Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is now officially ten years old and it's a very strange, unique game, partially because it's totally unfinished. When we talk about games being "unfinished" these days, it's because it's littered with bugs, missing gameplay features, and feels broken. In the case of Metal Gear Solid 5, the game literally has an unfinished story. There is technically an "end" to the narrative that attempts to bring it all to a close, but the story also feels like it rushes to abruptly tie up story threads. That's partially because the game has some significant cut content.
Metal Gear Solid 5's development was troubled and the end of an era. It marked the conclusion of a long partnership between Konami and director Hideo Kojima, resulting in a dramatic saga that played out for a year. Although neither party has ever really come out to talk about it, likely due to NDAs and a desire to keep things professional publicly. All of this compromised a masterpiece in the making and tanked Konami's reputation.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain was revealed in December 2012 without the Metal Gear Solid branding. It was revealed as simply The Phantom Pain from a new, mysterious studio known as Moby Dick Games. However, there were enough clues in the trailer for fans to quickly guess this was a new Metal Gear Solid. A few months later, it was properly revealed as the next Metal Gear and Kojima confirmed there would also be an open-world prequel game known as Ground Zeroes, which would be released in March 2014.
It was an ambitious undertaking as the scope and scale of Metal Gear Solid was expanded, but the vision was there and Konami seemed to be supportive of it. Konami even greenlit a new Silent Hill game from Hideo Kojima around this time and teased it with a mysterious PS4 demo known as PT. The publisher seemed to be going all-in on Kojima, supporting him in what he believed would be his final Metal Gear game and taking the reins on one of the most respected horror franchises out there.
In spring 2015, things got weird. Konami announced that Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain would release in September of that year and subsequently revealed a corporate restructuring. Kojima Production's logo and Kojima's name were stripped from the box art of not just The Phantom Pain, but also the already released Ground Zeroes and a PS3 collection of previous games in the series. As a gaming auteur, various Kojima titles were branded with "A Hideo Kojima Game", not unlike a filmmaker putting their mark on a movie. Konami scrubbed all of this without reasoning.
Reports began circulating that there was a power struggle between Konami and Kojima which would result in him and senior staff at Kojima Productions to leave following the release of Metal Gear Solid 5. GameSpot claimed that Kojima and some of his team were reduced from full-time employees to contractors at this time while the rest of the studio's access to internet, emails, and phone calls became restricted. Essentially, a tight leash got put on the team and it wasn't pretty.
A month later, Konami went full scorched earth and took PT off of the PlayStation store before completely cancelling Silent Hills. Even if you owned PT before its removal, it couldn't be redownloaded. Konami tried to erase every trace of the Kojima-led horror project, much to the frustration of fans.
In August, it was reported that morale at Kojima Productions, now internally named "Number 8 Production Department", was low. Cameras had reportedly been installed to monitor employees, staff were shamed for taking extended lunch breaks, and internet access had been totally severed. The team was essentially working in isolation. The game would release in September 2015 to rave reviews, but people couldn't shake the fact that this game didn't feel complete. In December, Kojima was blocked by Konami from attending The Game Awards to celebrate his game and accept awards for Metal Gear Solid 5.
So... what the hell happened? Again, no one really knows all the gory details, but there are plenty of clues and rumors. For starters, Konami began a big pivot to mobile gaming and Kojima doesn't really fit into that equation. The publisher would largely stop making major console games for nearly a decade, focusing mainly on PES, its soccer franchise, and some smaller titles and re-releases. Konami's biggest franchises, Silent Hill, Castlevania, and Metal Gear Solid, stopped getting new game during this time.
It has also been speculated there were disputes over the budget of Metal Gear Solid 5. The game reportedly cost over $80 million which isn't something to scoff at for a beloved, yet relatively niche series like Metal Gear Solid. It wouldn't be surprising if Konami didn't want to invest any more money into the project and just put a hard deadline on the game and told Kojima to get it out the door no matter what it took.
So, Metal Gear Solid 5 was released with an incomplete story. To try and soften the blow, the collector's edition of the game came with a bonus Blu-ray disc that had a 20-minute video detailing "Episode 51", a cut level from the game. Set after the death of Skull Face, this section of the game would've seen Big Boss confronting his son, Eli AKA Liquid Snake, and other child soldiers to get back Sahelanthropus from an island they've conquered. The video featured unfinished cutscenes, concept art, and voice over, but it was scrapped due to time constraints. It's a pretty pivotal piece of storytelling, but the fact it's set in an all-new location and filled with a bunch of new ideas suggests it required a lot of heavy lifting to complete. It's also believed to not even be the only cut content.
Metal Gear Solid 5's second "chapter" (essentially the second half of the game) is filled with missions from Chapter 1, just made harder. They are accompanied with new cutscenes, but they are otherwise the same content you've already played. It's extremely strange, but it feels like a solution that the team had to implement because they had to cut the missions for Chapter 2 while still telling the story through cutscenes. It seems like Kojima and his team were rushed to put this game together for its release, resulting in them having to essentially recycle parts of the game to fill in the gaps.
Not only that, but it is heavily speculated and rumored that Metal Gear Solid 5 had an entire third chapter known as "Peace" that was hidden in the game. Some think it might have just been a title card to signify the game was over and they're in the endgame. Others thought it could only be unlocked by having total nuclear disarmament in Metal Gear Solid 5's online mode, as a secret cutscene was discovered to only be triggerable if that was achieved. That is its own exhausting can of worms that seems to have led to a dead end for fans.
The truth is, Metal Gear Solid 5 was a game that got compromised by a deadline that didn't allow Kojima and his team to do everything they set out to do. Even if there is a third chapter, it seems apparent that it won't magically make the game complete. If it did, someone would've brute forced their way into there and Chapter 2 probably wouldn't be as awkwardly structured as it is.
Yet, somewhat miraculously, Metal Gear Solid 5 was showered with praise. It got great reviews, won some awards, and it is hailed as one of the finest action games out there thanks to its slick gameplay. Konami has been remaking and remastering Metal Gear Solid games within the last few years, so maybe Metal Gear Solid 5 will get some content restored in a future re-release. However, given the content problem still needs a ton of work to be completed and Kojima isn't working with Konami anymore, that feels somewhat unlikely. Instead, we just have this strangely half-finished game.
The story had a lot of incredible ideas and meaty themes, making its unrealized potential hurt. It's clear that we were close to something truly special, but it was knee-capped near the finish line. It's anyone's guess for how long Kojima needed to properly finish Metal Gear Solid 5 and if that was ever feasible, but the fact of the matter is, it still hurts as a fan regardless of why things turned out the way they did.
Despite some thinking Metal Gear Solid 6 will never happen without Hideo Kojima, that's probably not the case. Konami owns the IP and has made Metal Gear games without him before, to varying degrees of success. With the recent successful remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 and comments about training a new group of developers to make more games in the series, it seems likely that the franchise will live on in some capacity.
Would Hideo Kojima ever return to Metal Gear Solid? Not a chance in hell, in my opinion. He recently laughed at the idea of playing the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 and he has his own successful independent studio. Other companies seem to be letting him make whatever he wants as well. Not only that, but he's already sworn off the idea of making Death Stranding 3 partially because he feels his time is limited and wants to spend the rest of it creating new stuff. If he's not willing to continue his newest IP, why would he revisit his oldest one?
All in all, there's a certain sense of irony with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. A game about that feeling of a severed limb still being there and the pain that comes with it has its own phantom pain with its cut content. It's an unintentional stroke of genius from Kojima and may be one of his most profound artistic statements, even if he never wanted it to be that way.