When one story ends… another begins. Hideo Kojima told the end of Solid Snake’s story with Guns of the Patriots. We were told how it started with the first Metal Gear game. However, this all happened when Big Boss’s story ended. It started with Snake Eater. Now, the story that would pave the way for the Next Greatest Soldier who ever lived will end in “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.”

Nine years have passed since the events of Ground Zeroes. Big Boss’s mercenary outfit, Military San Frontieres, has been destroyed by the American black-ops Cipher and their elite XOF unit, with the man himself left in a coma. However, he has finally come to, albeit with a missing left arm and slight amnesia due to shrapnel lodged in his skull. After escaping an XOF attack on the hospital he’s being held in, Big Boss, now codenamed “Venom Snake”, becomes the leader of a new mercenary unit known as the Diamond Dogs. Now, Venom Snake must team with the founders of the unit, Kazuhira Miller, the only other survivor of MSF, and Revolver Ocelot, GRU agent, to track down Cipher and XOF and make them pay for the destruction of MSF. Standing in the way are Afghanistan’s Soviet Army, various African military contractors under Cipher’s employ, and XOF themselves, along with a new weapon that might be more powerful than even Metal Gear. Little does Venom Snake know, however, that what happens next will shape him into the Greatest Soldier Ever, and the man who would let his son take his title eleven years later.

Hideo Kojima commented that “I wanted to introduce new concepts in Phantom Pain after the open world gameplay involved in Ground Zeroes.” And he certainly delivered on that promise. The already addicting stealth combat is refined and everything looks more amazing than ever. From new methods of transportation to multiplayer action, Metal Gear has earned a well-earned send off by this masterpiece.