Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-212.35.14.225-20150704132426/@comment-1672596-20150916134034

Fantomas wrote: Weedle McHairybug wrote: To elaborate on what he's referring to: Kojima made a Tweet a few days before MGSV's release that basically implied that the game was a spinoff, if not directly stated it: Here's the Tweet in question: https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/637435774162436101

That is an insane way to interpret that tweet. He's merely pointing out that the use of a roman numeral "V" is important in the context of The Phantom Pain, over the use of the traditional "5."

It's kind of like how Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty was originally going to be called Metal Gear Solid III: Sons of Liberty (with each of the roman numerals symbolizing the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre).

It's just one of Kojima's quirks. Apparently, it went over far too many people's heads, considering even TVTropes basically inferred he said it was a spinoff (and not even the YMMV section, but the trivia section), not to mention there being posts on that spoiler thread for TPP on NeoGAF where they made clear they thought that's what Kojima was stating.