Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-151.246.240.247-20130913120522/@comment-1672596-20131004102512

Mr. Grave wrote: As much as I enjoy you people trying to guess who this guy is, I gotta say enough with the ridiculous theories. Raikov is totally not Skullface. Reasons?

First; Raikov's description doesn't match that of Skullface. He was seemingly shorter than him and less build. Their voices don't match either. While Skullface has this tough-high-school-quarterback voice, Raikov had a less heavier voice, very similar to Raiden's in MGS 2.

Second; Raikov was supposed to be a one-time character, a parody, so you could get a chance to play as a Raiden look-a-like character (I don't know why people would want to do that, though). I mean, come on, his name is Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov. Ain't it obvious enough?

About Raikov being Raiden's dad, that's just impossible. Jack originates from Liberia, Raikov is Russian. They have nothing to do with each other. While I agree Skull-Face is unlikely to be Raikov (heck, they are unlikely to work in the same organization, as Raikov's a GRU agent while Skull-Face, IF he is Russian, seemed more like a KGB agent due to his attire), while Raikov was intended to be a one-time parody character, that ended with Portable Ops, where he was actually recruitable (granted, it was a bonus mission, but he still appeared in one other canon game). And besides, Johnny Sasaki was implied to be of Japanese descent (his last name IS "Sasaki," after all), yet that never stopped him from having a Russian grandfather for little reason other than to have an excuse to re-enact the MGS1 escape sequence.

Either way, considering there was a character who had a suspicious resemblance to Raikov in the Hospital sequence (the guy who got caught on fire), not to mention Raikov's VA was confirmed to be in MGSV by Hideo Kojima, its pretty likely we haven't seen the last of Raikov yet.