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[Gorillaz]

<-- Not Kojima

He even used this as his profile pic like a few hours ago.

So it basically proves that it's not him...obviously

 

[Catalix]

Maybe the title refers to not being able to experience the pain being experienced by your virtual avatar, and the way this game is set up makes it a more vicarious experience for the player.

That'd be kinda cool, actually. The concept has "Kojima" written all over it.

The man sure does love his multi-layered game titles.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Maybe the title refers to not being able to experience the pain being experienced by your virtual avatar, and the way this game is set up makes it a more vicarious experience for the player.

Please no. I don't want another Solid Snake Simulation.

 

[cory64]

That'd be kinda cool, actually. The concept has "Kojima" written all over it.

The man sure does love his multi-layered game titles.

Yeah, that just kind of clicked because I picked up where I left off in MGS4 last night, and there was something similar to that theme. Very Kojima-y, I love that kind of stuff.

 

[Wishmaster92]

https://twitter.com/JNMogren
"For the record everyone, mobydickstudio.se is NOT official and is fan-made. Our site is http://thephantompain.com"

In which the gaf crew performed a domain check and found out it was created after the vgas iirc...lol. I still want to hear what the announcement is going to be though.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

The best tweet on there is where he says quite bluntly that Phantom Limb is not secretly QWOP 2.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

The best tweet on there is where he says quite bluntly that Phantom Limb is not secretly QWOP 2.

BELIEVE

 

[SeanNoonan]

BELIEVE

Post/gif of the forever.

 

[Catalix]

Yeah, that just kind of clicked because I picked up where I left off in MGS4 last night, and there was something similar to that theme. Very Kojima-y, I love that kind of stuff.

I hear ya. It's one of the recurring themes I find most fascinating in his games - blurring the lines between the player and avatar's experience. It's a unique aspect of interactive entertainment, and Kojima fully embraces the subject.

I'll admit, it's not always handled so elegantly in each installment of the series. But damn, whenever he tries to experiment with that form of storytelling, it tends to strike a chord with me.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

https://twitter.com/JNMogren
"For the record everyone, mobydickstudio.se is NOT official and is fan-made. Our site is http://thephantompain.com"

In which the gaf crew performed a domain check and found out it was created after the vgas iirc...lol. I still want to hear what the announcement is going to be though.

If im a betting man, its going to be an announcement of an announcement.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I knew that phantompain.com is not real. Oh and stealing GAF jokes already? Shame on you.

Oh and ads added to the site already? Someone trying to make cheap money off the viral marketing...

Can we start ignoring the fake accounts and websites?

 

[xir]

I want Ground Zeroes/MGSV to be like oracle of the seasons/ages. and guns n roses earlier work, but without the homophobic, misogynistic bent.

 

[ziadoz]

https://twitter.com/JNMogren
"For the record everyone, mobydickstudio.se is NOT official and is fan-made. Our site is http://thephantompain.com"

I noticed two interesting things in the source HTML of that site:

"The Neuromatrix 099999"

"Pain had not been completely eliminated, but the intensity had been reduced by over 50% and the burning component had completely vanished (Bittar et al., 2005)."

 

[Gouda Jouji]

I've been working a FAQ that I think would go well in the OP if someone wants to put it there.

Once I put pictures in i'll post it so I can get feedback.

 

[Wario64]

Wait, why are people asking that jnmogren twitter account for interviews? People realize it's fake, right?



Also goddamn, Kojima is genius that people are making up fake shit and making people believe it

 

[Hanmik]

so have we been down the "Whale symbolism" road..?´if not lets be crazy for a moment..

We see a whale swallowing something in the trailer. A whale swallowing a person is often (in dreams and old stories) seen as a sign of death and rebirth a regenerative cycle.

 

[Snake]

so have we been down the "Whale symbolism" road..?´if not lets be crazy for a moment..

It was staring us in the face the whole time.

Entire game solved.

 

[Hanmik]

It was staring us in the face the whole time.

Entire game solved.

so you are saying we will get a new character..? SOLID WHALE...? ohmygod ... ..

 

[Gouda Jouji]

Okay, here's the FAQ. Am I missing anything significant?

THE PHANTOM PAIN FAQ(?). YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED, PROBABLY.

So what the heck is it?

Announced at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards, The Phantom Pain is the debut video game from up and coming Swedish developer Joakim Mogren and Moby Dick Studio.

Alleged picture of Joakim Mogren. Hey, Joakim is an anagram for Kojima! Weird!

Moby Dick Studio logo. That tail sure looks like part of Scandinavia.

HOWEVER, soon after the trailer aired, many people began speculating that the mysterious trailer was actually Metal Gear related. Comments like “Hey, that looks like the FOX Engine!” and “OH SNAP LOOK AT THAT SICK MULLET OMG KOJIMMMMAAAAAAAAA” rang out across the internet. But it didn’t take long for valiant GAF detectives to crack the case. The Phantom Pain trailer was actually footage of a Metal Gear Solid game.

Oh, cool! So it’s a Metal Gear Solid game? How did those brave sleuths figure it out?!

The Phantom Pain logo has all these little notches cut into it, as you can see here:

But if you insert “Metal Gear Solid V” into them, it fits perfectly!

Pretty cool, huh?

Hmm, it seems like an open and shut case then! Were there any more hints?

Oh, plenty! Keep reading and you’ll see. After the VGAs, Konami held a party. Kojima and his crew were there of course. But these guys were also there:

When pictures first surfaced, many thought that these were just actors hired to add more fuel to the fire. But these two men are Simon Clowes (Left) and Kyle Cooper (Right) from a production company called Prologue. These guys specialize in making title sequences for movies and TV shows. Cooper is no stranger to Metal Gear, he made the opening sequences to MGS2 and MGS3, which made him recognizable to hard core MGS fans. A few days later on the Prologue Facebook page, it was confirmed that they had created the title sequence for The Phantom Pain that we see at the end of the trailer.

Another big giveaway came from the Moby Dick Studio website. When it was updated with screenshots and the trailer, the trailer section of the site had this text:

“All footage is shown running in real-time on hardware equivalent to current generation consoles (PS3 & XBOX360).”

This is pretty much word for word to what Kojima Productions said when Ground Zeroes debuted. But by the time the site was update people had already figured it all out.

Let’s talk about that sexy mullet beard guy in the pants that we see in the trailer.

Okay! The character we see fumbling about with his claw arm throughout the trailer seems to be having a very bad evening.

This poor fellow also happens to be a DEAD ringer for none other than Big Boss, the protagonist of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. He was also the bad guy in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. See, look!

Ground Zeroes

The Phantom Pain

Wait, I saw that wicked cool Ground Zeroes video. He had both his arms there! In what time period do you think this takes place?

The most plausible theory i’ve seen so far is that the events in The Phantom Pain trailer are happening a while after what we saw in the Ground Zeroes trailer. Another one i’ve heard is that it’s taking place during Les Enfants Terribles, aka the creation of Solid, Liquid, and Solidus Snake, in 1972. But that wouldn’t make sense since Big Boss had a working left hand in Peace Walker and the Ground Zeroes footage. Kojima is the king of retcons though, so who knows!

In terms of the date, i’m fairly confident that we are still in the 1970s. Near the start of The Phantom Pain trailer we see Big Boss and his bandaged buddy rolling around in a crashed vehicle, which many are speculating is an ambulance. If you take look at the speedometer you’ll see that it’s one of those old rectangle ones that were used in cars in the 60s and 70s:

There’s also the overall look of the hospital in the trailer. The equipment we can see looks old too. I guess it’s also possible that they’re just in an old ass hospital, but I don’t think so.

Okay, how about where it takes place?

We see a British flag, and a map on the wall at the start of the trailer. No one seems to have figured out where the map is showing, but it could be safe to assume that it is a British territory judging by the flag.

UPDATE: Twitter user @maperns has cracked it!

The Republic of Cyprus is an island nation in the Eastern Mediterranean. It's also home to two British Overseas Territories, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which contain military bases. Look them up if you want to know more!

Who’s the other bandaged dude with Big Boss? The one who likes to show off his ass?

I don’t know! No one does! People seem to think that he’s the burned/disfigured man from the Ground Zeroes trailer, but that only works if the footage takes place before GZ.

Personally, I think it’s a brand new character. Oh, another thing about that guy, a lot of people have pointed out that he sounds like Kiefer Sutherland. It would be pretty cool if he did a voice in a Metal Gear game! He’s a pirate!

A bunch of crazy shit happens in the trailer. Explain plz?

It’s the 70s man, that kind of stuff happens everyday!

Or, another theory is that this little guy is cause:

Many are speculating that this ill-fitting-jacket-wearing kid is a young Psycho Mantis. And i’m talking young, like 6 or 7. The gas mask is a huge hint, too. You can also see him levitating at the very end of the trailer:

2spooky!

It being Mantis is the most logical conclusion. But then again, this is Metal Gear.. so logic doesn’t mean much I guess.

Mantis has pretty powerful telekinesis, in MGS1 he made my TV change to the “HIDEO” channel, and I didn’t even get that! So is that why the whale from Child of Eden decided to drop by?

Yeah, that’s what I think. Either that or Big Boss drank some ayahuasca. Let’s take a look at the other manifestations we see in the trailer:

Okay, so we got a dude standing in the fire who is wearing what looks like an MSF Sneaking Suit, or a FOX CQC Enhancer Suit. We have a second guy rising out of the fire who could actually be the same as the first guy, but the suit makes it look more like it’s Volgin from MGS3 here. Actually, the first guy could be Volgin too.

Then we got someone riding a unicorn with fire wings and a fire horn. Yep.

The fire guy being some Volgin-like apparition kinda makes sense. Lil’ Mantis using Big Bosses memories to fuck with him. Regarding the flying unicorn, people have theorized that it’s The Boss riding it since she had a white horse too. But if you look closely, the rider appears to bulky, much like the fire guy. So all these crazy dudes appearing could in fact be the same dude... or ghost dude.. thing.. whatever.

So what about the soldiers who are with the kid? Who are they?

Comparing these soldiers from The Phantom Pain trailer to the ones in Ground Zeroes, you’ll see that they are wearing identical uniforms, except with gas masks:

Ground Zeroes

The Phantom Pains

Judging from the Ground Zeroes trailer, we know that these guys are somehow affiliated with The Patriots. Whether they still are during the events in The Phantom Pain trailer, who knows. We see them raiding the hospital, killing everyone in sight. Patients, nurses, and I assume doctors too are not spared. Their goal? Probably to capture Big Boss.

Another theory is that the kid isn’t with these soldiers at all, and is actually against them. That kind of makes sense too, since we see the space whale destroy their chopper at the end. But it could also be an MSF chopper coming to rescue Big Boss. There’s also that unmasked soldier with long blonde hair who’s on fire, which could have been caused by the kid.

Okay, all this stuff is kind of interesting. So we have Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, which was announced in late August. And now we have “The Phantom Pain”, which is actually Metal Gear Solid V? Is this an Innocent Sin/Eternal Punishment situation? I’m confused.

Everyone is. It has been reported that Kojima said Ground Zeroes is “a prologue to MGS5”. He’s also said that he’s “not ready to call it MGS5” as well. So we could well be seeing two different MGS games coming out. Our Lord and Saviour Geoff “Doritos Pope” Keighley did say on Twitter that The Phantom Pains was a brand new game and not related to anything previously announced, but there’s a pretty good chance he was just playing along to what the big corn chip in the sky told him to say.

“Ground Zeroes” and “The Phantom Pain” could also simply be chapters of Metal Gear Solid V, which is what i’m personally going with.

Hey, you know you could be totally 100% wrong about all this right? Meaning you’ve wasted an entire evening?

Yeah... yeah. Shout out to the people who made the pics I jacked!

 

[eso76]

so have we been down the "Whale symbolism" road..?´if not lets be crazy for a moment..

We see a whale swallowing something in the trailer. A whale swallowing a person is often (in dreams and old stories) seen as a sign of death and rebirth a regenerative cycle.

GAF, i am disappoint

Snake might not be a wooden puppet, but does have one wooden arm here.

The doctor we see at the beginning is Geppetto
The guy in bandages helping him is obviously the Talking Cricket
The Volgin lookalike in flames is clearly Mr. Fire Eater
The floating guy is none other than the Blue Fairy

 

[eso76]

i would also like to add; all soldiers wearing gas masks could mean something.
Even when there's no fire around we see a lot of smoke everywhere in the hospital

Maybe the smoke is what's giving Snake (and other patients) hallucinations

 

[IHaveCandy]

I just realized this. Am I the first here? What if that Snake looking person with the missing arm is Liquid Snake?

 

[wanders]

GAF, i am disappoint

Snake might not be a wooden puppet, but does have one wooden arm here.

The doctor we see at the beginning is Geppetto
The guy in bandages helping him is obviously the Talking Cricket
The Volgin lookalike in flames is clearly Mr. Fire Eater
The floating guy is none other than the Blue Fairy

Holy Shit. Holy Solid Shit.

 

[UrbanRats]

I just realized this. Am I the first here? What if that Snake looking person with the missing arm is Liquid Snake?

I said that a few hours after the trailer aired, but no, Liquid is missing the other arm, IIRC.

 

[the TMO]

I just realized this. Am I the first here? What if that Snake looking person with the missing arm is Liquid Snake?

Maybe if the trailer use the same trick of FOX-XOF. Liquid snake missing arm was the right.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Okay, here's the FAQ. Am I missing anything significant?

THE PHANTOM PAIN FAQ(?). YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED, PROBABLY.

So what the heck is it?

Good post!

Re: helicopter coming to rescue Snake, it's a similar Black Hawk helicopter that the XOF guy uses in the Ground Zeroes trailer, but with missile launchers added to the side, so I think that lowers the chances of it being friendly.

I've mentioned this before but I think these two shots are entirely different scenes.
One shows Snake apparently leaving a crumbling hospital entranceway, ambulance on the left.

Second one shows an upturned Jeep and an large air conditioned tunnel in the background.

 

[ShinobiFist]

Damn, Gouda Jouji. That's an awesome post, good shit my dude.

 

[eso76]

Maybe if the trailer use the same trick of FOX-XOF. Liquid snake missing arm was the right.

When did liquid arm go missing ?
OH you mean the arm they removed to replace Ocelot's ??
So this should be happening after Shadow Moses ??

Oh no. No way.
Please no.
Liquid foxdied there. I understand it's Kojima and his characters won't stay dead, but this would be too much.


I was thinking, if the whole FOX XOF might mean we have to mirror some details in Ground Zeroes trailer, crediting Joakim might as well mean some elements are mixed/scrambled here. Too far fetched though, i'll keep believing this is the story of Big Boss and Grey Fox joining.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

The clothes tech in 0:50 of the trailer is pretty damn cool.

 

[Graphics Horse]

When did liquid arm go missing ?
OH you mean the arm they removed to replace Ocelot's ??
So this should be happening after Shadow Moses ??

Oh no. No way.
Please no.
Liquid foxdied there. I understand it's Kojima and his characters won't stay dead, but this would be too much.


I was thinking, if the whole FOX XOF might mean we have to mirror some details in Ground Zeroes trailer, crediting Joakim might as well mean some elements are mixed/scrambled here. Too far fetched though, i'll keep believing this is the story of Big Boss and Grey Fox joining.

There's enough info to prove that the images aren't flipped, there is a list of numbers 1-16 in the first shot, and the G 1 2 3 numbers.

The clothes tech in 0:50 of the trailer is pretty damn cool.

That's great, I never notice those things but now I see it on the doctor too. I know Max Payne 3 and GTA V are doing something like that.

 

[eso76]

There's enough info to prove that the images aren't flipped, there is a list of numbers 1-16 in the first shot, and the G 1 2 3 numbers.

Of course, but like i said elsewhere we shouldn't think of literally mirroring the trailer. Even in the GZ trailer letters would be reversed etc. so it's not like the trailer is simply flipped, however MAYBE it's just a few key elements that are shown on the left side while they should be on the right and vice versa.
Again though, i don't think this is the case.

IF the game took place in a time frame when we can expect Solidus to be around the same age as Big Boss (Solidus was born many years later, but ages faster) then the mirror thing, the whole FOX-XOF might mean something, with Big Boss having to face his 'mirrored' self (right eye missing for BB, left missing for Solidus) but Solidus should be like 7 years old here.

 

[abstract alien]

GAF, i am disappoint

Snake might not be a wooden puppet, but does have one wooden arm here.

The doctor we see at the beginning is Geppetto
The guy in bandages helping him is obviously the Talking Cricket
The Volgin lookalike in flames is clearly Mr. Fire Eater
The floating guy is none other than the Blue Fairy

God

 

[falconzss]

GAF, i am disappoint

Snake might not be a wooden puppet, but does have one wooden arm here.

The doctor we see at the beginning is Geppetto
The guy in bandages helping him is obviously the Talking Cricket
The Volgin lookalike in flames is clearly Mr. Fire Eater
The floating guy is none other than the Blue Fairy

Holy *avatarquote*

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Okay I just had to take this a step further. Here's my parody trailer for QWOP 2:

http://youtu.be/CsUkXTIftVA

"As an athletics champion, your life is turned upside down after a catastrophic automobile accident. Now you must find the strength to do what they said was impossible. BELIEVE."

 

[Graphics Horse]

Of course, but like i said elsewhere we shouldn't think of literally mirroring the trailer. Even in the GZ trailer letters would be reversed etc. so it's not like the trailer is simply flipped, however MAYBE it's just a few key elements that are shown on the left side while they should be on the right and vice versa.
Again though, i don't think this is the case.

Yeah I thought about that but it's not a road I want to go down. There's certainly some misdirection with the whole fake company thing, but we can't guess what if any parts of the trailer have been altered to mislead us, as it could literally be anything, like I could bring up the idea that Snake might not be an amputee in the full game.

 

[krimsoncharge]

what if phantom pain is the prologue and ground zeroes the actual part of MGS 5. does that make sense wrt what they have shown so far? does anything make sense?

 

[AuthenticM]

what if phantom pain is the prologue and ground zeroes the actual part of MGS 5. does that make sense wrt what they have shown so far? does anything make sense?

My take is that the Ground Zeroes footage we've seen is the equivalent of the Tanker part of MGS2, which is a prologue to the actual game. This would be consistent with Kojima saying that he's not ready to call GZ MGS5 yet, and sees it as a "prologue" (his words). The Phantom Pain footage would be the beginning or near the beginning of the actual MGS5 game.

 

[EatChildren]

I don't think it's a coincidence that The Phantom Plain deliberately focuses on a military helicopter arriving at the hospital with an army of soldiers (eventually whale'd), and Ground Zeroes also put a lot of attention on burn face man and his identical army of soldiers leaving in the same helicopters.

 

[Ricky_R]

I don't think it's a coincidence that The Phantom Plain deliberately focuses on a military helicopter arriving at the hospital with an army of soldiers (eventually whale'd), and Ground Zeroes also put a lot of attention on burn face man and his identical army of soldiers leaving in the same helicopters.

Are you suggesting that the burnt face man and his soldiers were the ones who got there and started shooting every body or that they are the ones arriving at the end and getting eaten by the "on acid" whale?

 

[The Jason]

&#8220;Ground Zeroes&#8221; and &#8220;The Phantom Pain&#8221; could also simply be chapters of Metal Gear Solid V, which is what i&#8217;m personally going with.

Hey, you know you could be totally 100% wrong about all this right? Meaning you&#8217;ve wasted an entire evening?

Well Ground Zeros is apparently an open world game, so i wonder if MGS5 would work with such gameplay. Perhaps GZ's is just an open world spin-off of MGS5. But it is hard to imagine two MGS games with such continuity being released any time soon, so who knows.

 

[squidyj]

What if the soldier guy is merely a psychological manifestation of big boss' unconscious pushing him forward to do what he knows on some level he needs to do.

 

[EatChildren]

Are you suggesting that the burnt face man and his soldiers were the ones who got there and started shooting every body or that they are the ones arriving and getting eaten by the whale?

Latter, though I don't necessarily think the two are related (as in, he leaves Ground Zero and arrives at the hospital). Just that the parallels are obvious. Ground Zeroes put a big focus on burnt face man and his unit covering their tracks, jumping in choppers, removing their FOX tags, and heading off somewhere as Big Boss entered the compound. On the other hand, The Phantom Pain focused on Big Boss stranded in a compound, trying to leave, as identical, FOX tagless soldiers arrive, along with an identical helicopter.

Ground Zeroes shows burnt face man and co leaving. The Phantom Pain shows them arriving.

Well Ground Zeros is apparently an open world game, so i wonder if MGS5 would work with such gameplay. Perhaps GZ's is just an open world spin-off of MGS5. But it is hard to imagine two MGS games with such continuity being released any time soon, so who knows.

It's not full open world though. It's still mission based, but each mission operates like a large, open battlefield rather than the linearity the series is used to.

 

[Ricky_R]

Latter, though I don't necessarily think the two are related (as in, he leaves Ground Zero and arrives at the hospital). Just that the parallels are obvious. Ground Zeroes put a big focus on burnt face man and his unit covering their tracks, jumping in choppers, removing their FOX tags, and heading off somewhere as Big Boss entered the compound. On the other hand, The Phantom Pain focused on Big Boss stranded in a compound, trying to leave, as identical, FOX tagless soldiers arrive, along with an identical helicopter.

Ground Zeroes shows burnt face man and co leaving. The Phantom Pain shows them arriving.

Yeah, I got you. Makes sense.

 

[eso76]

Yeah I thought about that but it's not a road I want to go down.

Exactly, that would add too many variables to the picture and wouldn't take us anywhere.
It wouldn't be a fair game, and i believe Kojima is giving us all elements to crack this little game.

Ground Zeroes shows burnt face man and co leaving. The Phantom Pain shows them arriving.

except Ground Zeroes shows a latin america location and this appears to be in south africa.
Nah

 

[Salaadin]

Okay I just had to take this a step further. Here's my parody trailer for QWOP 2:

http://youtu.be/CsUkXTIftVA

"As an athletics champion, your life is turned upside down after a catastrophic automobile accident. Now you must find the strength to do what they said was impossible. BELIEVE."

That is excellent.

 

[vitaminwateryum]

The only picture from the J. Mogren twitter account is a picture of a swedish meal...which happens to be taken from some website with a list of European foods.

You know, just in case people aren't convinced that it's not a real dude.

 

[AuthenticM]

Has anybody asked Kiefer Sutherland on Twitter if he did voicework for a video game called The Phantom Pain or a future Metal Gear title ?

 

[Minion101]

You guys are just like those indoctrination theory pushers. The makers of the game are not smart enough to do this.....

 

[AuthenticM]

You guys are just like those indoctrination theory pushers. The makers of the game are not smart enough to do this.....

Not smart enough to do what, exactly ? This isn't the first time Kojima has fucked with his fans via trailers. He's done so with every Metal Gear game, starting with MGS2.

 

[Cyborg]

For me Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain are two games.
Ill wait for any further info.