Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-86.46.22.35-20130403153709/@comment-4913740-20140812105930

Just a little tidbit to add in here: before we heard Kiefer Sutherland's voice as Snake, we knew him as the voice of Ishmael. Now they tried to disguise Snake's voice in the first trailer we saw so as to avoid revealing it, but the fact is that word could've potentially gotten out that Sutherland was involved. Perhaps having him voice Ishmael to begin with was a way to avoid everybody pinning him as the new voice, to allow for a reveal. It is convenient that Ishmael's face is covered in this sense, as the motion capture would not have to be redone when the real voice actor is used in the final game.

Apart from trying to hide Kiefer's involvement, it could just be that they had yet to find a voice actor to fit the role, so they used Kiefer as a placeholder voice. Though the first possibility seems more likely to me.

Either way, don't let it have too much bearing on your argument. At this moment, we haven't seen another trailer to reveal Ishmael's voice as something else, so until we do, we have no idea what the final product will be.