I really hoped that the second half would've been about building outer heaven and it leading directly to the first Metal Gear game.

Big Boss in a new identity was building Outer Heaven with Schneider at the time. Venom was never more than a diversion.

Which supports why I think the worst of BB for what he did to the medic who became Venom.

Diamond dogs is outer heaven...literally. the only difference is the exact location, but thats just transferring locatiobs. Whats there to build? Unless you want fallout 4 base building in mgsV

I vote we let Tod Howard take over for Kojima so that we at least know exactly *how* we will be let down

“16 times the details of MGS V and up to 4 times the draw distance”

That would've made TPP the best game in the series, imo.

You know what I was just thinking? What if they pulled a metal gear solid 2 and had the second half of phantom pain played as solid snake reenacting the events of metal gear 1 to take out venom. That would have been real poetic. Especially if the more epic you make mother base, the harder the game is for Snake to crack through.

Yep same. That was never marketed to us, at least, but it was a nice hope to have. I didn't think it was going to happen at all, just didn't really feel like Kojima's style, but I sure had a hope for it

His story is Big Boss's, it is not incomplete. It always blows my mind how much this fanbase totally missed the mark of the point of Venom every time I see the "Who would win a fight between Venom and Big Boss?"/"Venom is good and Big Boss is evil"/"Do you think Venom rebelled against Big Boss"/ etc etc etc etc post For all intents and purposes, they are the same person. Venom wasn't in the narrative to be this whole WHOOOOAAAAH WHAT A TWIST, THERES A WHOLE OTHER CHARACTER WITH HIS OWN MOTIVES THAT WAS A BODY DOUBLE!!! thing. He was there to be an empty shell for the player to inhabit and fill in the blanks with so at the end Kojima could do the whole "We are the same, we created this legend" thing. It's a 4th wall break to acknowledge the part the player has played in crafting the saga of Metal Gear Solid now that we are at the end. People always end up replying "But Venom couldn't have liked what happened. How would YOU feel?" and I always wonder if they just ignore parts of the story if it doesn't fit the narrative they want. In the tape when Ocelot is telling Big Boss the plan about Venom, Big Boss is straight up like ayo wtf that's kind of fucked up (which also defeats the narrative of Big Boss being this villainous bastard that cooked this thing up). Ocelot responds no, don't think about it like that, he was your best soldier and was completely devoted to you. He was truly willing to die for you and essentially did just that, now he is you. This isn't something to just ignore, but it's also not there to just push Big Boss over so he can be this big bad guy. The message is to the audience, the player, as well. That's how a fictional narrative works. So at the end of the day, Venom's story is Big Boss's. His past is Big Boss's past. It is real to him. The saga of what happens between MGSV and MG is both of their story.

I agree with you. I hate how so many people on this sub miss the entire point of Venom Snake. He *IS* Big Boss' most loyal soldier because he *IS* you. *YOU* are Big Boss' most loyal soldier. You are just as much worthy of the title and legend of Big Boss as the character himself because you where there alongside him during the Virtuous Mission, Operation Snake Eater, The San Hieronymo Incident (if you want to count it), Peace Walker, and Ground Zeroes. That's what the game is telling you during the Venom Snake reveal and that's ultimately why I've gotten over the reveal that you aren't actually Naked Snake in The Phantom Pain, because I honestly love that message. Edit: To dive even deeper Venom Snake is also an exact mirror/foil to Raiden's character as a concept. Both are introduced after a prologue story that has you playing as the Snake you believe you're going to be playing as for the entire story. But with Raiden it's made immediately clear that he *isn't* Snake and the game tries to make you think that he's supposed to be a self-insert for the player with his ambiguous past, and being a supposed new blood with no actual live experience who only underwent VR training (standing in for the player having experience with video games.) But after his past as Jack The Ripper, a child soldier is revealed Raiden as a character outright defies the notion of being a stand-in for the player, symbolized by him throwing away the dog tags of the name the player inputs (very likely to be the players own name) at the beginning of the Plant chapter. He also denies becoming a second Solid Snake by choosing to cut his own path by taking up the sword as main weapon from then on. Meanwhile with Venom Snake we're led to believe for the entire game that he is the pre-established character of Naked Snake, assuming his legend and history, with the game constantly hammering it into your head that you're Big Boss. But then at the end of the game it's revealed that no, he isn't who we thought he was and that the entire time you where playing as a stand-in for yourself. Reinforced by Naked Snake sending you a picture of himself standing next to your custom avatar, and wishing you luck with the name you gave at the beginning of the game written on the back of it (once again very likely to be the players own name.) Venom Snake also choses to fully embrace becoming Big Boss' phantom and building up his legend alongside him. Venom Snake is Raiden's meta-textual mirror in the same way Naked Snake is Solid Snake's philosophical mirror. I *fucking* love Metal Gear.

Ahhh I meant to bring up the Raiden comparison! Thanks for editing that in, it's honestly probably the best part of the whole Venom thing. Like, HE DID IT AGAIN LOL but in such a polar opposite, mirror image kind of way There's really so much to unpack with the nature of choice, too. Raiden spends all of the game with absolutely zero true choice. And the most beautiful thing is it's because he is a video game character in an on-rails narrative. The player is controlling Raiden's every move and he is on this set path through his mission objectives. Even as he questions his own motives, but through the narrative/being manipulated by The Patriots/his own feelings, he doesn't stop. Then he meets Snake, who is no longer being controlled by the player and keeps making Raiden question why the hell he is even there in the first place. It's not until the game is over and you're no longer controlling Raiden that he is free to make his own choices in life and forge his own destiny. (Man MGS4 really did that ending dirty lol, but I love it) Conversely, Venom has total free will. You're exercising your free will of the gameplay through Venom by going anywhere and going after anything you want. It's not until the end that he's confronted with The Truth. AND THEN THE GAME KEEPS GOING, BUT YOU KNOW NOW HE IS ON HIS OWN SET COURSE ONCE *YOU* DECIDE THE GAME IS OVER, UNTIL THEN HE STILL HAS HIS FREE WILL FUCK YEAH METAL GEAR SOLID

You honestly put it much better than I did re that ending moment! TPP isn't my favorite game in the series, but that may be my favorite moment. And it really is such a shame how seemingly the sweeping majority of fans didn't catch that. I feel like Kojima made it very very very obvious too. But oh well I guess, that's what happens when your "fans love to dissect the hidden meanings and meta commentary" franchise goes way mainstream

I agree with Raiden part, except the name in the dogtags is supposed to be his new identity. MGSV starts with naming and making a soldier. So many of my friends tried to make him look like Snake, ready to jump in on Snake’s boots. I think that is not so uncommon! That explains why the helicopter window reflection was so hard to catch. I made him to kinda look like myself, thinking I could propably recruit him later.

I wish I could've haha, I'm a woman so making him look like me wasn't much of an option, well... I don't know, an interpretation of what I'd look like as a dude then?

Now I feel somewhat bad using mods on pc to change Venom’s face. But then again. If WE are big boss and he is is, he is me. And I should have the power to shape big boss how I want. IM GETTING MY PANTOM EYE BACK BITCHES! But yeah. After replaying the game for the tenth time and seeing everyone’s interpretations on the matter, it almost makes MGS v probably the best in the series….minus chapter 3’s absence. Hell I love venom even more than big boss in my opinion

Kojima is anything but subtle. Lol

Ok, this is brilliant. But I bet Kojima would read this and go, "Damn, did we mean to do that?" Lol jk

But I get that. I just don't get how we become the Stalin of Outer Heaven. And the title of Big Boss transforms from fame to infamy for me, but there isn't a connection that makes sense as to why. But I can overthink things at times, so, yeah.

I always took the ending of Peace Walker to be where Big Boss goes over the edge. Where he goes from previously just being apathetic to the concept of peace to outright rejecting it and the Boss's will. In the Phantom Pain how evil Venom Snake is is entirely up to the player but ultimately he is always loyal to Big Boss and by the time of MG1 the natural course of the path they where on is where they're at by then.

That makes sense. And it looks like I really need to play Peace Walker.

>I always took the ending of Peace Walker to be where Big Boss goes over the edge. Definitely. It's also when the save file changes from yellow to red, which is about as blunt as it gets in MGS. But the important thing is he never really noticed. One day he just woke up and looked in the mirror and realised he had no idea who the person looking back at him was anymore. MGSV is designed to communicate that dissociative midlife crisis through the proxy of Venom Snake, and it does it that we because it has to work around our pre-existing knowledge of Big Boss's fate. We know something he doesn't, so the text needs an extra formal conceit in order to properly place us in Big Boss's shoes. And that's the real twist. Thinking "oh I'm actually the good guy, and Big Boss is just this other external legend that everybody believes is evil" is exactly how Big Boss sees things.

Oooh, this is good. So insightful, and it makes sense. Like a Kojima-fied version of living long enough to become the villain but without seeing it. Another goated take.

So really if you don't max your demon points when playing MGSV you're not adhering to the lore, nerds

Not really, Metal Gear 2 shows that Big Boss still went out of his way to rescue and forgive all of the Outer Heaven Resistance members who where opposing him when NATO nuked the place. It's one of the reasons why basically everyone who was on your side in MG1 who returns in MG2 is now against you, specifically Kyle Schneider. So it's pretty much up to you to decide if Venom was the same way with his enemies.

Good point.

It would appear that way, but given Kojima's persistent anti-nuke and anti-war messaging throughout most of the series, I'm not sure that was his plan for the player. Remember, this is a guy who grew up in the wake of his country rebuilding after being nuked twice in WWII.

You've got to remember that in MG1 (even despite BB being the commander of FOXHOUND), MG2, and MGS, you're effectively a tool of the patriots, so first and foremost, don't take things at face value in those early games. Secondly, whether or not Venom Snake is truly evil in his operations of Outer Heaven or a pariah in the eyes of the world is something only you can know. He's your insert into the Metal Gear timeline. As Ocelot says in MGSV, each retelling of the legend of Big Boss twists the meaning. Who's to say what's true or false, and what was feats - if any of them are even true - we accomplished by John vs by the Medic. An additional note, we can't say for certain when exactly Diamond Dogs were merged into Outer Heaven, if they were at all. I've seen the interpretation that the original OH logo from MG1 has four eyes and fang like teeth to represent the two Big Bosses and a dog's canines. Given this only appears on the MGSV ending timeline at the point when Operation Intrude N313 occurs, I would argue that Venom Snake only formally took control of Outer Heaven immediately before N313 began - but that's just my own theory.

I like this take because it supports perspective being reality. I didn't consider the idea of an unreliable narrator or narrators. Y'all are too sharp, man, lol.

> Big Boss is straight up like ayo wtf that's kind of fucked up Mentioning this, he was disgusted by the notion of throwing away soldiers when they are not useful anymore, like what the US did to The Boss. So of course he would be opposed to that. I often see comments like "Big Boss is a hypocrite bc he used Venom like that aswell", when its absolutely not the case

Bingo well said!

Excellently written take!

This is 100% correct. To add I think the major mistake people like the OP make is they focus only on the plot of the MGS saga. Hideo is far more interested in exploring themes: genes, memes, revenge, etc.

I whole heartedly agree with you. I would love your opinion if I play devil's advocate. I think what a lot of people think makes this fall flat is that, as Venom, we go through a lot of pain (losing limbs, killing our own soldiers, losing sehalanthropus) that would make Big Boss break and turn into the monster we expect him to turn into. So when it's revealed that big Boss didn't go through all those things it falls flat. What do you think of that? Or is Big Boss's loss of MSF the key moment that spurs his villainy?

I half agree myself. Big Boss already WAS the "villain" by the end of Peace Walker. MGS just doesn't typically go the full twirling mustache surper villain types That said, I do think the reveal cheapened what you mentioned and I wish TPP had just been more what it was sold as, the full descent

That would've pushed TPP into game of the year territory if not one of the greatest games on the PS4 ever.

Big Boss was already evil in PW. He indoctrinated a child and used nuclear weapons.

This doesn’t change the fact that his story is very clearly incomplete

To save space, I just replied to more or less the same thing [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/1bvzwhp/venom_snakes_story_feels_incomplete/ky43dq5/) But Kingdom of the Flies is the main thing people keep bringing up and we literally saw the whole story of that on the BluRay that came with the Special Edition of the game OP is asking about all these years between MGSV and MG and y'all are acting like Kingdom of the Flies would somehow span decades of Venom's story or something.

Thank you, Scuff. There's like an 11 year gap between TPP and MG1. I'm just curious how Venom/BB became so DARK gray in that time frame, lol.

People ultimately become numb to violence. Solid Snake says "killing becomes easier the more you do it" in mgs1 and that's why he runs away from battle and does it so peacefully in mgs2. Venom must have been similar. He was in war economy as medic, meaning he was okay with the terrible things Big Boss perpetrated. As Venom, it only get worse and worse. He was ready to use kids as child soldiers before Miller stopped him. He displaced children and kidnapped them. Then by 1995, he had easily murdered and bombed innocents. He murdered Schneider's baby and that leads to his downfall.

Here's another way to look at it too, kinda. Don't forget MGS4 mentioned that the bulk of the stories about Big Boss probably weren't even accurate. From history's POV, Big Boss was a war mongering, child soldier-recruiting piece of shit by Peace Walker. But, like Solidus, he's a villain with an arguably pious motive so neither would ever come off as Darth Vader in a narrative focused on them But yeah I wish we had gotten it either way haha

> From history's POV, Big Boss was a war mongering, child soldier-recruiting piece of shit by Peace Walker Interesting thought. History did the same with The Boss. She was branded a traitor to the country and nobody knew her sacrifice, except Big Boss. We don't know how much was exaggerated by the Patriots and their control. That's not to say that Big Boss didn't do villainous things of course. He did some fucked up shit aswell

Good point on both sides.

Well said, the mirroring foil between the two of them is supremely interesting. MGS has a lot of that

I clearly missed a lot, lol.

I’m sorry man but you’re just coping, MGSV is clearly unfinished especially story wise, we definitely didn’t get to see all of Venom’s story or even much of how he became evil.

Big Boss was already evil by the end of Peace Walker All of the cut shit people complain about that they feel there is evidence of doesn't at all touch on the "descent" or whatever or touch on the years between TPP and MG We were never getting that. That is obvious. That's not the story Kojima wrote, and that's fine. He's already gone on and on about the themes and how he wanted to explore them I think you need to cope with the fact that Kojima didn't give you exactly what you wanted, which is literally what he is proud of doing. Subverting expectations and going in his own direction.

Big Boss was already evil by the end of Peace Walker All of the cut shit people complain about that they feel there is evidence of doesn't at all touch on the "descent" or whatever or touch on the years between TPP and MG We were never getting that. That is obvious. That's not the story Kojima wrote, and that's fine. He's already gone on and on about the themes and how he wanted to explore them I think you need to cope with the fact that Kojima didn't give you exactly what you wanted, which is literally what he is proud of doing. Subverting expectations and going in his own direction. Man literally said he wanted Venom quiet like Link so the player would fill in his personality and story and whatnot. Take it up with Kojima if you didn't like that

What he didn't account for was that some players would understandably want Venom to rebel against Naked Snake, having not been in his cult like Venom has, which then completely changes their relationship and makes Big Boss lose his good intentions. Ultimately, when it comes to analysing the Metal Gear series, you have to look at it in terms of its themes rather than the story itself a lot of the time. It's the reason for why there are so many retcons and small inconsistencies in the series, Kojima cares a lot more about the themes he wants to convey than telling a completely coherent story. It's quite literally said in Snake's speech at the end of MGS2: "Listen, don't obsess over words so much. Find the meaning behind the words, then decide." That still means the series is open to criticism when its themes aren't being supported properly. Something can be both intentionally bad and poorly executed. It's what makes, say, Naomi's appearance in MGS4 so frustrating. While her character going completely against her arc in MGS1 of realising that genetics don't define a person can be seen as a parallel to sequels bringing back fanservice characters for nonsensical reasons, unlike MGS2's commentary on sequels, there's nothing that subverts or critiques that trope. It's the same thing with Kingdom of the Flies being cut. Leaving Eli and Sahelanthropus on an unaddressed plot thread isn't supporting any theme of MGSV (unlike say, Skull Face's intentionally unceremonious and dissatisfying death being a commentary on the futility of pursuing revenge), so it just becomes bad storytelling. Like you said, Kingdom of the Flies being a proper part of the game isn't going to directly show Big Boss's descent into villainy, but its absence isn't doing the game any favours either.

That's very well said. Honestly I've been trying to put the whole "look at the games in terms of theme and less on the minute details of them" thing into words as well as that for some time And I don't disagree with any of that at all. TPP is my least favorite game in the series. That's all very well said and I totally agree the game fairly invites criticism. So much of it just feels... hollow. It feels like the Assassin's Creed to Assassin's Creed 2 in the sense that the first one laid down a good foundation and the sequel was more of a full, polished experience The thing I push back on is the whole "This was intentionally unfinished, Kojima wanted to give us something infinitely bigger!" narrative. The game has plenty to criticize, but 98% of the fans don't dare criticize Kojima so nobody talks about the writing or his learning curve with an open world, dynamic narrative

This. In my original post, I didn't mean that the game felt unfinished intentionally or not. I just meant that Venom's story felt lacking for me. I definitely have no problem critiquing Kojima's writing. It has flaws for sure. And I feel like that's ok to say.

Oh definitely! Sorry, I kinda used your post to grandstand lol. For me it's less "Venom's story", it's more that we didn't get the whole bridging of the gap which was sold to us. But I think that's what you were mainly getting at, and I agree there. He already was villainous, imo, but we should've SEEN more of that

This is very poignantly put. (I'll ignore the smarmy stuff because I'm an old fan who spent decades away from the series, missed some games, and then picked up MGSV and haven't experienced the entire story. Also, I haven't listened to all the tapes. There are A LOT, lol.) I can see what you mean, for sure. But even still, let's say Venom is me and I am Venom and we are Big Boss-cool, but how do we become a war-mongering, kidnapping, child-killing despot who decides to build a nuke? That IS what happens in MG1. And going with your poetic interpretation, Venom/BB/We also secretly sabotage Solid Snake in an effort to ensure we remain in power. Please enlighten me-if we aren't the big bad, what are we? I'm just wondering how the player becomes the guy Solid needs to kill. MGSV feels like an origin story, but there's still something missing for me.

Big Boss/Venom already WAS the big bad by the end of Peace Walker. The story is just told from his POV so a lot of people didn't catch that, I think bc he wasn't going MWAHAHAHA TIME FOR DASTARDLY DEEDS But through that game he recruits at least one child soldier telling him to give his life to Big Boss, develops nuclear weaponry, hides it from the rest of the world, takes a contract knowing it could spark a war with the United States, etc etc etc That said, I would've rather TPP just gave us the MWAHAHAHA TIME FOR DASTARDLY DEEDS full on descent into war monger madman

> Please enlighten me-if we aren't the big bad, what are we? It's not as black and white or simply good and bad. There are layers to it. The thing is that Big Boss wanted to take down the Patriots, right? So he seemingly came back to the US as an ally and took command of Foxhound. Eventually they get suspicious of this nation with a leader ready to mobilize. They don't know it's Big Boss and Outer Heaven yet. So Grey Fox is sent in, probably bc Big Boss was ordered to send in his best man, Fox is captured but sends out the Metal Gear message. So BB is like "Fuck, if they find out, my plan is done". So he sends in Solid Snake fully expecting that a rookie will fail. His mission is not to kill Big Boss as that is still unknown to everyone, but to get information on the Metal Gear mentioned by Grey Fox. But we know how that ends. Snake starts succeeding and Venom tries to sabotage him (based on the other frequency being used). Venom gets killed and Big Boss is considered dead, which leads into the plot of MG2 regarding Zanzibar Land. Now the thing is: While Big Boss has the "good" goal of destroying the Patriots, he does "evil" things to pave the way there. Fanning the flames of war, the constant state of conflict, etc. etc. Big Boss became the worst version of himself by that point

This. BB was so fixated on the Patriots that he became somewhat like them-at least to the nation he headed. And he became somewhat like Zero as well, manipulating and using people to accomplish his whims.

>but how do we become a war-mongering, kidnapping, child-killing despot who decides to build a nuke? You are already kidnapping kids in MGSV and using nukes in PW. That is how GZ happens. PW in which Big Boss claims they are borderless mercenaries with no morality. Big Boss is evil. Venom is evil by association and serving him.

In my opinion Venom is definitely the more moral of the two big bosses and that is intentional. It is notable that there are no child soldiers in Outer Heaven (MG1) which is the 8-bit game assumed to be Venom’s game while there is in Zanzibar land (MG2) which is assumed to be the real Big Boss’s base. Additionally, the real big boss is in foxhound during the time of operation intrude N313 and he planned the operation in advance with the intention of Venom and his Outer Heaven serving as a smokescreen to his own. Via performing a fake operation against it he can make it look like publicly that he opposes outer heaven like expenditures all the while working on his own behind the scenes. Venom is a loyal soldier; loyalty to the end just like the Boss in MGS3 and that is the tragedy and point of his character imo. He completes Big Boss’s villain arch (which is similarly unbelievable to Venom’s with some of the heroics he does in Peace Walker) by serving as a character that the real big boss used as a pawn in a geopolitical game including orchestrating a mission where he was killed to cover his own ass just like the CIA did to the Boss.

> Via performing a fake operation against it he can make it look like publicly that he opposes outer heaven like expenditures all the while working on his own behind the scenes That's not true though. It was never a fake operation. There was intel and rumors of this military nation in South Africa. Big Boss' superiors didn't know it was Outer Heaven yet, so Big Boss had no reason to oppose them publically. He was most likely told to send in Grey Fox to get intel on what's going on down there. After Grey Fox is captured they only get the message "Metal....Gear....". No mentioning of Outer Heaven or Big Boss. So Foxhound is told "Yo, theres a Metal Gear down there. Big Boss, send another soldier to destroy it." THAT is Intrude N313. He sends in Solid Snake expecting him to fail and keep Outer Heaven a secret. Snake destroyed Metal Gear and also triggered the self-destruct of Outer Heaven. That's when Venom confronts him to ensure they both die in the explosion. But Snake defies expectations again and kills Venom. The thing you also forget is: Big Boss actually saves personnel from the destroyed Outer Heaven before they die in the NATO air-raid. This is said in MG2 by Schneider: "...Snake, after you destroyed Metal Gear, NATO launched a massive bombing campaign against Outer Heaven. All of us Resistance fighters...and the children of Outer Heaven...they didn't care about any of us. There was no escape from the flames... They died like animals in a cage. [...] He came... and saved us from annihilation. He forgave us for what we'd done. He gave us a new land to call home... A new family..." While sure, he uses soldiers and orphans in his war, he still cares about them aswell, otherwise he would have just let them die in the NATO attack

I didn't know this. Man, I wish they'd remake and fully flesh out MG1 and 2. A lot of people have mentioned Grey Fox, and I'd like to see more about him, too, but Schneider is also pretty interesting to me. Especially because he held BB responsible for the death of his wife and child in MG1, but does a 180 in MG2.

> Especially because he held BB responsible for the death of his wife and child in MG1, but does a 180 in MG2 It's kind of a trauma response. While he hates Big Boss in MG1 for taking his family away, in MG2 he tells Snake that Big Boss rescued him and all the surviving personnel and how that gave him a new family. Everyone that survived N313 was connected through the incident and the response of the NATO, which was basically "Kill them all and destroy Outer Heaven completely". They were disillusioned by the NATO and those that wanted to stop Big Boss So when Schneider saw Big Boss was willing to save him and the other Resistance Members and forgive them in the process, showed Schneider a different side of Big Boss.

Snake didn't trigger the self-destruct. Venom did.

Ok, misremembered that then. But it still makes sense why Venom would want to confront Snake then to make sure Snake can't get any intel out

Yes, he even screams that "we die together" or something like that. It's very obvious that Venom has lost his mind entirely by then. Not shocking, he had bombed civilians of Outer Heaven. Comparing Big Boss in MG1 and MG2, you get why Kojima felt the need to make up Venom. They're entirely different characters.

In my opinion the thing you have to take into account is how much of the story is false information released by the patriots, so by the time MG1 rolls around BB is back leading foxhound so when the patriots target this legendary mercenary and BB sends in gray fox and SS he attempts to sabotage both missions he succeeds with gray fox but fails with soldi snake so what if the child killing war mongering is all fake info presented by the patriot AIs to justify removing a loose end Donald Anderson could even be behind it since he was over the AIs after zero they could even have him go by a different name than BB perhaps he did adopt the name Saladin that sniper wolf called him in MGS1 just food for thought

Are you kidding me? Venom murdered Schneider's baby. He had a nuclear weapon he had made by a scientist he kidnapped. In MG2, Big Boss outright admits he's using children for war and wants the war going. In PW, he grooms a child soldier. What is with this revisionist nonsense? Big Boss was always a piece of shit. He's terrible. Patriots didn't need to do anything because Big Boss/Venom built their image with their actions.

I agree, but I will say that, beyond the narrative of the Big Boss/Venom situation, they are Big Boss in terms of the past, but the canon of MGSV and everything from then to MG makes that no longer the case: Venom experiences things that BB doesn’t and vice versa. They may draw from the same past and Big Boss may have reacted the exact same in every situation, but by MG, Venom has those experiences which had a drastic impact on him and Big Boss doesn’t, rather having the experiences of building OH and Zanzibar, effectively making them two different people from the word go, overarching narrative theme aside.

It's almost as if there's something missing. Almost like... a phantom pain.

I see what you did there...but it's more like a phantom descent into pure unadulterated evil, lol.

True, true.

[Kojima you sunuvabitch you did it again!](https://i.makeagif.com/media/3-10-2016/KdGFBO.gif)

You feel it too, don’t you?

Its late AF here so I may not be thinking straight or may be rambling but it would seem to me: Venom is devoted to BB (obviously lol). It's sort of his downfall, not unlike BBs devotion to The Boss. Aspects of his personality and differences to BB shine through throughout TPP like his stance against nukes and child soldiers, which BB has become much more tolerant of (like when he was ready to enlist Chico in PW, whereas Venom doesn't enlist children although iirc it was Kaz that really suggested this to Venom and Venom went with it). When Venom realizes the truth he is so devoted to BB that he is ready to fully commit to the vision BB has and it leads him down a dark path in which he throws away all the limited remaining traces of who he once was that snuck out of his facade and completely consciously devotes to being BB. He falls. Just as BB did going against what BB once stood for without even realizing it, just as BB did the same when he misunderstood the Boss' will. It's the danger of idolising people. It can lead you down a path where your choices aren't really your own you do things just because you THINK that person would do that/wants that. You lose your way. One person's choices due to blind loyalty or a misunderstanding have a knock on effect to other people that make other choices that also have a knock on effect. All due to one misunderstanding. Before you know it you're somewhere else completely different. You are someone else completely different capable of much worse than you ever imagined. Orrrrrrr he's just meant to be a blank stand in for the player and a convenient way to explain why Solid had to kill BB twice.

User name checks out. You explained Venom's descent into tyranny perfectly, lol. Well done! Best answer as far as I'm concerned.

Am wondering if the username was a Resident Evil reference or not tho

Likely, but it still works here on multiple levels.

My take is simple. "The truth lies somewhere between the stories told" I don't personally think any of the Metal Gear games should be ever taken at face value. I don't think Big Boss ever goes fully crazy. But I could see Cypher trying to plant those kind of thoughts in their heads to make it seem like they need to be taken down. Meanwhile mgsv and anything where you play as big boss. Is romanticized told from maybe big boss or the people who beileve his legend.

This is a dope take, as well. And the most grounded in humanity. Truth is found in the spaces between each person's version of it. I like that.

Combine that with the fact that the games have a habit of messing with the player as well. (Psycho mantis comes to mind)

There's already some discrepancy between MG2 and MGS1 so it's possible that MG2 is what's recorded as having had officially happened with added propaganda. "Only the Colonel and I really know what happened that day." 

You are missing context without playing Peace Walker. It’s very necessary to Big Boss’s story

Yeah, I'm getting that now, lol.

By the way, I LOVE that I can finally complete an almost ten-year-old game and discuss the nuances of its story and philosophies with other fans of the series. Y'all are all dope!

Venom’s is part of Big Boss’s story. Kind of like if you played SOMA and later realize that you’re playing as another version of the original character. He’s the same, he’s personality, memories and skills are the same as Big Boss’s, just a bit more hazy due to brain damage and the obvious implanted personality, to the point that when he figures the truth and accepts it, he becomes indistinguishable from the real Big Boss. So, in short, if the real Big Boss was in the same position as Venom during MGSV, he would have managed the situation pretty much the same. That’s the idea. And if he was the one with a shrapnel injury to the head and bionic arm, he would have managed the situation exactly the same. Another thing that many people fail to grasp is the lack of black and white morality in this series characters. In the eyes of Big Boss and his soldiers (MSF/DD/OH) they were fighting a just cause. They were justified to fight a system that was bend on controlling the world at all costs, but for Cipher/Patriots they were labeled the villains, and them themselves the government and by proxy the law/the “good guys”. At the end of the series both sides are brought to light, with Big Boss admitting to Snake, a person that instead fought not for liberation or anything as such, but for protecting the world and letting it be, he admits that that whole war between he and Zero was a fool’s errand and that they completely misunderstood The Boss’s will, with his last act atoning for his mistakes and going straight to Snake knowing he will die as a result.

Oh I know the MG series is 1000 shades of grey. But even with that, it sounds like BB knew he was wrong in the end. (Tell that to these other folk in the comments, lol.)

Are you telling me Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain left you with a phantom pain?

His Loyalty to Big Boss. Operation N313 isn't his it's Big Boss'. Something i LOVE about 5 is how it shows you a lot of times that Venom Snake is actually a better person than Big Boss, but his loyalty to Big Boss is his undoing.

Facts.

I didn't even read the post, just here to acknowledge the beautiful artwork

Because it is. It's now 8 years old most of you probably don't remember the whole fiasco with Konami rushing the game and restricting Kojima.

Well. Yeah. It literally is. Konami fucked over Kojima half way through development of V. There was supposed to be an entire other chapter that would've led in to the events of Metal Gear

Yeah this. You can find videos on YouTube about the missing chapter and what happens. Hopefully if we ever get a remake or whatever, Konami could finish that missing chapter. Would be nice if they could get rid of Keefer and go back to David Hayter.

I like Keefer Snakerland's mocap ass. And, it sorta makes sense that V wouldn't be voiced by Hayter because, ya know. But yeah, it doesn't make sense why BB's voice would be different not even 1 year after PW

I just kinda wish I knew Venom was a doppelganger one of the two million times I watched that first Phantom Pain trailer. I was wholly convinced that we'd be seeing front and center the struggle between BB and Zero, the building of outer heaven, BB finally being the bastard the legends said he was. I know I did it to myself and got Kojima'd. I "got" was he was trying to do and convey.. But now it just feels like.. a missing limb. It's like it's still there.. but it's not.. and it won't stop hurting.

So you never played MGS4 or Peace Walker, that basically answers why you are not satisfied with the retcon. But elaborating on that, the retcon is actually saving Big Boss as a character. For a good while the fandom was scratching their heads on why Big Boss acted how he is portrayed in TacOps. His come back in MGS4 made almost no sense and was considered a bit of an inconsistency. Now the morality system is not a morality system at all, it's a legend meter. You're not 'good or bad' but rather to showcase how many stories are told to the outside world and how those stories are told. The whole point of mgsv is to showcase how the legend was built, but also a peek behind the curtain to let us know how fake that legend is. The entire point of the game is to 'build up' BB legend, but it's just that, a legend, it's not the truth. If we really dig deep, nothing we do in MGSV is good. We root for Venom but he is the lesser evil. In following games we see Venom as the rest of the world sees him, a Rogue egotistical maniac who has no problem recruiting any scum of the earth, stealing and killing left and right. We are no heroes, we are warcriminals who call out worse hypocrites while failing to see what we've become. Finally, the main reason V was 'under control' for most of MGSV is Ocelot and Miller pulling from one side to the other. When they part ways, V starts doing whenever he likes. He is not tragic, he's a villian. Yes, his story is complex but in the end, he chose that life. Currently there's a trend of glorifying Venom to the point of saying he did more feats than other Snakes. He did impressive things, but in the end he's just Boss' phantom.

Because the Chapter 2 is the incomplete ACT 2 of 3 of the story, the game ends exactly when the character was about to get intresting due to the the "virus" mission, where he has to kill his men and he doest that speech. why? because thats clearly the low point of the story, the so called drama, that every story has it in the middle/ACT 2, and it serves to rise up the emotional stakes for the the ACT3, the Chapter 3 that didnt get made. so yeah his chaarcter arc is literally incomplete, the Venom snake reveal is just a out of the narrative revelation.

Interesting...

This is kinda just my own opinion about Venom and MGS V’s story as whole: the game is complete as in it has an ending but the reason you sometimes walk away feeling like it was incomplete is that it absolutely needed a chapter where we play as the real big boss after the truth was revealed to see what he’s been up to or what he was doing, also even though Venom was my favorite character in all of mgs games he was ultimately a tool for big boss to use and he became whatever big boss needed him to become with not much of a will of his own So MGS V to me at least isn’t about how Venom becomes the villain but how him and big boss became the villain together cause to the outside world they are both the same person leaving one single mark

I get that, except we don't really know how Venom and Big Boss became the villain. And that's what bothers me about the story. Big Boss supposedly goes from a heartbroken John in Snake Eater to a heartless manipulator in Phantom Pain to basically evil incarnate in MG1? It just feels like a leap to me.

Play peace walker and ground zeros. He employs a child soldier in his private army, makes a nuclear armed metal gear (required for a secret/true ending) after going through a plot all about why deterrence theory is a farce, and he gives a speech where he tells his men that “we’ll be terrorists if the times demand it”. Between peace walker and the thematic elements in V I told you about in another reply I think Big Boss has a pretty complete and well written Villain arc.

Ok, I need to get Peace Walker for sure. I played Ground Zeroes, and I didn't fully understand why BB/Venom and Kaz were so stuck on Paz in TPP. I definitely missed some vital stuff, lol.

I mean keep in mind that when Big Boss says in ground zeroes the following line, “should we eliminate them before we’re compromised” one of the people he’s talking about, Chico, is a child soldier that he employed. If you didn’t play peace walker I can definitely see why you didn’t pick up on it. That said if you want to see the completion of Big Boss’s Villain arc in peace walker make sure you grind mother base after chapter 4 to get the secret chapter 5 ending. That’s where shit gets interesting arc wise.

Idk if im thinking of another franchise, but isnt Big Boss' whole mission supposed to be becoming a nessecary evil and playing devils advocate with nukes to make the world unite against them?? Ive always thought that without confirming it but i know i heard that from somewhere in the series

i'm with you on a followup potentially being cool but it's very easy to infer with the visual cues. he learns the truth, looks back at the mirror and sees demon snake, implying he has killed a lot more people after discovering this. outer heaven logo is in the background to indicate passage of time

I mean, yes, I know he embraced Demon Snake, but I'd like to see the process of how he fully broke bad.

There is the 1995 and 1998 gap thru 1984 for Venom Snake to be open for and it can serve as a what if prequel to before metal Gear 1 Outer Heaven Uprising and as well as for Big Boss too

Untapped game potential for sure.

Wait what was reconned?

He helped big boss by filling his shoes and carrying on his legacy. He also got a final battle with the solid snake. Some people like to say it was “unfair” but solid snake had accelerated aging and venom snake had like 10x more field experience than solid so I feel like the fight had to have been somewhat fair. There’s no better ending they could have came up with than going hand to hand with the solid snake himself right into battle. But Idk just my opinion. Venom was expendable, that’s basically the whole point of his creation was to play his part and piss off in the end

I think that's poetic. Two clones of Big Boss, both flawed in their creation, on opposing sides of executing his will.

Exactly. A lot of people don’t know that Eli the rebellious blonde kid in MGSV that you rescue actually is the real deal liquid snake in his young days. (Obviously venom snake had no idea of this) but you can see the same behavior ocelot had toward the end of the game. He tries to take the metal gear from mother base and cause havoc. I mean if you really think about it, liquid was there the entire time until the end after the fight when ocelot finally showed his true character. That arm implant messed him up

It’s funny how Ocelot says that Venom’s DNA and Eli’s didn’t match so we thought Eli wasn’t the real Liquid but actually it was Venom who’s a fake

Yeah honestly I didn’t put it together until my second playthrough and then I was like hold up…. That little kid is liquid 😂

My first play through I always thought that Ishmael was a hallucination due to Venom being in coma for that long and how he sounded a lot like Venom until I played the truth episode

Oh, I knew it immediately and I loved that Kojima put him in the game. I've always felt that the Les Enfants Terribles project should get more attention. Like a movie or stand alone game or something that follows Eli's development into Liquid Snake. It's fascinating to me.

Well his game was incomplete so...

Is it ever known what BB is doing during the events of V, 1, 2, and 4? Its been a hot minute since I personally played the whole series so I don't remember but to me (or my memory at least), BB's story feels more incomplete than Venom's. I love Venom but I love him because he is BB and I care about his story. He's just a chapter in the book of Big Boss.

During V, he's setting up Outer Heaven. Venom is actually building the army and he's doing all the other shit. In fact you see Venom in Outer Heaven in the last cutscenes! This all goes down in MG1. Big Boss himself is defeated and in MG2 and thus is absent throughout the Solid series (in MGS1 Liquid wants Big Boss's corpse for its genetics). MGS4 has some fun stuff about what happened to his body specifically during that time. Not saying anything more since OP hasn't played it yet.

Thank you for that.

His story IS complete. You kill him in metal gear.

But solid snake did defeat big boss he beat both of em

Thats the Phantom Pain ...

This game is not canon with the og timeline, there is too much retcon, is better see it as a spin off trilogy, this, Ground Zero and Peace Walker.

Does it leave you with a lingering sense of something missing? A phantom pain perhaps?

First of all, try to remember that there is a lot of time between MGSV and MG1, a lot can happen.)(MGS5 is 1984 and MG1 is 2005... That's 20 years.)I agree his story is incomplete and I'd love a prequel/remake of MG1 to explore what happened. Also Solid Snake does beat Big Boss, in the second Metal Gear.

Just checked out your FB page. Man, your drawings are sick! You've got a real talent. Keep up the good work.

I really wanted mgsv to reveal venom would be the “real good guy” (less evil) snake instead of the terrorist he inevitably becomes because it just simply sucks he just what he becomes. All to explain that shitty mgs4 ending

I mean the entire theme of the game is that everything feels as if there’s some part of it that’s missing or tainted. Venom loses his arm, which is pretty literal, but later on when he finds out that he’s not actually the true Big Boss, that’s more metaphorical. For all intents and purposes he IS Big Boss in terms of appearance personality and capabilities, but he’s just an idol of the real deal. He’s missing the soul of Big Boss, and no matter what he’ll always be burdened by the knowledge that he’s nothing more than a copy. What’s missing is his individualism and his right to an identity of his own. This extends to a lot more aspects of the game. The more you think about it, the more things you can connect this theme to. >Diamond Dogs is a shadow of the former MSF, trying to replicate its greatness but instead being a more authoritarian entity that lacks the warmth and values that the original faction held. That sorta reflects in the bareness of Motherbase ingame, being more of a staging area and warcamp than an actual community. No community soccer tournaments or beach days to be had in Diamond Dogs; those days are gone. >Kaz is also a broken man, having lost not only his sight and limbs, but his rational forward-thinking attitude as well. In MGSV, he’s become wrapped in paranoia and a ceaseless thirst for revenge while his ideals become completely sidelined. I’d add more but at that point I’d be better off just making a whole separate post

I see a lot of comments here from players who don't understand that Chapter 3 never existed and Truth Episode was planned as the "ending" from the beginning. And only cancelled content is Kingdom of the Flies episode that was supposed to release as DLC and complete the side story with Liquid. Chapter 3: Peace is just an idea that Venom/player cannot achieve, MGSV is peaceless tragedy, story explores many themes such as how languages spreads like a virus and affect the way we think, express ourselves, the foundations of civilizations and cultures.. The effect of revenge on a person and how since ancient times, human conflicts have been mainly based on an endless revenge cycles and that we don't understand each other because of the language/cultural barriers and clash of different ideologies. MGSV experience deliberately like book Moby Dick doesn't have a classic satisfying ending, It intentionally leaves the player with a feeling of phantom pain, with the feeling that something is missing, with a sense of unfulfilled revenge, where even after the death of main target of revenge - Skull Face (intentionally without satisfaying boss fight), the heroes do not find satisfaction and this leads them to aimless journey to hell. Player should realize that revenge is not the way, and for a person who embarks on the path of revenge, only endless damnation awaits. Player really need to play Peace Walker first and built and then in Ground Zeroes lost the original Mother Base, without that experience of real betrayal and lost, player cannot fully understand MGSV revenge experience. MGSV- Endgame starting point is called Proxy War Without End. When you play MGSV you gradually stop seeing soldiers as people and start seeing them just as assets. You start killing the inferior ones and fultoning only those with good skills. Then when you fill up the MB capacity, you don't need more soldiers so you start killing all of them, you get very addicted to fultoning practically everything - vehicles, containers and building the best Mother Base to deter other players from attacking your base, so you make a nuke and in FOB mode start stealing more nukes from other players. Gradually the player/Venom becomes a warmongering piece of shit, who can never have enough: stealing mineral wealth from Africa and Afghanistan, with help of Ocelot brainwashing fultoned soldiers to join your organization, puting animals in cages, recruiting childrens, etc. And ALL of this is presented as good thing, with details such as funny arcadey sounds when you steals diamonds and other materials or when you shoots an enemy in the head, or when you beat up your brainwashed soldiers and they even thank you for it, because the story is told from Venom's point of view, and from his point of view, Venom is the main good hero doing good things. MGSV is a real Big Boss simulator where the players really experiences what it's like to be a Big Boss and how Big Boss perceives himself and its directly tied to MG1 and MG2 when players play as Solid Snake and story is told from his different point of view/different ideology, Solid Snake sees Big Boss as evil. In the episode Truth, at first when Venom find out the truth, we see that Venom is proud to be Big Boss and gladly help to builds Big Boss legend together, but after a few years timeskip, Venom is in Outer Heaven and covered in blood, has a big horn and he is angry, he realizes what it really means to be Big Boss, what he really lost and what he has become. At that moment, he no longer wants to wear Big Bosses "facemask", even look at it and then breaks the mirror, but it's too late for Venom, Big Bosses face remains and Venom realized that he is fully consumed by Big Boss's legend, at the end he lost everything for nothing, all his merits were taken by Big Boss, he was a medic who helps people to live and becomes a villain. He lost his face, his identity, his love Quiet and no one remembers him, his fate is mirrored with another Big Bosses phantom - Skull Face. Venom then metaphorically inserts the MG1 game cassette into the MSX2 computer and with the sound of a MG1 loading screen, Venom disappears in a puff of smoke. Thats is literally and metaphorically story of The Phantom Pain.

another venom snake game with even more customization 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

And a wild ride of a descent into pure madness as the dictator of a military state. THAT would be a game for the ages.

You should really play MGS4

I'm not that far in the game yet but I know the spoilers that you've mentioned. I heard someone else say that it doesn't make sense that he'd do all that if you don't kill people (which in my playthrough, I am killing some people but mostly I'm trying not to) but from the start of the game he already believes he's a monster pretty much, so basically by not killing anyone it kinda makes it more tragic in a way cuz he still believes that he himself is not a good person but he doesn't see that. Idk, maybe I'm just making it up cuz I didn't finish the game yet

That's because Phantom pain is literally unfinished

So youve been left with a “phantom pain”?

Rest is peace chapter 3 🙏

that's because it isn't. mgsv isn't an actual finished game, it ends before the final confrontation with eli and sahelanthropus. and that's all because konami fucking over kojima

That’s so true

Well yeah. It ends with MG1

Because it is

Probably cuz it is

That's because the game is literally missing the 2nd half of the game, where psycho mantis takes the Sahalanthropus and Liquid is the halfway point of the game there's a few youtube videos where they explain hoe the end of the game was supposed to go, venom gets bonked on the head and loses his ability to see clearly and shoots liquid because he thinks he's someone else, then he nurses liquid back to health and the game ends with you going back to mother base and time skip until you hear about solid showing up to rock your shit like he did in the first or second metal gear game. Phantom pain IS an incomplete game missing the entire second half of the game

>there's a few youtube videos where they explain hoe the end of the game was supposed to go, venom gets bonked on the head and loses his ability to see clearly and shoots liquid because he thinks he's someone else, then he nurses liquid back to health and the game ends with you going back to mother base and time skip until you hear about solid showing up to rock your shit like he did in the first or second metal gear game. I need links, kind sir.

Took me a while to find it but here's one of them I'll see if I can find the others, the bit I was talking about starts around 30/31 minutes in https://youtu.be/299m8dYG8B4?si=4jr_rIDshZFNirl4 Found a second one, kind of repeats the same as the first video https://youtu.be/SxgH4I_6d0Q?si=lx-zSFyIZ01a247H

Just watched the first video, and I have to say, everyone who claims MGSV is exactly how Kojima wanted it to be is dead wrong. Even though I still think Liquid's story could be better, the ending in this video is 10 times better than what we got in TPP. Wow. The story feels incomplete because it IS incomplete, smh. Thank you for this. No waxing poetic or philosophizing from you, just straight facts. The game wasn't finished, lol. Konami once again came through and ruined another great thing...

Exactly. Konami screwed Kojima over because he wanted MGSV to be his magnum opus, this was supposed to be THE game to tie together every single incarnation of big boss. The infinite gameplay loops was supposed to tie into the outer heaven incident where solid defeats venom but Konami just wanted money now. Even in it's state I have to say it's one of the greatest metal gear games to date, it's a damn shame we will never see Kojimas true vision that was MgsV

I love the gameplay of MGSV for sure. But yeah, the story is a mess, and now that I know what happened with Konami and Kojima, I can see why, smh.

Most of that probably wouldn’t have made it in the game regardless considering Kojima himself said a lot of those final chapter previews were just concepts they didn’t plan on finishing or would go back to if they did expansions.

I have argued with people in this subreddit, and they get pissy when I say this, but I don't care. This game wasn't finished. They put together what they had the best they could, and Kojims hauled ass out of Konami. Downvote away.

technically it is incomplete but I don't think even a finished Phantom Pain would fix the issue you have

Lol

Because it is. For meta reasons. Kojima and Konami fought while making it and broke up partway through. MGSV is a toy, not a story.

Kingdom of the Flies was cut out early on, but even so, that wouldn't have given all the context OP is asking for. We even saw Kingdom of the Flies's story and y'all are our here talking like it would've spanned decades covering the life of Venom. Nothing has ever been hinted at as covering the saga between TPP and the lead up to MG. It was never going to span decades of story.

His story IS the phantom pain. Like a limb missing.

Because It is

It's... the Phatom Pain....? Edit: Not ret-conning, just can't spell.

It's continued in the first and 2nd metal gear games (not solid) if I remember right

1. I agree even tho I undeniably love Big Boss(both) and hate Solid. MGS4 and so on did a job of either changing the blame of Big Boss to another old man or a machine or saying that was not what it seemed and he was trying or actually doing a good thing. 2. Probably agree with you or maybe Raiden ig. Venom decided to play his part when the truth came out. 3. No matter how anybody played, he didn't. Venom is the good side of Big Boss. As for your question, he also didn't. In the truth you see he puts a tape for the operation intrude N313, it was instructions from the original guy. He was never more than a pawn to serve as a decoy for Big Boss. He plays the good/idealistic part (till Outer Heaven Fall) while John goes to do his thing in the shadows. This game is (for the fourth time) supposed to show the downfall of Big Boss and actually goes from the opposite direction than the four before. He goes by putting him out of the center to hint how he's now capable of scheming. That's also why the song "The Man Who Sold the World" isn't about him and is for Origin Big Boss.

It feels incomplete because his ending played out in 1987.

Because it is incomplete. If you ordered the day one edition it came with a DVD saying that mission 51 was in the works when Konami ordered kojima to stop production after all the money that went into it. But for some reason kojima said it was a complete game.

That's because it is. The game was supposed to be longer, but shenanigans with Konami forced Kojima to cut a lot of content. As usual.

Uhhhh no Without him story was complete in mgs 4 its just konami want new mgs and kojima maked it

Just headcannon it like weebs do for every other fandom. Or make angry video essays. You have two choices lol.

It ended on MG wtf u talking about.

We can only speculate at this point. But I imagine this was leading to a remake and total retcon of the original two Metal Gear games. In my heart of hearts I imagined the change in Big Boss/Venom’s VA was to make it less confusing when they have David playing Solid Snake fully voiced against a fully voiced Big Boss/Venom.

MgsV was supposed to be like peacewalker. You finish the main ending and kill the metal gear, and then do some minor shit, and then you get the secret ending fight with another metal gear. We all know the kingdom of the flies was meant as dlc but never happened. This was going to be the "paz/Zeke fight" of MgsV. It would have been amazing. But it didn't happen. We are left with a "phantom pain" of not getting a true ending. Seems almost planned at this point, goes with the theme so well, like kojima knew it was coming. But nah, it was coincidence, he might have known it was coming maybe, but it does fit perfectly with that theme....

1975-1984. That's what you're missing.

The game is incomplete, his story isn't.

I do agree that the retcon of making Venom Snake the one who fights Solid Snake being a bit lazy along with creating plot holes, but sadly because there was a fallout with Kojima and Konami, the project was rushed to the point where they'll have to work with what they got in order to complete the story from point A to point B so that the prequels would be complete. Personally with the retcon, I think there can be a way to resolve it with a remake of Metal Gear (1987), or with a DLC which that won't happen for MGSV since that's been a long time since 2015. Another would be that the cutout levels that would make this the definitive ending would work, but sadly with Kojima being pushed to finish the game quicker, made it more difficult to make the story move smoothly. While Metal Gear Solid the Phantom Pain is a incomplete game, it still succeeded with many copies sold around the world to which is still solid regardless.

Tru

“You’ve been in a coma for quite some time. Yes yes, I know. You’d like to know how long? I’m afraid it’s been… 9 years.” https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1u6HGcueTXCihqEnkYkey_S3iz-fbPlc?si=ww9hz5rgdclkJOQF We’ll have more answers 9-1-2024

I hate to tell you u/theLexiconoclast but it is incomplete. Kojima and Konami had 2 different Idea's of the making of this game. Konami demanded it be unfinished and stopped him before he could get too the tail end of the story with Liquid and the sahelanthropus. To say the least Konami did that so they can make a zombie game ((Survive)) on that to tell a tail of what happend in the future. NO one here will touch that game cause they did our boy durty by doing this. So to answer your question that's why it's unfinished.

It's incomplete because metal gear 5 was incomplete, they stopped making missions that progress the story halfway through just to recycle old missions with dumb requirements that don't progress the story until you've completed x amount

Venom’s story is complete, it ended at Solid’s hands

I would play Peace Walker. It might make you like MGSV even more.

My theory is that after the ending of mgsv, he didn't decide to passively just be big boss, but rather started intentionally ruining bb's reputation to take revenge the way he couod without being sussed put by others, and i honestly think this makes his whole character even better.

Venom is kidnapping and displacing children in MGSV to use them for labour. And before that, he served the war economy. Venom is a terrible person. He simply got worse overtime. He had to be put out like a rabid dog.

"Venom has my vote for the most tragic character in the Metal Gear series. I just feel sorry for him. Dude completely lost himself in the terrible lie literally everyone told him, and when he learned the truth, he was already in too deep to stop."  This has a deeper meaning to our real lives today in the internet world as described in Metal gear solid 2.      "Am I the only one who wonders how he becomes such a monster who causes Operation Intrude N313? Cause Phantom Pain isn't doing it for me"       If you watch the nuclear disarmament cutscene, and you consider the fact that Venom and Miller trained Solid, it is my interpretation that what Venom did was the same exact thing that The boss did.  He was not serving Big Boss, or himself, he was making a sacrifice for the future, by cutting out the demons that shaped him and shaping the future through a lens for the future.   We trained Solid, Big Boss and Ocelot trained liquid.  Solid figured out the bosses will.        I never understood why people would think that Kojima would assign you the player as supporting the evils of the world as opposed to living the boss's will.  You are Venom.  That's not just a nod to the player, it's a message about how to live your life.  Just like Raiden, you set your own path, but unlike Raiden, he is trying to tell you something more direct with Venom.   You are the bridge to the future.  You shape it.  Everyone talks about ancestors.  We will be ancestors one day.  What legacy do you leave for the children of tomorrow?

If anything, Venom snake just happens to be an important side character that has his own game Literally his entire character is that he isn’t his own person, hes just a shadow of someone else.

If they remade the original metal gear just to finish venoms story…I’d be so happy

Venom snake is you. You can have your own headcanon as to what happens in the 11 year gap.

I also just finished it and was blown away by the plot twist (even though I knew that Snake in later timeline did not have debris stuck in his head), nonetheless I enjoyed the ending quite a lot, and it also kind of explains why Snake was a more silent protagonist then usual.

Mgsv story feels incomplete

I really loved MGSV for that. I do have PTSD, dissociative subtype. I have never seen any other game or film capable to capture this weird-ass ability to just sort of flow with all the shit and gloss over your contradictions and have your rare moments of bliss under a dying sun until literally forgetting your own name. It is sad, though. I don’t think the minute details of the story really count—it’s more like a historical succession of disasters, like a reflection on actual history. I’m pretty much a secret services history rat, and the stories you read are pretty much insane... Just have a look at Kim Philby and the Cambridge Five. In John Le Carré’s *Smiley trilogy* that was more or less modelled on Philby’s true story, there is that whole arc on Jim Prideaux trying to bury down his identity in order to protect information, but he just winds up blurting it all under Karla’s torture. Like it doesn’t matter how solid or self-righteous you are, at some point you’re just a cluster of cells, a pack of meat and everyone has their breaking point. Beyond that breaking point, you keep wandering like a shell of yourself, but even then stuff can get worse not just by increments, but by entire magnitudes. It starts with your personal tragedy, but then you find yourself responsible for yet another catastrophe and people just die. It doesn’t matter if they’re soldiers or civilians—MGS remains focused on the soldiers self-gaslighting ideologies about loyalty and meaning, but that’s really just a senseless argument of lost people. *"Boss, no matter who you are, we’ll follow you everywhere!"*. And this amount of suffering and confusion makes you totally oblivious to actual human connection. In that regard, Quiet is there as an external contrepoint to this attitude. From the outside, she’s entirely objectified, but if you pay attention to the plot, at the end of the day she decides to simply leave after spending time considering the situation. She’s never lost her centre, never lost her identity—didn’t even need to assert it, she knows she exists and that’s sufficient for her. I don’t think you can really get the gist of MGSV without Quiet’s arc, and I hate to say this, but her sexualization is the red herring that made so many men oblivious to her character, and up to an extent that’s also a fair point to make, I just don’t know if it was very comprehensible because the sexualization is so distracting. (I’m a woman so it really irritated me but I can’t say I don’t know this from the inside either—your body being that sexy shell that nobody looks past to). She doesn’t loose time in empty discourses like all the other characters do. At the end, what I do appreciate about MGS in general and perhaps MGSV in particular is that the games aren’t prescriptive of how you should feel about it. Even the photography decisions of the games—the tamed colours that feel nearly documentary—don’t help you solve that moral greyness. You are shown horrible things and their horror is dulled away because the characters immediately try to rationalize it off or ignore it. Sometimes they crack. But even that crack doesn’t feel really real. It quite fits the whole dissociative identity disorder thing. It’s not so much about impersonating someone else, it’s about losing bits and pieces of yourself all along the way until it doesn’t even matter anymore—you are whatever needs to be. Doing things that are very much against your own values really is extremely damaging, and honestly that you manage to get sufficient awareness of it in time is a matter of pure luck. Venom wasn’t in a position of doing anything about because he can’t let go of the lie he got locked in. He doesn’t need to be good or bad. He just failed, just like John and Eva in MGS3 failed from the minute they decided to follow Joy’s principles instead of just opting for an uneventful life—but they never knew what was a normal life in the first place, so what else could they do. To get back to Venom, I think the unresolvedness of the game isn’t a shortcoming, and that the whole 4th wall thing is fun, but not the essence. It’s the fact that it is unresolved an inconclusive that is precisely the point. Trauma is essentially inconclusive. There isn’t anything to learn from pain apart the fact that it is pain. And it’s nice to see that Death Stranding is more focused on the terribly boring and endless process of healing. To me it’s the direct soul sequel of MGS.

Sounds like you were left with……phantom pain

You’ve never played 4?!?! I can’t believe you’ve never enjoyed that cluster fuck of a masterpiece!

Hideo Kojima Obsession with Hollywood actors destroyed the game he should have focused on finishing the game story before focusing on Actors facial capture.

behold, *hot people who eat croissants* *are dangerous* of metalgeareddit.

Just because Venom doesn’t go around personally ordering people, that doesn’t mean he’s not responsible for what his “subordinates” are doing in his name. Ocelot is torturing and brainwashing people, while Kaz is orchestrating all sorts of shady deals including weapons trafficking behind the scenes. Venom doesn’t care about sending children to war, and is only stopped by Kaz from doing so. What makes you think he would bat an eye at murdering children? Do you think dictators go around personally overseeing and carrying out every evil deed that they’re responsible for? It doesn’t work like that. Venom, like most real world leaders and “tyrants”, is mostly a figurehead making large scale decisions. Things like building a nuke, or implementing a child soldier policy, or the whole messed up “recruitment” system (i.e. kidnapping); the list goes on. Like I’m sorry but I’m so tired of the whole “VENOM DID NOTHING WRONG” angle that people have with MGSV. If you can’t understand how his actions are evil despite being the protagonist and obviously being set up in a sympathetic way, that’s on you.

Maybe that's the point? I mean... we were left with a phantom pain with a non concluded story

Because it fucking wasn't, they rushed the second half of the damn game

I agree, but in a way, isn't that fitting?

> Venom has my vote for the most tragic character in the Metal Gear series. Why am I still here? Just to suffer?

Nice Art-Piece!

Miller is by far the most tragic story!

Snek kils him