METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

On March 16, 1975, shortly after the events of Ground Zeroes, Venom Snake fell into a coma. When he eventually awoke almost nine years later, on February 26, 1984, a nurse noticed him having woken up and quickly alerted a doctor who informed Venom Snake about his medical condition and later told the latter that he had to leave as he was being looked for by enemy forces.

Venom Snake met a mysterious patient going by the name Ishmael who claimed to be an acquaintance of his and attempted to help him to his feet. Ishmael injected Venom Snake with Digoxin to give him some ability to regain his motor functions. During his nine year coma most of his muscles atrophied, and "Big Boss" was forced to slowly crawl. As they approached the elevator they encountered a child wearing a gas mask. The child immediately levitated and passed through the ceiling as the elevator exploded, violently throwing them to the floor. A disoriented Venom Snake witnessed a ghost-like figure out of the fire. He quickly retreated with Ishmael in another direction, attempting to escape the hospital as a military chopper was searching the area around the building. Venom Snake and Ishmael managed to commandeer an ambulance but end up crashing it shortly thereafter. As Venom Snake crawled from the crashed ambulance, through its broken front window, he was once again confronted by the gas mask wearing child who summoned a huge flame in the shape of a humpback whale which engulfed an attack chopper which was advancing toward them. Venom Snake somehow managed to escape and was eventually picked up and rescued by Ocelot. The two then escape on horseback while being pursued by a fiery apparition of a demon riding a unicorn.

On March 27, 2013, Kojima officially confirmed that The Phantom Pain was indeed a Metal Gear game titled Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain during GDC 2013. After the official announcement, it was widely believed that Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain had been combined into one game. However, it was later revealed that contrary to popular belief, they were still two separate games. Kojima's reason for presenting The Phantom Pain as an independent game was to assess the reception of the Fox Engine.

Kojima told GameTrailers TV that David Hayter wouldn't reprise his role as Big Boss. He explained: "What we're trying to accomplish is to recreate the Metal Gear series. It's a new Metal Gear game and we wanted to have this reflected in the voice actor as well." He also revealed that it will be his last Metal Gear game before retiring from active involvement in the series. He stated that he has absolutely every intention of carrying out his retirement when citing the prior times he stated he was retiring from the series. When commenting on the appearance of the giant burning whale in the game's trailers, he said that there will be realism to balance things out.

On May 14, GameSpot announced that they had partnered with Konami to stream their annual pre-E3 show on June 6, and revealed that an inside look of The Phantom Pain would be shown. The pre-E3 showcase came with the official announcement of Kiefer Sutherland providing the voice, and facial performance of Big Boss through motion capture. Kojima revealed that "Race" and "Revenge" were among some of the themes of The Phantom Pain. He confirmed that The Phantom Pain takes place in 1984 and that Big Boss at this time is 49 years old. The game's tagline was revealed "Tactical Espionage Operations" which had previously been the name of a trailer spot for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Four days later, Konami announced that The Phantom Pain would be released for the Xbox One.[50] The following day, a PlayStation 4 version was announced as well.

On June 12, a Special E3 KP Alert podcast stated that together, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain form Metal Gear Solid V. Kojima stated that they had not yet decided whether whether Ground Zeroes was to be released in conjunction with The Phantom Pain or if it was to be released separately. In an interview with GameTrailers, Kojima said that they had hoped to release a PC version in the future, but it was not a priority at that particular time.

On June 13, Kojima revealed that a new installment of Metal Gear Online would be included in The Phantom Pain. Kojima stated that they wanted to integrate other devices such as smartphones and tablets and use them to allow users to create their own missions, and that he aimed to have Metal Gear Solid V run at 60 frames per second and at at least 1080p on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

On July 13, journalist and film actor, Jay Tavare posted a photo of himself performing some facial capture for The Phantom Pain. In a comment on the photo, he confirmed that he was providing the voice of Code Talker.

On the topic of the character Quiet, Kojima stated, "I've been ordering [art director Yoji Shinkawa] to make the character more erotic, and he did it well. Recently, I've been making characters this way. I create the setting thoroughly, how he/she spent early life, name style, favorite phrase, fashion, action to stand the character out. The initial target is to make [you] want to do cosplay or its figurine to sell well."[58] The statement received a mixed reaction from fans, websites and other developers. Kojima clarified that "erotic" might not be the correct word, and instead, he insisted that he was trying to make the characters unique. In regards to Quiet, Kojima said that he "wanted to add that sexiness to her." The "sexy" design concept was stated to be carried by everything in the game, including male characters, weapons, vehicles and mechs. When asked for her thoughts on the matter, Stefanie Joosten, Quiet's motion and voice actress, stated that although she was initially surprised by the character's design, there was a reason behind it. On September 5, Kojima stated “Game technology and hardware have always been evolving and becoming great, but we’re always fighting against aliens and shooting. I didn’t want to be like that,” Kojima told CVG during an interview at E3. “I wanted to make a game with a deep theme and change the industry.” “Distance is a very big factor,” claims Kojima. “In the trailer you saw Snake riding a horse, but you can also walk to a mission or take another mode of transport.” Watch and you’ll notice a lovely touch where your hero repositions his weight to lean against one side of his horse and avoid being spotted – a technique similar to a move in Shadow Of The Colossus. It’s a clever example of hard-wiring the series’ stealth into the challenges open-world transport brings about, and continues the gloriously playful controls seen in Guns Of The Patriots. “All the freedom is up to you and there are no rules [like] the linear games in the past,” Kojima states. “You can use smartphones and tablets to interact with the world. That’s why we did an open world, because we thought about all these interactions on multiple devices.” Kojima has also confirmed The Phantom Pain will enable players to create their own missions saying that by “Using tablets and smartphones you can also enjoy MGS V and create user-generated missions within the world.”

On November 4, Konami announced that Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain would be released separately. Kojima later stated that while it would have been ideal to release Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain as one game, it was decided to release Ground Zeroes first so that players could enjoy the prologue and get used to the new open world feel before playing The Phantom Pain. This was in part due to The Phantom Pain’s long development time.

On November 12, Kojima admitted that the story of The Phantom Pain would contain minor "inconsistencies" when compared to the canon established by previous games in the series. Via a translator, he stated, "When you try to write something that was supposed to be in the middle there will be some inconsistencies when you go into very small details."

In the March 2014 edition of Game Informer, The Phantom Pain was listed as only being confirmed for the PS4 and Xbox One, raising questions as to whether the game would still be released for the older systems. Konami representative ToraShiro responded to these concerns, stating that the report was erroneous and that the game would indeed be released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in a forum post on NeoGAF.

On March 5, 2014, Kojima expressed his concern that The Phantom Pain might be too big to finish as it is 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes. Kojima couldn't say how many missions there were in The Phantom Pain but said there would be a lot. Kojima also said that it was possible that the game might receive a PC version if fans really wanted it.

On March 8, a GameSpot interview implied that The Phantom Pain would be released in late 2015.[66] However, a DLC order screen revealed that it was actually to be released in early 2015.

On June 5, Kojima revealed a short footage of gameplay. The footage confirmed that the cardboard box would return. A comparison map between The Phantom Pain's map and the various maps in the series (excluding Portable Ops and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance) was also displayed on the site, with Kojima mentioning that the gray horizon was to hide the full extent of the map.

The Japanese and English E3 trailer for the game ended up being leaked a few days before its planned showing at E3 2014. This was apparently due to a screw up concerning the trans-pacific release dates. The song used for the trailer was "Nuclear" by Mike Oldfield from Mercury Records Limited. The trailer ended with "Coming Soon in 1984." The site was also updated to include additional comparison charts, one involving the progressions of the various Snakes (excluding Portable Ops Snake) and the comparisons of various Metal Gears (excluding the TX-55 Metal Gear, Metal Gear D, the Metal Gear Solid-era REX, the Arsenal Ray model, Arsenal Gear from Metal Gear Solid 2, RAXA, the ICBMG, Metal Gear ZEKE, Desperado RAY, and EXCELSUS), with the last one on the chart being blanked out.

Kojima in the aftermath tweeted that The Phantom Pain would include some comical elements from the series since Metal Gear Solid, including the ability to fulton sheep. In addition, Kojima also tweeted that the sales division of Konami didn't like the artwork used for the E3 2014 poster due to Snake and Ocelot's faces being covered as they were already exposed to the public. In response, Kojima pointed out that his intention for the artwork was to show their descent into evil. Kojima also confirmed that the line "V has come to," was in fact referring to Snake, specifically "Venom Snake."