The Phantom Pain’s Phantom Appeal

It’s what you DON’T see that makes it fascinating.  Negative space.  The words “METAL GEAR SOLID V” literally cut out of the title, instead of being shown front and center.  It’s brilliant, intriguing, and (hopefully) reflects a deeper theme within the game — of letting our imaginations go wild, for better or worse.

Is The Phantom Pain really Metal Gear Solid 5?  Or is that what we’re supposed to trick ourselves into thinking?

The Phantom Pain

Remember when Kojima talked about a “taboo” project that could potentially force him to leave the industry — the project which was eventually revealed to be the “devil” project?

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Metal Gear Solid 5 leaked image confirms rumors apparently

I happened to notice “Metal Gear Solid 5” in the Twitter trends this morning, and soon found myself reading very vague, and very possibly fake rumors.  Here’s the news piece.

The unverified picture prominantly [sic] displays a logo for Metal Gear Solid 5 along with the phrase ‘Open Ground Reconnaissance Endeavors (OGRE)’ which could be a replacement for the ‘Tactical Espionage Action’ tagline the series has carried thus far.

Kojima wanted to have an open-world environment ever since Snake Eater, which was supposed to be “seamless” initially, with weather patterns and a day/night cycle; players were supposed to get lost in the jungle and need to use landmarks for navigation; hunting and sneaking would be more important than ever.  The trailer even made reference to Grand Theft Auto, suggesting that the games would be comparable.  Basically, compared to Kojima’s original ambitions we got a can of sardines.  This would be the full feast.

This may be Kojima’s opportunity to make his old dream a reality.  If “OGRE” does stand for “Open Ground Reconnaissance Endeavors” — which for the record I hope it does not, because nothing sounds lamer than the word “endeavors” when describing a game — then it could be Metal Gear Solid 5 after all.  How on earth this ties into raising a family?  Well, Big Boss did have some hand in raising Solid and Liquid Snake, at least…

Do I believe the leaked rumor?  Actually, I sort of do.  It would even fit with his old statement about how it could end up as career suicide if it went wrong, which I surmised involved retconning the Metal Gear series.  Or maybe I’m dumb!

EDIT:  Okay, so I’m way behind in the times here.  So there are a couple of fuzzy screenshots, not just one, and there is a lot more news about MGS5 being said already.  I am dumb!

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