Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

• 1. Introduction

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  Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain arrived on the 1st of September 2015 and immediately broke records. On its opening day alone, the game grossed US$179 million, more than the combined first-day box office of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World. That figure was not just a gaming milestone; it put a stealth video game in conversation with two of the biggest blockbuster films of that year.

  Behind that number was a game unlike anything the Metal Gear series had attempted before. Set in 1984, it placed the mercenary known as Punished "Venom" Snake in the open deserts of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the lush border region between Angola and Zaire, giving players a world described by one critic as an "unparalleled tactical toybox". Over $80 million was spent on its development.

  But the game's release was shadowed by a rupture. The man who directed, wrote, and produced it, Hideo Kojima, was in the middle of a very public split from Konami, the publisher that had employed him for decades. His name was stripped from the game's cover before launch. The tension between those two facts, a game celebrated as one of the greatest ever made, delivered under circumstances that may have left it incomplete, is the story this documentary follows.

• 2. The Fox Engine Deception

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  At the Spike Video Game Awards in December 2012, a teaser trailer appeared for a game called The Phantom Pain, credited to a previously unknown Swedish developer named Moby Dick Studio. The studio was allegedly led by someone called Joakim Mogren, a man whose name was an anagram of "Kojima". Commentators spotted within days that the title Metal Gear Solid V fit neatly into the negative space and indentations of the game's logo when rendered in the same font.

  The domain name for Moby Dick Studio's website had been registered only about two weeks before the announcement. Several people wearing Moby Dick Studio shirts were seen sitting in a VIP section reserved for Konami staff. An actor in heavy bandages, playing Mogren, appeared on GameTrailers TV on the 14th of March 2013, showing screenshots on an iPad to host Geoff Keighley before the segment abruptly ended when Keighley pointed out the Fox Engine logo in the images.

  Kojima revealed at GDC 2013 on the 27th of March that his studio had been behind the trailer all along. He explained the misdirection openly: he had presented the game as an indie title to gauge unbiased public and industry reaction to the Fox Engine, the new game engine developed by Kojima Productions, since announcing it as Metal Gear Solid V would have skewed how people judged the technology. The GDC trailer featured the song "Not Your Kind of People" from Garbage's 2012 album of the same name. Kojima added that he had conceived and planned the stunt with Keighley over the course of two years specifically to drive social media activity from fans.

• 3. Open World and Its Systems

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  Kojima described The Phantom Pain as "200 times larger than Ground Zeroes", the stand-alone prologue that preceded it. Previous Metal Gear games, he said, had set players "on one rail to get from point A to point B". The new game scrapped that structure entirely.

  Players could traverse mountains on foot, go rock climbing as a shortcut, requisition helicopter gunships, call in airstrikes that changed the weather, or ride into combat on horseback. A video released after E3 2015 demonstrated the same mission completed four different ways: pure stealth, a direct helicopter assault, a sniper assassination, and smuggling an explosive device inside a patrol vehicle. The Fox Engine powered a day-night cycle and dynamic weather system that ran in real-time; lighting a "Phantom Cigar", an electronic cigar, fast-forwarded the clock while a digital silver Seiko watch panel appeared on screen.

  Four AI companions accompanied Snake depending on the player's choices. D-Horse could wear armor and conceal Snake during travel. D-Dog was a wolf pup raised in the field. Quiet was a mute sniper with supernatural abilities. D-Walker was a piloted mobile weapons platform providing heavy weapons support. Their effectiveness deepened the longer a player invested in the relationship with them.

  At the core of the game's economy was Mother Base, a headquarters that expanded through what the game called the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system. Players could balloon-extract captured enemy soldiers, animals, and vehicles back to the base. An in-game currency called GMP, collectible from rough diamonds, shipping containers, and blueprint boxes, funded upgrades to Snake's prosthetic arm, which could be modified with a taser, an echolocation function, or a remote-control missile mode. Enemy AI adapted dynamically: players who relied on headshots found their opponents had started wearing metal helmets in response.

• 4. The Cast and Its Controversy

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  At E3 2013, Konami confirmed that Kiefer Sutherland would voice and provide motion capture for Snake, replacing longtime voice actor David Hayter. Hollywood producer Avi Arad had suggested Sutherland to Kojima. Kojima's stated reason was a desire for "a more subdued performance expressed through subtle facial movements and tone of voice rather than words", and specifically the need for someone who could convey the qualities of a man in his late 40s.

  On the 4th of March 2015, Kojima revealed that Snake would have less dialogue in The Phantom Pain than in any previous installment, describing the intent as making Snake an extension of the player who would act based on the player's decisions rather than making his own spontaneous comments. Akio Otsuka continued to voice Snake in the Japanese version, unaffected by the casting change. Japanese voice acting was dubbed over the English cast's performance, reversing the series' practice since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, which had lip-synched separately to both languages.

  The character Quiet, voiced and motion-captured by Dutch model Stefanie Joosten, drew sustained criticism before and after release. Halo content producer David Ellis called her appearance oversexualized before the game launched. Konami released Quiet figurines in May 2015 as part of promotional activity; the figure's design attracted criticism in the Western press. In reviews, Polygon's Michael McWhertor described the in-game justification for Quiet's lack of clothing as inextricably tied to the story and criticized the broader pattern of how the game handled female characters. IGN's Vince Ingenito called Quiet the most interesting character in the game while expressing disappointment that she was also required to function as a visual object. GameZone's James Wynne disagreed, arguing that Quiet was a well-written character who did not need saving and compared her favorably to The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

• 5. The Konami Split

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  In March 2015, while the game was still months from release, Konami announced plans to separate from Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions. Kojima's name was removed from the game's cover, from all associated promotional material, and from future releases of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection. A Konami spokesperson stated that Kojima would remain involved with the company and the franchise.

  In July 2015, series composer Rika Muranaka told Metal Gear Central that over 30 commissioned songs for the series had never been used, and that Kojima's lack of business sense had played a part in his departure. In August 2015, a Konami marketing executive described Metal Gear as a key franchise and stated the company intended to produce additional games without Kojima.

  Critics and data miners connected the split directly to the game's perceived incompleteness. The Collector's Edition included a video of an unused mission titled "Episode 51: Kingdom of the Flies", presented through unfinished cinematics and concept artwork, showing Snake confronting Eli and the stolen Sahelanthropus on a remote island. Facepunch forum users extracting data from the PC version found evidence of an additional story chapter that never appeared in the final game. Producer Kenichiro Imaizumi declined to comment on fans' questions about the missing content on Twitter.

  In 2016, Konami responded to renewed criticism following the release of The Definitive Experience bundle, stating that Episode 51 had been removed during early development because it had never been intended as a pivotal story ending. Critics attributed the missing content to reported deadlines Konami had imposed due to Kojima's escalating development spending. In 2021, writers at PC Gamer and Collider expressed hope for a director's cut while acknowledging it was unlikely. GamesRadar+'s Dan Dawkins had argued that what appeared unfinished could have been deliberate, and that neither position was definitively correct.

• 6. The Twist and Its Reception

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  The Phantom Pain's narrative divided critics more sharply than almost any other aspect of the game. EGM's Spencer Campbell called the story "one of the strongest yet" in the series, while PC Gamer's Samuel Roberts called it "aimless" and the worst the series had produced. Kotaku's Jason Schreier described it as "damn unfulfilling" and incomplete.

  The story's central reveal, that Venom Snake is not the real Big Boss but a medic who underwent plastic surgery and hypnotherapy to serve as a body double while Big Boss wages a covert war, produced the widest range of responses. PC Gamer's Roberts called it "one perfect moment in a bad story", writing that the epilogue became a thematic reflection of the player's own experience once their identity was removed. Destructoid's Chris Carter noted that the series had always explored the idea of the legend being stronger than the actual person. GamesRadar+'s David Roberts called a player-controlled avatar for Big Boss "purely and distinctly Metal Gear" but felt the reveal left the story hollow because of repeated missions and an ending he described as "slapped in". Schreier felt the twist cheapened the player's entire journey.

  The game's score won Best Score/Soundtrack at The Game Awards 2015. Music was produced by Harry Gregson-Williams, his fourth Metal Gear title, and composed by Ludvig Forssell, Justin Burnett, and Daniel James. At the ceremony, Stefanie Joosten performed "Quiet's Theme" on stage. The Metal Gear Solid V Extended Soundtrack, released on the 23rd of December 2015, contained 114 tracks from both Metal Gear Solid V games and included two tracks from the cut "Mission 51: Kingdom of the Flies", the excised ending that had drawn so much scrutiny.

• 7. Sales and Legacy

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  Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shipped 3 million physical copies within its first five days across all platforms. In the United Kingdom it debuted at number one on the charts and became the third-biggest game launch of 2015, behind Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It was the most successful UK launch in the Metal Gear series, surpassing the previous record holder, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, by 37 percent. In Japan, the game sold 411,199 physical retail copies on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in its first week, topping the Japanese sales charts.

  In the United Kingdom, PlayStation 4 accounted for approximately 72 percent of sales excluding PC, roughly three times the Xbox One's share of 22 percent. Total shipments reached over 5 million copies by the end of September 2015 and over 6 million by December 2015. The game was the twenty-third title to receive a perfect 40/40 score from Famitsu, and only the third in the Metal Gear series to do so.

  The Phantom Pain received Game of the Year recognition from PC Gamer, GameRevolution, GamesRadar+, and Entertainment Weekly. At the 16th Game Developers Choice Awards it won Game of the Year along with prizes for audio, design, and technology. At the 12th British Academy Games Awards it won Best Game alongside awards for artistic achievement, audio achievement, and game innovation.

  After leaving Konami, Kojima stated in an interview with IGN that the new intellectual property he was developing would be "a complete game", a phrase that carried an obvious implication. That project was later revealed as Death Stranding, his first game as an independent developer.