Under a swath of bandages covering his face, during the Fox Engine Panel at GDC, "Metal Gear" creator Hideo Kojima confirmed everyones' suspicions and rumors that "Phantom Pain," combined with "Ground Zeroes" is indeed "Metal Gear Solid 5." Just how the two are related to each other, or will make up "MGS5" is as of yet unclear.
The presentation began with the all-too-familiar hospital setting seen in "Phantom Pain," which then transitions into an extended look at the Snake seen in "Ground Zeroes," accompanied by a mash of jump cuts with all those surreal shots seen from the "Phantom Pain" demo, and what looks like Snake's Mother Base being blown to Kindom Come. The whole thing can be seen below.
After that, the mummy version of Kojima appeared, confirming that the two games comprise "Metal Gear Solid 5."
Kojima then showed off a new demo with some gameplay elements with Snake in "Pain's" hospital setting.
It looks like Snake's recovery will have to wait, because the hospital is under attack. A bandaged man identifying himself as Ishamel comes forward, telling Snake he's been keeping an eye on him for the past 9 years, and is going to help him escape.
But a 9 year nap can leave even the most hardened soldier in a rough spot, and such is the case for Snake. He's lost an arm, and a lot of his movement capabilities. As such, he has to resort to crawling just to maneuver. A chuckle is heard from the crowd when Ishamael tells Snake they'll have to take the stairs. Obviously, that's not an option with Snake's limited movement, so they decide the elevator is the only option.
The elevator comes into view at the end of the hall. The doors open, revealing what looks like a little girl, who suddenly levitates. Shortly thereafter, an explosion causes the hall to burst into flames, and sends Snake and Ishmael flying. An imposing figure begins walking towards the duo. Eyes glowing red, both his head and arms are aflame. The sprinkler system goes off, extinguishing the flames on this monolith of a man, but once the smoke clears, he's nowhere to be seen. Is this the disfigured man we saw in the "Ground Zeroes" demo? The entire clip is below.
Immediately after the demo, the team launched into various aspects of the new FOX engine. Impressive stuff, but I'm on the edge of my seat here, and I wanna see more of the game. The more Kojima showed, the more questions I had.
We could tell earlier based on the youthful appearance that this Snake isn't "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" Old Snake, but is definitely Big Boss. But where in the timeline does this take place? We've yet to see a game where Big Boss featured any kind of prosthestics, so it's likely to assume that this is sometime after the events of "Peace Walker."
It's hard to say what leads into what though. From the first demo, it seems that Snake wound up in the hospital after his base goes bye bye, but during the tech demo that followed, a "Ground Zeroes" model Big Boss is seen sporting what looks like a prosthetic hand, which seems to indicate that what we've seen of "Phantom Pain" will lead in to, or at least set the stage for "Ground Zeroes." But in the a world where a cloned man's spirit can live on through his disembodied arm that's been transplanted to a triple agent, nothing is certain. It's Kojima, so anything is possible.
We'll keep you posted as more details become available.