In the course of the game, players take on the role of BIGBOSS, aided by the loyal companion and the ever-present support of the logistics unit. Even elements like shifting weather conditions play into the experience, creating a remarkably fluid and immersive gameplay loop.
You can infiltrate an enemy base without taking a single life, moving like a ghost, almost godlike. Or, if your equipment is strong enough, you can sling an RPG over your shoulder and charge headfirst into chaos, cutting through enemies with explosive firepower and high-caliber revolvers.
At the same time, players aren't limited to gadgets like cardboard boxes or camouflage. You can strip uniforms from unconscious enemies and blend into their ranks. Of course, doing so requires extracting vital information from captured soldiers; without those clues, your disguise won't last long before suspicion catches up to you.
As the game unfolds, more intricate details begin to emerge. Hidden cassette tapes reveal fragments of deeper stories, while cinematic sequences enhance immersion. Gradually, players find themselves drawn not just to the gameplay, but to the narrative beneath it.
And this is exactly what John intended: to create a balance where gameplay freedom and narrative immersion coexist. Back when developing The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, drawing inspiration from dreamlike memories, he pushed for a more complete experience: refined combat feedback, smoother action systems, and even the addition of climbing mechanics. If players were determined enough, they could climb from the base of a mountain all the way to the top of the World, overlooking the vast expanse of Skyrim.
These design philosophies carried over into Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain. John expanded them further, introducing a wide variety of vehicles, from horses to jeeps, trucks, tanks, and motorcycles, alongside an equally diverse arsenal of weapons.
This breadth of options gives Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain its layered complexity. At the same time, John deliberately streamlined the controls. A game that is overly complicated risks undermining its own enjoyment.
Hyper-realistic mechanics, like constantly managing thirst, hunger, temperature, or even bathroom needs, may sound appealing at first. But once the novelty fades, such repetitive systems quickly become tedious and exhausting.
Instead, the focus is placed on strategy. How you approach a mission, how you engage enemies, how you overcome obstacles these choices define the experience. Capturing enemy soldiers and recruiting them into your base, watching your roster fill with S-ranked personnel, delivers a powerful sense of accomplishment.
Even though these recruits remain behind the scenes, handling logistics and developing equipment, it is still their leader, BIGBOSS, who takes the field, fighting and earning resources firsthand.
On a quiet weekend, Liam sat at home and resumed his playthrough of Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain. He had to admit, this game was truly unconventional. Cutscenes could stretch for several minutes, sometimes even ten. Even story-driven RPGs rarely dared to do that.
Yet Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain embraced it. At the same time, PixelPioneers made thoughtful adjustments. Players could choose whether to watch certain sequences or skip them after completing a mission, avoiding forced interruptions.
The overall story was deeply engaging, though not without its complexities. Even after playing Metal Gear: The Original Breaking Point and revisiting the Metal Gear comics, Liam still found parts of the narrative difficult to fully grasp.
Through Skull Face's story, he saw a man who had lost everything to war, a man consumed by hatred, yet driven by a twisted vision of peace. By spreading nuclear weapons across nations and using Metal Gear as a deterrent, he sought to create a fragile balance where fear would prevent conflict.
There were also the mysterious burning man, the floating child, and Eli aboard the aircraft. The symbolism behind Eli controlling Metal Gear initially confused Liam, but in the end, it didn't matter. Because it was cool. The thrill of single-handedly taking down massive mechanized weapons was exhilarating, an adrenaline-fueled spectacle that left a lasting impression.
After an intense boss battle, Liam stared at the defeated Skull Face, pinned beneath steel debris, begging for death. A strange sense of satisfaction washed over him. Raising his weapon, he worked alongside Miller to shatter Skull Face's limbs, mirroring the suffering Miller himself had endured.
The only thing that left Liam dissatisfied was Huey, the chief Scientist of Diamond Dogs, who ultimately stole the final shot for his own revenge, robbing the moment of its emotional weight.
From a narrative standpoint, the story seemed to reach a natural conclusion. Nine years after the events of Metal Gear: Original Burst Point, BIGBOSS had achieved his revenge, rebuilt his forces, and established Diamond Dogs as a powerful new faction, complete with nuclear deterrence and Metal Gear technology.
But unresolved threads lingered: the ghost-like child, Eli, and the one remaining English strain of the vocal cord parasite.
Following Revolver Ocelot's investigation, Eli, empowered by the mysterious child, escaped from the Diamond Dogs base, taking Metal Gear with him.
Soon after, disaster struck again. A new outbreak of the vocal cord parasite spread through the base, this time far more severe than before.
Inside the quarantined facility, BIGBOSS personally entered to investigate. The scene was horrifying. Blood-stained floors, flashing red warning lights, it felt like stepping into hell.
Some survivors remained, barely conscious, groaning in agony. One by one, they died. High-ranking personnel painstakingly recruited by players fell alongside ordinary soldiers. In the corner of the screen, notifications of decreasing heroism values continued to appear.
"Boss… let me out… please…"
"I can't die here! I'm not infected… I'm not… right?!"
In one ward, a soldier clutched his weapon, staring desperately at BIGBOSS. Yin Zheng, sitting at his computer, hesitated. He didn't raise his gun. Instead, he turned and walked away. But he didn't go far when, behind him, a soldier pulled out his weapon.
"If I'm infected… I don't want to die like that…" A gunshot echoed.
At that moment, a heavy weight settled in Liam's chest. He pressed forward, searching for whoever had transmitted the warning.
Along the way, he encountered the first wave of rescue forces. They believed firmly that their commander, their BIGBOSS, would save them, would lead them out of this nightmare.
But when he finally found the dying researcher, listening to the grim analysis over the radio as control slipped into a cutscene, a chilling realization began to form. A terrible suspicion.
Faced with infected soldiers desperate to escape, there was only one choice left. To prevent the virus from spreading beyond the base, BIGBOSS, the man they trusted most, had to become their executioner. Flames consumed the facility. Amid the fire, the Diamond Dogs emblem burned brightly on every uniform.
"Boss, equip your night vision. Anyone with luminescence in their throat is infected. The only thing you can do… is give them a merciful end."
The soldiers he had recruited. The comrades who believed in him. Now, he had to kill them himself.
"Boss!"
"Save me, Boss!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Boss… why…?"
Listening to the voices filled with pain, confusion, and despair, Liam, sitting in front of his computer, suddenly felt an unbearable heaviness settle over him. At that moment, the BGM titled "He Parallels" began to play softly in the background. Huey's voice echoed through the radio, repeatedly questioning everything BIGBOSS had done, every decision that had led them to this point.
Liam pressed his lips together tightly and continued forward with the keyboard, mechanically pulling the trigger as he advanced through the corridor, shooting the infected soldiers one after another. The mission prompt blinking in the upper-left corner of the screen felt unusually oppressive.
But this was only the beginning. As he pushed deeper into the base, he finally arrived at a sealed room. Before the door even opened, loud arguing could already be heard from inside.
"Let me out! I'm going outside!"
"No!"
"We're already dead anyway!"
The moment the door slid open, the people inside instantly split into two opposing groups, guns raised toward one another. But when they saw BIGBOSS step into the room, everything froze. One by one, every soldier lowered their weapons. Then they all stood upright and saluted.
"BOSS!"
"Let BOSS decide!"
"We swear to obey your orders, BOSS!"
There were no monstrous growls as the infected soldiers encountered earlier. No madness. No screaming. Only soldiers. Loyal soldiers standing silently before their commander, saluting with trembling hands as they waited for him to decide whether they would live or die.
Whenever the muzzle of the gun moved toward them, fear flashed across their faces. Their names and combat records appeared above their heads one after another.
Sitting in front of the monitor, Liam stared blankly at them. His crosshair hovered over their bodies, yet his finger refused to pull the trigger. He even tried turning around to leave, but the door behind him had already locked shut.
"Damn you, PixelPioneers…"
As someone deeply involved in the gaming industry, Liam understood perfectly well that this was exactly the emotional effect John wanted to create. The foreshadowing, the environmental storytelling, the pacing, the camera transitions, everything had been meticulously arranged to force players into this emotional corner.
And it worked. No matter how experienced he was, he still found himself completely immersed in the scene.
After taking a deep breath, Liam slowly raised the pistol in BIGBOSS's hand and aimed at the line of saluting soldiers before him. He deliberately targeted their heads. He wanted each shot to end things instantly.
Even though this was only a game, even though these characters were nothing more than lines of code and programmed data, Liam no longer wanted to think about things rationally. At this moment, he wasn't a reviewer, nor a practitioner in the gaming industry.
He was simply a player. A player forced to execute his own comrades. Gunshots echoed through the room one after another.
After the last soldier fell, Liam suddenly noticed someone still leaning weakly against the wall in the corner. Through the night vision filter, the man didn't appear infected. Seeing that, he instinctively let out a sigh of relief. At least… someone survived. At least one person could still be saved.
But that tiny hope was shattered almost immediately. As BIGBOSS carried the final survivor toward the exit, the soldier weakly stopped him.
"Wait… I know now… I think… I was infected after all…" A faint voice came from beneath the gas mask.
Yet to Liam, those words sounded louder than any explosion in the game.
"Maybe it entered through my wound… They're waiting for me… everyone's waiting for me… Do it, BOSS… please." The soldier slowly sat down against the wall, spreading his arms calmly as if accepting his fate long ago.
The gunshot rang out, and the mission completion notification appeared on-screen.
But Liam felt no sense of accomplishment whatsoever. He sat motionless before the computer, silently watching the following cutscene unfold. A suffocating gloom filled his chest.
Inside the dimly lit research base, BIGBOSS walked slowly through the blood-soaked corridor, surrounded by corpses. The crimson emergency lights flashed continuously, growing brighter and brighter. Blood covered his face, making him look less human with every step he took.
The results screen was skipped automatically as the story continued. Everyone stood silently before the blazing fire with their hands behind their backs. Heavy music echoed across the entire base.
Facing the ocean, they did not scatter the ashes of their fallen comrades into the sea. BIGBOSS slowly reached out, grabbing a handful of ashes and smearing them across his bloodstained face.
"I won't let your remains disappear into the unforgiving sea. You'll stay with me forever. I'll carry you onto every battlefield. I'll turn your ashes into diamonds… and take you with me into battle. Our comrades will continue to shine… even after death. We are Diamond Dogs."
At this point, Liam could already vaguely feel that the story was approaching its conclusion.
Without even realizing it, the clock beside him had already passed midnight. Yet he felt no trace of sleepiness. He wanted to continue. He needed to know how this story would end.
Maybe… Just maybe… There would still be a good ending waiting at the end of all this suffering. Looking at the glowing diamond emblem on BIGBOSS's shoulder, Liam still held onto a tiny sliver of hope.
But the story that followed soon destroyed even that illusion. This was a story about war. And war was never a fairy tale.
After the vocal cord parasite outbreak, Quiet made her final decision. Because the strain of the parasite still remained inside her body, she chose to leave the Diamond Dogs base alone.
On a stormy night, she silently walked away from the helicopter platform without looking back. Then, during her escape, she was captured by Soviet soldiers. The moment BIGBOSS learned the news, he immediately launched a rescue mission.
Liam controlled BIGBOSS through one intense battlefield after another, fighting alongside Quiet in what became one of the most thrilling combat sequences in the game. But the enemy firepower was overwhelming. In the end, BIGBOSS was critically wounded during the escape and bitten by a venomous snake.
To save him, Quiet finally used the communicator to contact the helicopter team. The instant she spoke, the parasites inside her body activated completely. She guided the helicopter to BIGBOSS's location, then she disappeared. Leaving behind only a cassette tape.
"Damn it… first the brothers are gone, and now the girls are gone too!" After listening to the tape Quiet left behind, Liam didn't even know how to describe what he was feeling anymore. All he could do was curse John and PixelPioneers Games repeatedly under his breath.
Yet despite that, he continued playing.
And then came the final chapter. As the last CG scenes played and every hidden truth was finally revealed, Liam froze completely in front of the screen. Not just him. Almost every player around the world who reached this point was left utterly stunned.
Aside from a few remaining mysteries he still hadn't fully pieced together, nearly every unanswered question surrounding BIGBOSS throughout the earlier games had finally been explained. So that was the truth…
Liam slowly sat up straight in his chair. At that moment, he had a powerful premonition. This game would become a myth. A masterpiece standing shoulder to shoulder with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.