The Phantom Pain - Dissecting the Trailer. Is it a New Metal Gear Solid?

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Richard Walker

At last night's Video Game Awards, major announcements were rather thin on the ground. And while we're hyped about the prospect of Dark Souls II, one announcement trailer grabbed our attention, and the attention of internet forumites and rumour-mongers the world over. It is of course, 'The Phantom Pain', what we thought to be a new IP from a new studio could in fact be a new Metal Gear game.

It was everyone's initial thought when they saw the trailer for the first time, but when the Moby Dick logo popped up, it threw us a bit. And the absence of a Konami logo (or any publisher logo for that matter) is also odd.

But who is Moby Dick? Apparently they're a new studio founded by CEO Joakim Mogren operating out of Stockholm, Sweden, according to the company's website. Joakim Mogren, some keen-eyed conspiracy theorists have noted is also an anagram of 'Kojima' and M-'Ogre'-n. Project Ogre is of course something that Kojima Productions has had in the pipeline for some time. Mogren is also the name of a football club in Montenegro, which is where the opening of Platinum Games' Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance takes place.

A closer look at the trailer reveals a character who looks uncannily like Solid Snake, although he's possibly younger than old Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4. He awakes from a coma with a prosthetic hook replacing his left arm, before the facility he's being held in is attacked by troops.

A man with his face fully wrapped in bandages helps the man who may or may not be Snake (hey, it's still speculation for now), as he finds himself crawling across the floor. It's our first chance to really have a proper look at the mysterious protagonist. Hold on a sec? Isn't that Solid Snake?!!


Soldiers storm into the facility, dragging the other patients away while Snake (let's for the sake of argument just call him Snake for now) strives to make his escape.


Later in the trailer is where the real meaty stuff starts to emerge. Is that figure in the fire Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater's main antagonist Volgin? He certainly looks a lot like him, especially in his combat suit guise when you fight him in Snake Eater's final moments before you face The Boss.

Speaking of whom, the figure riding on the flaming winged unicorn that appears looks vaguely like The Boss, which would fit the Volgin theory. It's entirely possible that Kojima could be planning to resurrect the insane bosses from Metal Gear Solid 3, who were arguably some of the best in the series. It would certainly make a lot of sense...

The closing moments of the trailer also raise more questions than they ask, echoing questions in the trailer itself. Am I in a dream? Am I in Hell? Quite possibly if any of the bizarre deamlike images are anything to go by. A giant whale swallowing a helicopter whole? Snake might need to lay off the cheese before he sinks into his next coma.


And with that the trailer concludes and the logo pops up, before showing us one final tantalising glimpse of the Snake lookalike (or indeed Snake himself) rolling around on the floor. The Phantom Pain? Oh, Kojima-san, you certainly know how to push our buttons! With Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Metal Gear: Ground Zeroes in the offing, could 2013 be the year of Metal Gear? For now, nothing's official, but there's just too much compelling evidence in this trailer that can't be ignored. Suffice it to say, we'll be keeping our eye on The Phantom Pain.


Comments
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  • It HAS to be. It has to be. Hideo Kojima, this is why I fucking love you. You're incredible.
  • Snake? SNAKE!? SNAAAAAAKKKKKEEEEEE!!!!!!!! That is what I kept yelling throughout the whole trailer...
  • Kojima is such an awesome guy and loves to be fun with his use of word play and clues he leaves along the way for people to uncover.
  • Have a look at this: http://imageshack.us/a/img191/6787/9d78i2st.gif
  • Yes, either that or a lawsuit.
  • Yeah, as #4 just posted, the actual game logo has the lines in it for Metal Gear Solid 5 to fit. It's absolutely guaranteed that this is MGS5: Phantom Pain. I can't wait to see what else Kojima can come up with, and with this being on 360 too (the Moby Dick Studio site has the 360 + PS3 logos on) I wonder if we're actually looking at 3 new MGS games all in one year. It'd be crazy, but if they're all as good as they look then it could be awesome.
  • At the VGA kojima was wearing a shirt with the moby dick company logo bet not many people caught that
  • im not even a fan of the MGs games and i knew it was a MGs game.
  • @7 Congratualations on your inconsequential pickup! You win...you win...nothing except for another shitty Metal Gear game. I thought this guy was toting himself to be something more than "Metal Gear Guy"? Japanese developers really do churn out crap, this one will be no exception.
  • I've watched the VGA's live and I am 100% sure that is Snake and that's what I've instantly blogged about during the show. Guys, if you're fans of the franchise, checking his posture, silhouette, haircut and beard should be more than enough, I'm actually a bit baffled about how NeoGAF has been dissecting the trailer drooling over it when it's already more than clear for the devoted fans that this IS Snake, just by looking at him. >_> I don't think it's Solid Snake, though, but Liquid who just lost his arm. He already felt some pain in his arm before, even when he had Ocelot's arm transplanted. So yeah, nice wordplay with the "Phantom Limb" since that's how feeling pain in an amputated limb is called.
  • looks promising
  • First Dark Souls 2 and now this...this is to much for my gamer-heart.....so all i want to say is: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! ;)
  • @10 What are you talking about? Revolver Ocelot had his arm replaced with Liquid's, not the other way around.
  • i love metal gear solid so much for reasons like this :D
  • @13 Touche sir, it's been a while since I played MGS2. :) At any rate, my point was that Liquid lost his arm so the wordplay "Phantom Pain" was quite clever on Kojima's part.
  • Ah nice try Mr. Kojima, but you left too many clues! This looks awesome. And after watching it on VGA's on a really big screen, the style, his look, everything screamed MGS and echo'ed his look in ground zero's. Same engine and everything. I was like "Wha?!" At the end of that trailer but then "Yes! You sneaky bastard!" When I rewinded the dvr and saw his shirt and smug look he had when they were talking about the 25th MGS anniv.
  • @10 liquid got crushed and his arm was implanted on ocelot... That's naked snake aka big boss, I guarantee, look at bandaging over eye, which would be the eye he's already lost. But there gas never been any mention in mythos before for either solid or naked to have lost an arm... Very interesting.
  • When I saw this trailer I was thinking about les enfants terrible.
  • I'm still in a dream, Snake Eater.
  • @17 Might be, might be, nice theory indeed, I guess I missed the eye-patch for some reason. On the other hand though, everything looks technologically advanced in the trailer, including his prosthesis. In that sense, if it was Naked Snake, shouldn't he be much older than what he appears in the trailer?
  • #17: Just because the eye is covered doesn't mean it's Big Boss/Naked Snake. Old Snake had an eyepatch too y'know.
  • It's definitely MGS5. I don't even see how there was any doubt.
  • Besides all the clues & hints in the trailer, here's my reasons its a MGS game It was given a world premiere at the VGA. For a just announced game, from a just announced/formed studio, that would be almost unheard of. I think the VGA was chosen to unveil it over E3, because it would be on Spike tv, get lots of buzz and wouldn't be overshadowed by new console press conferences, and in this format, it doesn't have to be introduced by the developers/publishers, like you would see at E3, so the people creating the game are safely anonymous. The VGA made a point of the 25th anniversary of MG. as for speculation on the game itself, I'm guessing this is naked snake having some sort of Jacob's Ladder type living dream/hallucinations, which would explain the apparent appearance of MGS3 villains. My other thought is while it would be make the canon even more convoluted, maybe there is one other clone, that didn't go as planned & that's the soldiers storming the hospital to erase all evidence.
  • @17 - Liquid wasn't crushed, he died from a FOXDIE-induced heart attack. However as proved by MGS4, Big Boss somehow managed to survive being burnt to assumed death by Snake with a hair spray flamethrower without even a scratch, so maybe Liquid was revived. But, I think it was his right arm they gave to Ocelot, not his left as is missing in the trailer.
  • I'm fairly certain this is just another trailer for Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes. It'll end up being a dream sequence minigame like the one in Metal Gear Solid 3.
  • @21- Naked Snake has an eye patch because his eye was actually damaged. Solid Snake/Old Snake has an eye patch to help him see better among other things. Solid Snake wouldn't have an actual eye patch covering his eye because it's still good. @25- I agree.
  • and it was the opposite eye anyway(Naked Snake/Old Snake) as for #17 "But there gas never been any mention in mythos before for either solid or naked to have lost an arm... Very interesting." There is actually somewhere that Big Boss(Naked)did need body parts..check this page out,and scroll down to "Zanzibar Land Disturbance" http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Boss this is what it says "This time, Dr. Madnar developed the new model of his own free will, after being branded a madman in the U.S. Dr. Madnar was also rumored to have provided Big Boss with cybernetic body parts to compensate for the injuries he received in Outer Heaven, under orders from an Eastern Bloc despot, who couldn't resist getting his hands on the legendary soldier." Dr.Madnar just happens to be very good friends with Dr Marv,who the doctor looks a lot like in the trailer
  • For you guys suggesting Liquid/Ocelot, it's the *wrong* arm. So it is not them. Also, @#9 - Kojima wants to be something more than the "Metal Gear guy", but Konami doesn't want to kill a franchise that does so well, so they keep wanting to make them and he has to keep working on them because he doesn't want them messing it up. He wanted to stop back with MGS2, and then MGS3, and MGS4, but Konami keeps reeling him back in and ruining his attempts at doing something else.
  • It would be cool if Liquid was presumed dead and was in an induced coma after all and we could play as him, but not only does it only look like Solid or Naked Snake, I highly doubt at this point especially after everyone bitching over Raiden, that they would even think of using anyone other than David Hayter for their games. Solid Snake is definitely done with, 4 was the correct send off, I doubt they would string that out further, it has to be Big Boss. I just would have hoped that we got a 3D remake of the Metal Gear 1 and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake games from the NES before we continue on any further down the timeline.
  • Anyone else notice the puppet at 3:02 in the trailer? At least I think it was a puppet, a la Screaming Mantis from MGS4. It looks like it's hanging from the dudes helmet or something, though you can't see his face so it's hard to tell. Looks awesome, MGS or not.
  • @26/27: I'm aware it was the other eye, but just because this character in the trailer has an eye covered doesn't make it Big Boss was the point. Anyone could have their eye covered. Re: MGS5/GZ, I doubt Kojima has been working on two games for release in the same calendar year. This is probably a smaller sequence of whatever the bigger game is as stated by 25.
  • @27 nice find and would help solidify the naked theory, and if the prosthetics look relatively now ish, put that in comparison to raise, so that prosthetic in big boss era and 27 earlier info about new body parts and would pretty much snap naked into the limelight???
  • I'm confused, this is MGS5 but what about "Ground Zeroes" ?? Is this Solid Snake or Big Boss ? And why does he have a prosthetic arm. As far as I know Big Boss hasn't got one so it must be Solid Snake then ? Or is it Ground Zeroes but they are calling it " The Phantom Pain" now ? So many questions can anyone tell me what is going on ? MGS is awesome and I love the stories especially because they all hang together.
  • Look at this, if you haven't already: http://www.mobydickstudio.se/en http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joakim_Mogren https://twitter.com/JNmogren http://imageshack.us/a/img191/6787/9d78i2st.gif The Wiki page is very empty, which tell me that Joakim isn't a real person, if he was, then the page wouldn't look so empty. And I think it is Snake, maybe the game is a dream Snake is having and you play it, or maybe it's a new IP, or something completely else?
  • I'm surprised that no one mentioned the very obvious Psycho Mantis as child appearances. He appears both in the elevator and hovering over the hallway at the very end. His age would fit with him being a child at around the time Big Boss would be his post MGS3/PW age shown in the trailer. Not to mention it is an easy explanation for the insane shit going on. Probably the point that he came to Boss's attention, leading to his recruitment for Foxhound.
  • @35 dmfaust, Mantis was never really hospitalised. He caused himself burns on his face, but then nothing is known till his time in the KGB. Plus, somewhen in the 2000´s as he worked for the FBI he dove to deep into a serial killers mind and through this he became psychotic. Mantis scares were never been cured as you might noticed in shadow moses. The silhouette in the elevator is assumed to be Paz. But me personally can´t see anything close to her. And the person that starts floating at the end might be the sorrow. Because even in the 2014 Outer Haven incident the sorrow was present and put Mantis spirit to the graves. So through the appearance of Volgin and the Boss horse, it might be the Sorrow to fill in the gapes of the snake eater operation. Like a flashback.
  • Metal Gear, the best series ever hands down. Sorry COD, last time I checked your game didn't get a 10/10. Quality over quantity....sorry it's the truth.
  • My wife doesn't play video games and she said that's Snake as soon as trailer switched to his back. I don't need more proof than that. My woman is always right=P
  • I thought he didn't want to be known as the metal gear guy anymore futher more why work on this and Ground Zeros at the same time.. Hmmm it does look like one of the snakes though sigh* wtf kojima if you don't want to be metal gear guy then Y U NO STOP!??!?!?!
  • I jus wanna throw somethin out quick, in the mgs revengeance cheevo list there's one for cuttin all the leftarms off of officers, and the guy in the video is missing his left arm.....
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