Skull Face

"I was born in a small village. I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers: foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed, along with the words they made me speak. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong... words... can kill."

- Skull Face

Skull Face was the heavily scarred commander of the military group XOF and the main antagonist of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. He secretly commanded XOF from the 1960s up until his death in 1984, at first acting as a covert ally of Naked Snake and later as Ciphers elite strike force until finally taking control of Cipher away from Zero. Skull Face would also become the commander of the Parasite Unit in the 1980s. He suffered extensive injuries in his youth which caused his characteristic facial scars, burns, and discolorations, most notably a Glasgow smile.

Early life
Skull Face was born to two rural factory workers in a small village in Hungary, or more accurately, a portion of northern Transylvania that would later become Hungary. Since birth, he was forced to adopt various languages due to Hungary being dominated by various countries during his life, specifically Nazi Germany during World War II and, later the Soviet Union during the Cold War. His childhood was interrupted when the factory was bombed by Allied forces, under the correct suspicion that it was a weapons manufacturing site. He was trampled in the aftermath by a mob of civilians rushing to escape, and sustained significant injuries during the chaos, including being doused in boiling oil. His medical condition was critical; a nurse treating his wounds in an infirmary remarked that he ought to be euthanized. He was left with dramatic deformities and nerve damage that rendered him unable to feel pain, both conditions which were exacerbated when he was tortured by foreign hands later in life.Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Kojima Productions (2014). Briefing files > Acquired Tapes > Agent's Recording > Secretly Recorded POW Interrogation (waterboarding is heard, and then shuffling them prisoner back to the boiler room cell. A man is heard driving in) // Skull Face: I needed this place, to listen to the words people have to say. That's something they could never understand. (the man, Skull Face, then walks up to the prisoner, who is groaning in agony) You've done your part. You told us plenty. You've known the pain of ages. And even now you think, as any person would, that this can't be happening. Is it education? Morals, faith? Just an imprint of a lifetime of stories? Face to face with oblivion, which is where you are, and you still think that help is coming. The world you were born into is made to save you. Isn't that right? Of course it is. Everyone knows that. Until your last breath, you know it. Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope. I'm no different. But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. My family died, my country died, but they didn't take me with them. All Hell took from me was this skin, this outer peel that marked me "human." My village had an oilseed field and a fine factory. Every day my friends and I would see our parents at work in that factory. That's all I had. All the world I knew. Then one day, aircraft came droning in from some far-off sky. The factory was bombed. Some... "spies" had told them we were making weapons. The building burned. We tried to flee outside. The crowd blocked the exit. The crowd of people. Hot. So hot. I tried to push through their legs and get ahead, but a boot in my stomach put me on the ground. The smoke of them burning filled me up. I heard my name called... but not for long. At the infirmary they carried me to, a nurse in the corner saw me and remarked, as if it happened every day: "They should let the poor thing die." Those are the only words of my mother tongue I remember. It was the language of my village. Until foreign troops invaded. Then the last identity I had left - the words I spoke - were pulled from me. My skin would never feel anything again. This face would be burned again, in torture, at foreign hands, but I, I still writhe in that burning factory. Doused in scalding rapeseed oil. That's all I have to feel, that pain - all I have to remind me I exist here. (chuckles) Those "spies" reported well. We made weapons all right. As cartloads of rifles came in from the battlefields, we fixed them up and sent them back out. So our country could win. Or rather, so that little world we knew could continue. I came to realize I mustn't die. I'm their last hope, all those who perished and left me here. I have to accomplish something. If I don't, their will will be swept out of this world. (Skull Face proceeds to grab the prisoner) So? Do you see me now? Tell me. What do you see? Hmm? You have eyes. What do your eyes see? (chuckles) Yes, that's right. You see a skull face. You see me. This skull is who I am. My mark, my proof of humanity. I have no country, no language, I have no face, but I haven't lost my skull. So I told myself... The pain and effort that keep me alive will never know relief, never bear fruit, never be repaid. I know that, but I told myself to focus on some hope, a nonexistent hope to guide me through this burning world. A hope - call it a dream. A melancholic delusion. As the pressures within me stretch me to bursting, and I force myself not to cry out, though the words I thought were carved into me are gone, and all I knew is dead. I know how you feel. I've felt that. So show me. That I'm not the only one. That you too can return to this world, for revenge. Do you see me? Don't die. Don't die! (Ahh...)

Afterwards, he made his living as a spymaster and assassin, although he spent his time killing various people via methods that would point against murder, many of his targets being those he harbored vengeance against for taking away his ability to speak his native tongue. One of his targets was the Soviet leader Josef Stalin, whom he murdered via one of his MOs, behind locked doors and making it seem as though he had suffered from a stroke. He later defected to the west, eventually joining the SAS. It was here where he met his future superior, Major David Oh. Impressed with Skull Face's skills as an assassin and military tactician, the Major promoted Skull Face to be his XO.

He later was made the commander of XOF, a highly classified special forces unit created by Major Oh, now going by the code name Zero. It was created as an unconventional support team to the CIA unit FOX to help make it stronger and to provide support to it's operatives, with Skull Face giving the orders. One of these missions was Operation Snake Eater, with Skull Face himself being secretly deployed by Major Zero to follow, assist, and clean up after Naked Snake during the operation. Skull Face even provided field Intel for Naked Snake that would help him complete certain mission objectives, all of which was relayed through Major Zero to keep his cover as a covert operative. Although he hated both men, he nonetheless enjoyed his position in XOF immensely. At some point, he met with Code Talker, where he received some parasitic bugs, which would cause various gruesome symptoms, including irreversible decline of the host's cognitive systems.

Ground Zeroes
At some point after the Peace Walker Incident in 1974, Skull Face and XOF took command of a U.S. naval base in Cuba and, under Cipher's orders, turned it into a "black site." During this time, he claimed XOF were a CIA unit, although the group didn't answer to Langley. On one occasion, Skull Face relayed his personal history to a prisoner that he attempted to recruit to his side though the prisoner ended up dying from the torture he inflicted on him. He also ended up interrogating an MSF Intel Team agent, even quoting briefly Big Boss's line about pain "getting the better of us," when trying to get him to talk. Although the prisoner never divulged any information, Skull Face nonetheless came very close to breaking him, closer than the other interrogators of various agencies at the base.Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Kojima Productions (2014) Prisoner 12282: Boss… I never expected you would come… This place is full of “enemy combatants” renditioned from all over the world. But I couldn’t believe how many groups were asking the questions. They gotta have some kind of secret agreement. At a guess, I’d say there were MI6, BND, ISI… I even heard one guy speaking Russian. Yeah, they’re making deals with the East too. Local agencies will snatch dissidents who’ve defected to the West and then send ‘em back across the Iron Curtain… after a stopover here. They’re dealing in “leverage” on foreign administrations. Backdoor money. Scandals. Financial fraud. By sharing information that governments want to sweep under the rug, they, they gain leniency for their agencies. They’re trying to create some kind of HUMINT network without borders. Sorry, that’s all I know. Can't believe I got captured... I should have known I wasn't up to your standard... The torture was... was beyond anything I ever imagined. They were breaking guys left and right... I came pretty close too. But don't worry, Boss. I, I didn't tell them a thing. But... just one time... I was questioned by this other guy. He was different from the rest. I'll never forget him... or what he said. It cut right into me. "Nothing to be ashamed of. Pain gets the better of us all." "Let the words comfort you." "Now what did your boss tell you?" I nearly talked. This guy was so... so weird. I know I saw his face. I just... I can't remember it... The administration here knew about the operation. There was a leak. The brass are long gone. All that's left are the grunts kept out of the loop and us "enemy combatants"... Dunno why they left witnesses like us here alive. Mind if we stop a minute, Boss? I gotta rest. Let's get outta here. I wanna go home. Our home...

In late February 1975, Skull Face had Cipher spy Paz Ortega Andrade imprisoned at the U.S. facility, after learning she had survived her confrontation with Big Boss's mercenary group, Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF). Ostensibly acting under Cipher's orders, he actually intended to interrogate her for knowledge regarding Zero's wheareabouts, who had gone into hiding ever since his "grand experiment." Skull Face subsequently had Paz raped and tortured due to her defiance, and when child soldier Chico was captured trying to rescue her, he had him tortured as well. He made Chico watch while Paz's rape and torture was being carried out, even tasking the boy to have sex with her and participate in the abuse himself, until Chico eventually broke and exposed key details on MSF's Mother Base and Metal Gear ZEKE. Eventually, Skull Face confronted Paz in private and, after explaining his motives, and inferring his willingness to aid Big Boss to fulfill his goal, he got her to reveal Zero's location. He then had her implanted with two bombs, one in her abdomen and another "in a place [MSF]'d never look," anticipating that Big Boss would come to rescue the two prisoners. After being debriefed about the successful rigging by an "away team" with bombs on Mother Base's struts, he also ordered for the XOF personnel to make copies of Chico's recordings, as he wanted to make sure Big Boss listened to them.

On March 15, Skull Face visited Chico at the Omega Base prison camp, to inform him that Paz had revealed everything he needed to know, and claimed to have kept a promise by giving her a merciful death. As he arrived at the camp, the guard dogs stationed at the camp barked viciously at him, as they sensed him as an enemy. He then told Chico that he should give his regards to Big Boss, and asked him how it felt to "play the traitor." Skull Face then headed to a heliport with several other XOF soldiers, removing 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, Skull Face ordered his men to remove the XOF patches from their uniforms and hand them to another soldier, who then threw them outside to the ground below.

True to his predictions, Big Boss proceeded to rescue Paz, and he also failed to discover the second bomb, although Paz threw herself out of the chopper at the last minute. Nonetheless, he used the information he gained from Paz to find Zero, proceeding to infect Zero with a parasitic insect that would gradually render Zero invalid, eventually taking effect before 1977, as his hatred was such that he wasn't content with merely killing his former commanding officer. However, his chance at revenge came at the cost of Skull Face himself being infected with several of the same bug inside his vocal chords, forcing him to find a cure for his infection to no avail. He was later manipulated by Code Talker into undergoing experimental radiation therapy, the latter hiding from him that there was a far simpler cure in the form of the bacterium wolbachia. He also eventually gained control over Tretij Rebenok, a child with psychic abilities.

The Phantom Pain
When Venom Snake recovered the Honey Bee from the caves of Da Smasei Laman before the Soviets could locate it, Skull Face captured Snake using the arm of the ST-84 Metal Gear (Sahelanthropus), briefly taunting him about having survived the attack nine years ago before having the giant's fist release him. Skull Face then mounted the ST-84's hand like a platform and departed into the mist, leaving Snake to battle a group of the Skulls. Snake would escape and return to mother base.

Skull Face later personally observed the finishing touches to ST-84 at the Serak Power Plant with Huey nearby. They entered a brief squabble, where Huey insisted they wait until the AI is finalized, although Skull Face decided against it because that was the mistake Hot Coldman made ten years prior. He then learned from one of his soldiers that Huey had made contact with Big Boss, causing him to deduce that Huey intended to defect from XOF to Diamond Dogs. Enraged by this revelation, Skull Face mirrored Coldman's actions a decade earlier, shoving Huey down the stairs while declaring that he intended to take his legs back. He then inferred he'd let Big Boss take him anticipating full well that Diamond Dogs intended to exact revenge on Huey for his role in the Mother Base attack. Although he wanted to kill him, he decided to keep Huey alive a little while longer, as he still had some use for drawing out Venom Snake, knowing full well he was most likely nearby. True to his suspicions, Venom Snake had indeed tracked down Huey at the Soviets' Afghanistan Central Base Camp, and was about to extract Huey when Skull Face revealed the ST-84 was fully operational, catching even Huey off-guard. He then departed on an XOF chopper to allow ST-84 and Tretij Rebenok (who was piloting the Metal Gear remotely via his psychic powers) to attack Snake and Emmerich.

Skull Face later re-encountered Snake (who was trying to rescue an African child soldier unit leader named Shabani) at the Ngumba Industrial Zone shortly after executing one of the test subjects, and decided to burn the facility via Tretij Rebenok and the Man on Fire, intending for Snake to die in the flames. Snake ultimately escaped with his life, although Shabani was not as lucky.

Skull Face then intended to kill Code Talker, seeing no more use for him anymore, although Diamond Dogs ultimately succeeded in rescuing him. Anticipating that Snake and the Diamond Dogs would locate the Metal Gear as well as himself, he then waited for Venom Snake's arrival. After Snake arrived at his helipad, he then commented on how they were both demons, before ordering for his men to stand down. He then had Snake follow him to the hangar Metal Gear was at: eventually boarding a jeep and riding with Snake in the back to the stretch of road leading to the hangar. During the trek, Skull Face elaborated on his history with Zero and Snake, as well as his motives and his past, also claiming that silencing the world was in fact what The Boss wanted. He revealed that he had deduced Zero's plan to have the AIs rule the Patriots in his place, and attempted to use Walker Gear to indefinitely eliminate his "employers", and ensure the world ran through chaos by eliminating the English Language and with the help of Walker Gear. Later on, Big Boss and Skull Face arrived at a hangar containing the Metal Gear. He then attempted to have the Man on Fire fight Snake, also hinting at the Man on Fire's true identity and background, as well as his connection to Snake.

However, just as his plan was to come to fruition, Eli interfered at the last minute via a chopper, with Tretij Rebenok going wild, activating Metal Gear ST-84 prematurely. Skull Face was caught off-guard regarding the amount of hate exceeding even that of Man of Fire, being so stunned and shocked by the revelation that he had to be physically dragged away by two of his men in order for him to evacuate the premises while demanding to know who it was that was causing Tretij Rebenok going haywire. However, he then has his forces trying to stop the Metal Gear with limited success. Seeing the damage wrought, he realizes Zero may have ultimately succeeded in his plans, although he was nonetheless confident that his plans will usurp Zero's in the near future. Skull Face was later crushed under rubble while the latter was ranting, yelling he was burning up just beforehand. After defeating the Metal Gear, Big Boss and Miller exact revenge against Skull Face for his role in the destruction of MSF as well as the injuries he inflicted on them by shooting him several times with his own gun, detaching his left leg and right arm, before leaving him to his fate. However, Huey Emmerich ultimately kills Skull Face by shooting him in the head shortly thereafter. His body was left at the scene after the incident.

While Diamond Dogs were moving in the destroyed Metal Gear at the end of Chapter 1, Skull Face's ghost visited Mother Base and observed Venom Snake.

Personality and traits
Skull Face had shown himself to be extremely dangerous, ruthless and sadistic, going to great lengths to achieve his goals. He tortured both Paz and Chico both mentally and physically, even resorting to ordering one of his soldiers to rape Paz in front Chico to get the information he wanted. He even forced Chico himself to have intercourse with Paz to prove that he was a man, showing that he was a sexual sadist, although unlike Colonel Volgin, who sexually assualted EVA himself, Skull Face didn't directly participate in the act he simply ordered others to do it for him. Even after getting the information he wanted out of Chico and Paz, Skull Face still tortured them stating, "we're half way there." During his interrogations and torturing with Paz, he would play the 1971 song "Here's to You" by Joan Baez, out loud.

He was very skilled at interrogation, which was best demonstrated with his interrogation of an MSF Intel Team agent, where despite not getting any information on Big Boss, the prisoner admitted that of the interrogators at the base, Skull Face came the closest to breaking him. He was also a master at mental manipulation, such as when he tricked Paz into giving up Zero's location by implying that it would save Big Boss. Another instance of this was when he interrogated Code Talker so that he could find a cure for the Parasitic worm by explaining that every time he rang the bell he brought into the room, the soldier posted outside would pass on a message to another soldier to infect one of the villagers of Code Talker's tribe with the parasite. After ringing the bell several times, Code Talker finally submitted, only to discover there was never any soldier to begin with.

Skull Face was also demonstrated to be a very skilled assassin, having pulled off various assassination attempts and even having multiple MOs to disguise the death. At least one of his MOs involved killing people behind closed doors and then making it seem as though the people died via cerebral hemorrhages/strokes, as evidenced by how he had dispatched Josef Stalin. He is said to have combat skills that go on par with Big Boss and even the Boss herself, hence why he was chosen as covert backup for Naked Snake during Operation Snake Eater if he were to die fighting the Boss. His lack of empathy towards his enemies also made him the perfect fill in for Snake as he would not have hesitated to execute the Boss.

Skull Face was a brilliant strategist, as he manipulated both the MSF and his two prisoners into playing into his hands, as well as successfully manipulated Zero into infecting himself with the parasites by stealing a lapel pin from Layforce that had a personal connection to The Boss as well as sending it back. In addition, he also had enough foresight and knowledge into events of the past to know which kind of strategic blunders to avoid, as evidenced by his refusing Huey's suggestion to include the AI onto the ST-84 Metal Gear, specifically citing as his reason that it was the mistake Hot Coldman made. Despite his nature, he attempted to implore a previous prisoner to join his side and live for revenge, though the prisoner ended up dying. He also told one of his soldiers that Paz needed to recover from the torture, although only because he needed her alive. During a torture session, he told a soldier to stop whipping Paz because she was no good to him dead.

Because of his cruel upbringing, he was shown to be extremely nihilistic, understanding hope only in the sense of it being a survival skill and otherwise not viewing it as important. He also demonstrated his nihilistic views fully to Paz Ortega Andrade just before subjecting the latter to forced surgery to act as a carrier to two bombs, where he admitted that his motives to kill Zero and Big Boss weren't due to hatred, but merely because it's what nature demanded.

Skull Face always wore a trench coat, ten-gallon hat and carried a sawed off lever-action rifle. In 1984, he was seen wearing a domino mask to hide the fact that he was infected with the parasite.

Behind the scenes
Skull Face appears in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as the main antagonist. He is described as "A Ghost without a Past." He was first revealed, albeit unidentified, in the PAX Prime 2012 demo for Ground Zeroes, and briefly in the GDC 2013 trailer announcing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which was early thought to comprise both Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain.

The XOF commander's name was supposedly 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 version of Ground Zeroes, James Horan provided Skull Face's voice, while Takaya Hashi provided his Japanese voice.

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.

In an interview with Famitsu in November 2012, Kojima revealed that Skull Face was originally going to be called "Scarface."

In a commentary for the opening scenes of Ground Zeroes on IGN, Kojima explained that he had the dogs bark at Skull Face as if he were enemy personnel to emphasize that Skull Face was different from the other personnel.

In the E3 2014 trailer for The Phantom Pain, Skull Face is shown leading Big Boss to a hangar with Metal Gear inside.

During a Q&A session at Gamescom 2014, Kojima described Skull Face as somewhat inhuman, stating that "he’s not just a plain old bad guy: his face has been stripped off, revealing his skull. This ‘skull face’ represents the human side that he lost."

During Chico 's 5th cassette tape in Ground Zeroes, at 00:35, Skull Face says "Vigyétek a ketrecébe!" which is Hungarian for "Take him to the cage !"

Some elements of his character were leaked in an Italian game guide for the game.

According to Hideo Kojima's notes in the Piggyback Collector's Edition Guide's art gallery, Skull Face's role is that, while he is indeed the story's villain and antagonist, his character is not simply about Good and Evil: He has lost something, which results in him suffering from the phantom pain. He also states that his absence will leave the player with a sense of lasting phantom pain. He also explains in the same source that the reason he doesn't have a standard boss battle is to further promote the theme of a chain of revenge, a phantom pain, the continuous chain that one experiences when a target of vengeance is gone, something that would not have been possible via a standard boss fight, unlike most stories where good vs. evil encounters are given in Hollywood movies to satisfy the audience.

Appearances

 * Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
 * Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Notes and references
Skull Face