Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
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It starts with this little tidbit seen in the timeline at the end of Ground Zeroes:
This site exists in real life. It’s called Vastrap.
• Some context: South Africa’s nuclear program only existed to basically strongarm the United States into resolving their conflicts with Eastern (Communist) Bloc nations; primarily, in the event the Border War in Namibia spilled over into South Africa proper. Despite never intending to actually use their nukes, they had a purpose. Without a site to develop and test them, and with the international condemnation that came with the 1979 Vela Incident, South Africa was between a rock and a hard place.
• Enter Skull Face and XOF.
Sometime following Vela, Skull Face takes advantage of the situation by offering a deal with the government: allow XOF, under the guise of “South African Natural Resources,” to occupy Vastrap and use it to develop and test their parasite research, in exchange for acting as the country’s anticommunist deterrent and apartheid enforcer. Despite being a signatory of the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention, South Africa was desperate for a deterrent, and agreed.
• This status quo would remain in place until Skull Face’s death in 1984. With it, XOF would rapidly lose their grip on Afghanistan and Central Africa. Vastrap would become their new HQ, a hideout to lay low. The soldiers seen ambushing Eli in the cut Mission 51 would have been deployed from Vastrap.
According to my theorizing, Chapter 3 of MGSV would’ve shown how Diamond Dogs would become Outer Heaven.
• The real Big Boss relays intel to Ocelot about XOF’s Vastrap hideout, and also that he (Ishmael) forged a new deal with South Africa to have Diamond Dogs wipe XOF out, capture the desert test site for themselves, and take over their contract. So, Diamond Dogs launches a full-scale invasion and succeeds. When clearing the underground tunnels, which XOF would have expanded greatly, Venom and Ocelot discover that XOF hired a new scientist to replace Huey: Dr. Drago Pettrovich Mandar.
He was being forced to create a new Metal Gear to replace Sahelanthropus - one far simpler and cheaper to construct, use, and maintain. Intrigued by this, and knowing Sally was a paper tiger at best and a liability at worst, Venom and Ocelot agree to have Madnar continue his work under them, with full access to Huey’s old lab and everything he left behind when he was kicked out.
• Under orders from “Ishmael,” Vastrap becomes the new Mother Base of Diamond Dogs - Outer Heaven.
Meanwhile, the Seychelles facility is relegated to being just a FOB, with its important facilities and assets moved to the mainland. Kaz Miller is infuriated by this, seeing as he raised up DD from basically nothing and now everything he built up was just being tossed aside; he eventually leaves for early retirement.
• Once settled in, a cover story is published to the world about Big Boss supposedly retiring from mercenary work to rejoin FOXHOUND. Ocelot departs to help Big Boss in this endeavor and also round up highly skilled mercenaries to act as “Ahab’s” right-hand men. Venom takes a break from being a body double, and is now just himself, though he hides from public eye since he might need to take up the mantle again in the future…
• Outer Heaven quickly becomes a force to be reckoned with. After rescuing a local architectural engineer named Kyle Schneider from rogue XOF remnants, they have him lead the efforts to expand the place into a true fortress.
• Madnar reverse-engineers Huey’s Walker Gear concept, making it much bigger, with a closed cockpit, and nuclear-equipped. TX-55 is born.
Note the vague similarities to Walker Gear, such as the head shape.
• Dr. Madnar proposes an idea to use special robotic surgical instruments, combined with prototype nanomachine injections, to conduct an operation to finally remove Venom Snake’s shrapnel horn without causing a brain hemorrhage. Venom agrees to it, and it is a success.
Note: this image was supposedly extracted from MGSV’s files, showing an aged Venom Snake without the horn. You can faintly see a scar on the forehead where it would be.
But the nanomachines are early prototypes, with side effects not being immediately clear. They end up manifesting in “Ahab’s” personality doing a complete 180; he becomes sadistic and downright evil, embracing his public persona as a “demon.” Madnar and Schneider grow to dislike working under him. Venom begins concealing his face by wearing a devilish masquerade mask with a single horn where the shrapnel used to be.
Venom also begins acting erratically, and not in line with Big Boss’s original plans. BB tries to resolve this diplomatically, but the nanomachines just seem to make Venom worse and worse.
• In 1995, South Africa - now under a new government - agrees to the UN’s demands (in the MG universe) to completely shut down their nuclear weapons programs and make the creation or storage of them anywhere within their borders illegal. In response to this, Venom Snake has Outer Heaven declare independence from the country, becoming the world’s first “mercenary republic,” with plans to launch an insurrection against Cipher. This draws the suspicions and fears of the outside world. The United Nations Security Council demands that a stealth operations unit investigate. The United States selects FOXHOUND for the job. Big Boss secretly decides to have Venom Snake be assassinated so he can quietly take the reins of Outer Heaven himself. He dispatches Gray Fox to accomplish this, but he’s captured. Desperate, Big Boss selects his top performing rookie, Solid Snake, for Operation Intrude N313.
And the rest is history…
If you’ve read this far, congrats! Sorry for such a long post, but I’ve been itching to get this out there somewhere haha.
Basically, the DD logo usually seen in the background would change to that of OH, like how it switches from MSF to DD when going from GZ to TPP.
iDroid: “Mission accepted. Heading to Galzburg.” ;)
65 Votes in Poll
I was playing some Phantom Pain earlier today, and I noticed that if you knock out a soldier and he drops his rifle, when he wakes up he will take out his sidearm for defense. If you knock him out again, the handgun is dropped. When he wakes up again, he pulls ANOTHER handgun out from his empty holster. You can get infinite handguns this way.
83 Votes in Poll
MGSHSAU on AO3. The author is listed as orphan_account. One of the best pieces of Metal Gear fanfiction, if not one of the best pieces of fanfiction, if not one of the best pieces of fiction/writing ever written
I'm new to the series with my introduction to the series thanks to MGSV TPP (Fantastic Game btw).
One game that always interested me was mgs4. I heard a lot of opinions regarding this title, good and bad.
Knowing this title is the last canonical game with solid snake and only playable in ps3, it makes it much more interesting to play.
Should I or shouldn't play this game?
I’m really enjoying it, it’s my first mainline MG game.
115 Votes in Poll
Is it just me, or is nearly everyone in the main storyline of MGSV (TPP) just severely unlikable? Not just the characters intended to be antagonists, like Skull Face or Huey, but Venom Snake as well? The only character I can tolerate/actually like is Kaz, but everyone else just has a higher count of polygons in their faces viable for punching.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain... the first 'open world' Metal Gear game. It has it all; parasites, skimpy outfits, an Emmerich wetting their pants, a giant mech, not one, not two, but THREE Snakes, balloons, Russians, and more. A near perfect (though unfinished) game.
Except for the driving. An 8x8 with four wheel steering shouldn't turn like a boat, tanks aren't supposed to be either lowriders or 'two wheel' stunt machines, jeeps aren't supposed to flip over (well, the real world Willy's Jeep had that issue), trucks shouldn't be so vulnerable to bullets, and don't get me started on the near impossible technological and mechanical requirements for a miniaturised bipedal support vehicle in the mid eighties. At best, they'd be horribly unreliable and expensive to develop and maintain. The controls in Ground Zeroes was much better. In fact, being somewhat reminiscent of GTA IV. Surely a jeep can go faster, and an APC should be able to take something better than a three point turn.
I love the game. It is in my top five favourite games of all time. It's just the DAMN BOATMOBILES THEY CALL APCS! KOJIMA! COME BACK! PLEASE! YOU NEED TO FIX THIS- THIS THING!
A fan idea. Obviously won't go anywhere, but I would like to know what people think. Konami has two ways to redeem itself, and it won't choose either. Well, I propose a third.
Obviously, we're missing out on a lot, due to the unfinished ending to The Phantom Pain, but I think that it's a golden opportunity to expand upon both missing content and to finally conclude the Metal Gear saga.
First off, no pay to win. The coin system in The Phantom Pain is a bit tedious, but manageable, if quite time consuming. Anything more than this is actually insulting.
It needs to have a single player story, completely separate from any cooperative online play. The story should last at least 48-72 hours of continuous combined play. If Venom Snake is the main character once more, Kiefer Sutherland must be the English voice actor, for continuity. If Naked Snake (Big Boss) is, then get David Hayter.
DLC is fine, as long as they don't offer an unfair advantage or seek only expand the main story. The main story must be fully available upon purchase.
Yes, purchase. This game could be sold for a large amount of money per copy. About €50-€70 in Europe. It should contain at least some form of add on content included with physical copies for an online mode, to entice players to play. It would mean a bit more money coming in, and as we all know, Konami loves money.
If Hideo Kojima isn't an option for development, seek aid from any former or current developers who played a large part in previous titles.
Improve upon the shortcomings of The Phantom Pain, and expand upon it. Also take some of the fan's thoughts and opinions into consideration.
AND NO ZOMBIES.
As I stated, it's a fan proposal. I doubt any Konami executives are going to take any such proposals into consideration. But I think that some people won't be happy until the saga can receive a true, fitting ending. One that explains everything.
111 Votes in Poll
In the scene were you see Kaz and Big Boss in a coma in the Mission 46 the medic that looks at you and say that you have shrapnel in your head looks very similar to James Johnson, the president in MGS2, his voice is also VERY similar, so what you guys think?
My first memory of Metal Gear Solid was when I played it at a friend's house. I was probably 8 or 9 years old!
I recently replayed MGS1 on GOG and it was still fantastic, although significantly shorter when playing as an adult who knows it well.
At the time, I remember being blown away by the graphics which were significantly better than anything else I had seen. This, coupled with the games cinematic cutscenes and incredible characters was enough to set me up loving Metal Gear for life - I have played the entire series of games relating to Solid Snake and the games relating to Big Boss (except Peace Walker).
I will never forget when I first stumbled across the Cyborg Ninja in that corridor!
What are you defining memories of the Metal Gear series? How did you first discover the games and what has stuck in your memory?
Ever since the success of the phantom pain I've been wondering is there ever going to be a 6th installment of this great franchise of spys clones and robot
![MGSV - Why Ishmael is NOT REAL - [*NEW* Evidence]](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/d254b12e-fa6d-4e93-bd91-be0b41648fa4/scale-to-width/755)