(Earlier this week, I posted a review of Metal Gear Solid V in which I avoided spoilers. Here, I’ll discuss the story and it’s surprises in far more depth. This post will contain significant spoilers for the game, and is recommended only for people who are aware of its secrets)
Metal Gear Solid V’s story is a complete mess of disparate plotlines. Series director Hideo Kojima was likely well-aware that this would be his final Metal Gear title, so he engaged with every major idea he could. The power of language, English as a symbol of assimilation, the formation of private military forces, the origin of the Les Enfants Terrible project (the one that birthed Solid and Liquid Snake), early Metal Gears, the dilemma of what to do with child soldiers, the futility of revenge; all are focuses of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, yet rarely do they cross over into anything coherent.
Cassette tapes try to make sense of how selling remote-triggered nuclear warheads to foreign nations has anything to do with a planned attack on cultural assimilation via a plague of English-language attacking lung parasites, but try as the writers might, they never truly make the ideas come together into a cohesive plan. Nor does Skullface’s existence have anything to do with child soldier Eli, or how he’s a clone of player character Big Boss (or IS he?…more on that below), or the psychokinetic Third Child, or the reanimated fiery corpse of Metal Gear Solid 3 antagonist Volgin, or the ridiculous twist ending.
