Sure, there was the whole thing with Eli’s DNA test not matching DNA taken from Venom Snake, but that was tucked away in a single three-minute audio log startlingly close to the end of the game. Venom Snake’s physical features aside, there was very little concrete in the Phantom Pain that pointed to body doubles. There was set-up, but I don’t feel that the story was ever focal enough in The Phantom Pain to make this count. The twist itself could have been cool, but was neutered by transgressions on the part of the rest of the game. The whole affair just left me feeling unfulfilled. Not only a twist, really, but THE twist, the one that left some fans feeling cheated and others enlightened, the revelation that Venom Snake is a body double for Big Boss’ protection. How do those story points wrap up? Unless you have a DVD with cut content from the Collector’s Edition, you don’t really know. It’s a well-known fact that Metal Gear Solid V barely ends a clone of Big Boss escapes confinement, a floating boy is just kind of there, and a nuclear-armed mech gets hijacked. Only reinforcing this opinion was the game’s ending, which could have been made far better even without the cut content.
As a big fan of the Metal Gear series as a whole, I was going into the ending with less than stellar impressions of the game’s story as a whole. I know I’m late to the party, but I finally finished Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain this past week. Though we may never know how it came to be, Metal Gear Solid V’s Ending stinks.