The Metal Gear series has always been hard to follow and brimming with easy to miss vital details. In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's attempt to bring the series full circle with a connection between the prequel timeline and the first Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima packed it with tons of plot twists and revelations. Even for a fifty hour game,it can be difficult to keep track of everything that happened.
To help sort through the most important details, the following list will shine a light on the ten most important spoilers within the game. While it did its best to bridge the gap in the franchise, it still feels like some key questions remain unanswered. Due to Kojima's exodus from the publisher, Konami, it looks like those mysteries will stay enigmas forever.
10 Venom Snake's Identity
Right from the start something feels off with Venom Snake, and it is not just the different voice actor. The prologue sees him guided through an attack by a bandaged man with his voice. While one could chock it up to hallucinations, an idea made all the more believable by the other strange happenings during the introduction, he is not imagining any of it.
By the end, the truth is made clear as day. Venom Snake was an MSF medic injured during Ground Zeroes and made into Big Boss to continue his legacy while the real legendary soldier waged a hidden war against Cipher and The Patriots. If one paid enough attention during the prologue game from 2014, signs of this twist were already evident.
9 Disarmament
Hidden deep in the game's files was a cut scene detailing the world's complete nuclear disarmament, an event leading directly into the 1987 premiere title. The world successfully rid itself of all nuclear weapons thanks to Venom Snake and Motherbase.
The scene was meant to trigger in-game once players had disarmed every existing nuke they had made, but an error set off the scene early while nukes were still in play.
8 Quiet
The scantily clad sniper walks around with few articles of clothing for a reason. Due to her life threatening burns, her parasitic treatment caused her to gain sustenance through the skin like a plant and photosynthesis.
She also didn't speak because she had a vocal cord parasite which would infect everyone on Motherbase if she let words out. Some were less than thrilled at this explanation for her attire, but at least it was something.
7 Zero And Skull Face
Skull Face became aware of Big Boss and The Boss while cleaning up after his mess on Operation Snake Eater. He was then recruited by Zero to form XOF. The villain saw Zero's plan of uniting the world to be irresponsible and detrimental to non-occidental countries, so he went rogue and ousted Zero, eventually putting him into a catatonic state.
With a small army at his disposal, he began his plan of undoing Zero's work and trying to destroy the United States' and Russia's nuclear dominance.
6 Eli
The child bears a striking resemblance to a young Liquid Snake. Yet upon doing a blood test to confirm his relation to Venom Snake, the results come out negative. This is puzzling to many of the characters, but observant gamers had more than likely already figured out why this happened. Venom Snake, while appearing identical to Big Boss, still has the DNA of the medic of his previous identity.
By the end of the game, Eli is on the run with Sahelanthropus and the other child soldiers, leaving one of the game's biggest plot holes open and unanswered.
5 Huey
Huey, Hal Emmerich's father, appears at first to be falling into the tired Metal Gear trope of the innocent scientist's work used for diabolical means. The reality is far more sinister, however.
Huey is a complete sociopath who used his own son in experiments. When his wife, Dr. Strangelove, protested, he locked her in an airtight A.I. pod and left her to suffocate. He's also to blame for unleashing the vocal cord parasite upon Motherbase following suspicions of his intentions to sell it as a black market weapon.
4 Vocal Cord Parasite
Early in the game Snake happens upon a medical room where numerous bodies are laid out with tubes going through an open cut in their throats. What he sees is Skull Face training the vocal cord parasites to activate upon hearing select languages.
The parasite was a part of an initial plan by Cipher to control languages, but was eventually abandoned. Skull Face used the tech for his own reasons, and was prepared to use it to destroy the English speaking population.
3 Kaz
The first mission after leaving the hospital is saving Kaz from imprisonment. Snake finds him brutally tortured and missing an arm and a leg. Despite his injuries, he plays a big part on Motherbase and in the story. Only in the end does he reveal another major injury he sustained: blindness. This whole time he couldn't see, but only astute gamers noticed the clues.
After discovering this, it becomes easier to point out the signs on subsequent play throughs. His interaction with Eli also adds a whole new layer to Metal Gear Solid.
2 Paz
Motherbase mysteriously finds Paz and brings her to an infirmary. This is especially weird, considering the player saw her blow up right in front of their eyes. After doing her side quest, it is revealed that all of these scenes were hallucinations.
The reason for these is never made clear, but it could have something to do with Snake's guilt for letting her die. Paz infiltrated MSF for Cipher, but no one deserves the horror and humiliation she went through while under confinement by Skull Face.
1 Venom Snake After MGS V
Venom Snake didn't leave the picture after the events of the 2015 game. In fact, The Phantom Pain wasn't even his first appearance in the series. As it turns out, Venom Snake was the architect behind the Outer Heaven incident of the game's premiere title.
Of course, Kojima had no intention to put this twist in when crafting the first game back in 1987, but the plot falls into place and makes more sense when considering the character is mortally wounded by the end of the game. A little retconning never hurt a franchise, especially when it is changing a game from over thirty years ago.