Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5085906-20130627191357/@comment-1672596-20150823135645

64.33.250.214 wrote: Weedle McHairybug wrote:

0nighthawk0 wrote: I am not so much doubting that the guide is real, more so certain information in it. When a guide brings in their own speculation and theories into the mix, that's where it looses credibility in my opinion. This is Piggyback Guides, they generally do that sort of thing anyways. And besides, they made it clear that the only reason they are speculating is because they were basically forbidden to explicitly state who Ishmael's true identity is. I'm not familiar with Piggyback Guides. Is it normal for them to leave out characters and story info? I've read strategy guides before, and most of them outright spoiled these things.

Let's assume this guide is real, and nothing in it was faked. Despite evidence that only one or two people can back up these claims. Isn't it possible Piggyback is in an agreement with Konami/Kojima to disuade readers from learning the truth? The speculation the guide makes about Ishmael and Medic smells like regurgitated fan theories.

There's some serious weirdness going on in these spoilers. Like, what's the deal with Volgin's body? I thought Volgin was a psychic projection caused by Mantis. Is Big Boss going to dig up Volgin to confirm he's dead, or perform an exorcism? And the stuff about getting Quiet wet... I thought Kojima made her to be an antithesis to sexualized game characters?

To the leak's credit, some of these spoilers actually make sense. I could see Zero becoming infecting by parasites, or Miller and Boss pondering whether they should kill Skull Face. The Gamecom trailer appeared to contain a similar spoiler. But the Medic being a clone.. Why have a random character who showed up for one scene at the end of Ground Zeroes become the main character? Medic doesn't even look like Big Boss in my opinion.

Compare this mod of Boss without his beard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apYsyTi2pFw

With this mod of a playable Medic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NgcpH4ULhc

Maybe it's a minor discrepancy, but it's evidence to me that making Medic a clone is silly in practice and in theory. No, they generally don't hide that many characters. In all fairness, though, we only saw a limited amount of the guide, so it's likely the guide does contain more characters.

So far as misinformation, considering the guide state upfront that they cannot directly state who Ishmael is and even made clear that they were sworn by Konami and Kojima Productions to not state anything, I doubt they were told to misdirect the reader (and besides, trying to misdirect is stupid anyways since the point of a guide ist o get through the game.).