‘Ground Zeroes’ and ‘The Phantom Pain’ are one and the same; Kojima debuts ‘Metal Gear Solid V’

By Anthony John Agnello Published March 31, 2014

metal gear solid v — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Check out our review of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.

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Finally, after much audience baiting, months of goofy red herring trailers, and staged interviews with imaginary developers, Hideo Kojima has announced Metal Gear Solid V.

During a presentation at GDC 2013, Kojima debuted a trailer for the game now confirmed to be a follow up to 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4. The trailer shows footage both from the Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes demonstration shown during the summer of 2012 and The Phantom Pain, the mysterious game shown at the Spike Video Game Awards in December and again in a recent, peculiar interview with fake developer Joakim Mogren of Moby Dick Games.

The game begins with Snake, the star of Metal Gear Solid 3 who later became series antagonist Big Boss, waking up from a coma after nine years. The beginning of the game will be directed because Snake’s debilitated after the coma, but it will then bloom into the open world style game Kojima’s been teasing since discussing “Project Ogre” in 2011.

One big change from past entries: This older Big Boss Snake will be the first version of the character not voiced by David Hayter, whose exaggerated gruff readings have been a trademark of the series since Metal Gear Solid released on the original PlayStation in 1998.

Kojima Productions has been characteristically playful in the lead up to announcing this game. Kojima has said in interviews that Metal Gear Solid V would be made using the new FOX Engine since 2011, but it was unclear just how many new Metal Gear games were in development. Kojima was hiring for the “Next Metal Gear” in 2012, but the announcement of Ground Zeroes as its own game hinted that there may be two separate games in production.

Evidence suggested that may be the case as recently as February when Kojima Productions began hiring for multiple new positions at its studio in Los Angeles. Kojima himself also said peculiar things about how Ground Zeroes might be distributed, suggesting that the game might not be released due to risky content and it may even be a smaller game released as a pilot to gauge interest in a larger project down the line.

Digital Trends will have more information on Metal Gear Solid V as it becomes available.

Anthony John Agnello

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…

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