 1974, he learned of Paz Ortega Andrade's survival and had her imprisoned, ostensibly under Cipher's orders. In actuality, however, he had his own motives for imprisoning her, as he wanted to hunt down Zero due to his going into hiding after the failure of the "Grand Experiment" and free himself from his grip, having absolutely no knowledge of his own past or his own language. He then had Paz tortured as well as Chico after his capture (including forcing him to have sex with Paz and torture her), eventually forcing him to expose key details about Mother Base and ZEKE's existence. Eventually, he confronted her in private and, after explaining his motives, and inferring his willingness to aid Big Boss to fulfill his goal, Skull Face got her to explain Zero's location. He then had her surgically implanted with two bombs, one in her abdomen and another in an undisclosed location. The commander visited the prisoner Chico at the Omega Base prison camp in Cuba. He informed Chico of what a female prisoner had told him, before telling him that he had kept his promise and seemingly given her a merciful death. He then told Chico that he should give his regards to his boss when he goes back where he came from, also making it clear that he would "play the traitor." The commander then headed to a heliport with several other XOF soldiers, masking the XOF logo on his chopper after he arrived, then notified his forces that the "trojan horse" was in, and that the pirate crackdown was "a go." After lifting off, the commander ordered his men to hand their XOF emblems to another soldier, who then threw them outside to the ground below.

While operating with XOF, Skull Face alongside with XOF claimed that they were a CIA unit. However, one of MSF's moles, Brian, uncovered that they never actually answered to Langley, and informed Big Boss as much.

Behind the scenes
Skull Face appears in the PAX Prime 2012 demo for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and briefly in the GDC 2013 trailer announcing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which comprises both Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain. Although it was not made explicitly clear in the initial demo due to the lighting and environment (taking place at nighttime, during a storm), a later demo, showing the daytime version of the mission, shows that he possesses blue skin.

The XOF commander's name was apparently revealed to be Albatross in an article posted by a game tester, regarding a private demo of Ground Zeroes by Hideo Kojima in May 2013, for the video game website Gamasutra. The article was deleted shortly thereafter. However, the E3 2013 trailer later revealed that the XOF commander's name was actually Skull Face.

In the English Ground Zeroes trailer, James Horan was revealed to be providing Skull Face's voice. Similarly, the Japanese trailer confirmed that Takaya Hashi will voice the role in the Japanese version.

In a Twitter post, Kojima compared Skull Face with the Batman villain Clayface. In another series of Twitter posts, Kojima admitted that he considered including Skull Face on the overseas cover for Ground Zeroes, but decided against it due to it being too horrifying, and because it reminded him too much of the film Enemy Mine.

If the player collects all the cassette tapes, an extra cassette tape will be left behind by Skull Face explaining his motives, lasting about seven minutes.

Notes and references
Skull Face