After seeing quite a lot of backlash on the final entry in the MGS series I felt the need to write down my thoughts as well on this subject. I am aware that the general opinion still leans more to a positive, but what I want to address here is the notion that it isn’t able to live up to other MGS games on a narrative level, because I think it does. People are quick to call the story ‘a mess’ full of plotholes and incomplete without explaining. This isn’t a review of the story or the gameplay - although I will discuss them - rather of the the way they interconnect and of the larger themes present. That said, there will be spoilers. This piece is hardly even complete, but I don’t know if it would ever be.
I was a bit late to the party with the entire MGS series, having had a very Nintendo-focused gaming childhood, so I played the games in fairly quick succession from MGS1 to MGSV, so everything was fresh in my mind when playing this.
Some general thoughts about Kojima:
Kojima seems to be a pretty divisive figure, with loads of claims that he is “overrated”, which is a term I have always had some trouble with when it is not explained what rating they are talking about. Is there a universally agreed rating about the man, which, in their eyes is too high? It’s rather uninteresting to go back and forth about this. I can agree that an established name should not get a free pass on criticism, and mindlessly praising someone just because their name is on the package. I don’t think Kojima himself would want this.
The Phantom Pain is a difficult beast. It’s most certainly not a perfect game, but it’s nonetheless ambitious, and either people are missing out a lot on what I believe the game is trying to express, or they are aware, but simply do not care or appreciate these things. And that’s okay, but so many reviews, criticisms and analyses completely skip over these things, even in the positive reviews, that I do wonder whether they caught on. The game at certain points pays homage to literature, often quite obviously so. These works highlight some of the themes present in the game.
REVENGE
Right in the first episode we are dubbed Ahab and presented with a bandaged man calling himself Ishmael, referencing, of course, the narrator of Moby Dick. A large flaming whale is seen not much later on. The main theme of the novel is revenge. Volgin wants revenge. Big Boss and Venom Snake want revenge. Skull Face wants revenge. This is all very obvious, but helps set up perceptibility of some of the less obvious references to the novel.
The story itself actually plays out in a way more reminescent of Moby Dick than one would imagine at first glance. Going up against a foe much larger, ungraspable and for personal reasons, the manner in which you make your way to this foe is through mercenary jobs. Paid work, just as Ahab and his crew went on whaling other sperm whales on their way to Moby Dick. Yet you are doing this with hardly any attachement. Your mind is constantly on your end goal, while for a large part of the story you wonder what the hell you are even doing and why. Are you just biding time until you find your true target? What is the purpose of these ‘repetitive’ tasks? Also telling of this parallel is the gathering of recources (which was the ultimate goal of whaling) and the fact that they play out in oil-rich area’s (the most valuable liquid of our era, as whale sperm once was)
Moby Dick is interspersed with encyclopedic chapters elaborating on the classification of whales, on color, on sperm, on historical events. Just as the tapes in this game offer background information that is not necessary to follow the main story, prompting people to skip over these. This facilitates criticism on the lack of story that MGSV is said to have. What really is the case however, is that the player is allowed to craft their own sequencing in the story. Yes, you could skip these tapes, opt not to listen to them. The game takes the player serious allowing them to choose whether to follow the story completely, or if they choose to concentrate on the ‘action’, just as readers have skipped over the encyclopedic chapters of Moby Dick. I will say that the experience is far less complete when you choose not to listen to the tapes, but ultimately, it’s the player’s responsibility.
The fact that the game does not end after Venom and Kaz get their revenge (which is where the game departs from the plot of the novel) goes to show how empty this revenge was in the first place. They won’t get anything back, life goes on, and even the game goes on. Violence breeds violence and an eye for an eye will make the whole world go blind means that this shouldn’t have been satisfying, it was never meant to be.
RACE
A large theme within this category is presented in the form of the vocal chord parasites. Something which has garnered a lot of criticism for being ridiculous and unrealistic. I fail to see how this is new to the series, besides such devices being very common in science fiction. FOXDIE apparently was never a problem, because a virus targetting certain DNA strands is a more believable plot device than a parasite targeting certain vibration patterns? (As a sidenote, players of the series must have realised by now that the MGS games use devices from science fiction, speculative fiction and magical realism to tell about the real world, these aren’t in any sense supposed to be taken literally, they should be taken as parrables on real-world issues) A biological weapon that targets language is a sword that cuts both ways in a narrative sense. Introduced as a method of wiping out languages, a well known way of oppression of identity (eg. Catalonians under Franco, or Koreans in Japan during WWII) Forcing you into that role later on in the game, imprisoning men based on the language they speak. It’s also flipped on its head targeting the English language. This opens up an anti-globalist standpoint, which runs through a lot of the game. One might see the music present in the game as a manifestation of this. One could argue that these are just in there because the team liked the music (It surely is great music) and I think that’s true, but I also think it runs deeper than that. We are accustomed to music being in games, we have stopped paying attention to the deeper meaning of the fact that there is music. You will find a tape that contains a native lullaby somewhere in the game, but the prevalent tapes are western pop-music. With English lyrics. Listened to by foreign soldiers, whether in Africa or in Afghanistan. To me, this is the parasite of the English language taking root here and killing off other languages. This theme is also touched upon in other parts of the game, for example the tapes about Kaz’ hamburgers, called a symbol of America. America’s (and that of Americans Big Boss’ and Venom Snake’s) interference in parts of the world during the cold war and after.
These are hardly sympathetic standpoints, as they are presented through Skull Face, the main villain in the game. The other side of the coin is, however, the sides of Big Boss and Zero. Also villains of the series.
Location and language run deeper and wider throughout the game, the first setting being Cyprus for example, an island that’s claimed by two different countries, where two languages are spoken, where a clash of ideals divided up the land. On the mission where we meet Eli, we are sent there to put a stop to their makeshift army of kids, with some very obvious Lord of the Flies undertones. We don’t agree with them picking up arms, people can’t just go starting their own armies, their own countries. Even though it is no different from what is happening on Mother Base.
PEACE
In TPP a few references are made to George Orwell’s novel 1984. It’s the year the game is set in, at some point posters appear on mother base featuring the text “Big Boss is Watching You”, the name of the group of mercenaries you’re heading is ‘Diamond Dogs’, the name of a David Bowie concept album about 1984, and there are a few instances of doublethink through Ocelot. The novel states; Peace is War, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
These first of these paradoxical phrases illustrates the way war is handled in most of the MGS games. War is a state that is needed to bring peace. Nuclear weapons are needed so nuclear weapons won’t be used. Ethnic cleansing is needed to secure the freedom of language, the freedom of identity, the equality of nations and their people. As the player you try to achieve positive goals, but these can only be attained through negative means. Whatever way you play the game, killing others, recruiting them into your private army, you’re only increasing the amount of strife, the prevalance of war, whatever you do. The diamond dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees. Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal. Your entire identity revolves around killing, poaching and keeping the war going.
“Open your eyes! What you’re doing is murder, plain and simple! All you ever create is war! War and violence can never lead to peace!”
Ignorance is strength could very well refer to Venom only being able to gain strength as Big Boss due to his ignorance of the truth. And for all the freedom you gain in the game, you are still a slave to the lineair plot unfolding.
Paz dying before the events of this game, and Venom still having hopes that she’s alive, culminating in him envisioning her, caring for her and hoping she could recover, but ultimately finding that peace is an illusion that has passed away.
PHANTOM PAIN
Phantom Pain is the main title, so this is going to appear in the story in all forms and ways. The most obvious here being the phantom limbs, Venom Snake’s missing arm, Kaz’ missing limbs, the general theme of loss extends to the original mother base, the main characters being angry at Huey for not having lost anything. It also applies to Paz dying and not being there anymore, appearing as a phantom to Venom on the base trhough his guilt at having not been able to save her. It applies to all the comrades lost in battle. It applies to losing your country, losing your identity, losing your cause. Venom himself is dubbed a phantom in the game. Quiet leaving ties in perfectly into this theme, and even Eli, who during the game presents himself mostly as an annoying brat, ultimately fulfills the role of a son to the brainwashed phantom of a father that Venom comes to be.
From a metafictional point of view, this also refers to the series as a whole. The outrage of players at not getting full closure with this last installment, of not all the ends being neatly tied up. Can one really believe that this was not intentional? Did people really expect to get all their questions answered in this one game? Writers have been doing this for so long. Not being given answers make people crave for a new game, a new season, a new movie, but a good writer will never satisfy that thirst. Real life doesn’t provide closure like that, so why would fiction? Loose ends are never tied up neatly, it always ravels.
And could this not also apply to the missing content? For all I know, Kojima never intended to fully develop this game. Is it not conceivable that he already wanted to leave Konami? That he just kept blowing funds and wasting time to get them to release the unfinished product? Because as is, this game is far longer than anything Kojima ever developed, was he going to make a chapter 3? A chapter 4? 5, 6, 7? Just stretching that development as far as he could so that in the end there would be an unfinished product, with cut content and a phantom pain for the player to feel when it is finally over.
Maybe none of this happened, maybe Kojima did have a final goal in mind, maybe the game would have been finished at some point. Does it really matter though? As it is right now, the game has cut content, and this taps right into the theme of the game, which is all a series of metafiction could ever hope for.
It reminds me of discussions I've had about Kafka’s work. His two largest novels were left incomplete at the time of his death. One deals with an unatainable goal, the story doesn’t end, it stops mid-sentence. The other deals with an inescapable fate, the end comes abruptly, apparently missing text between the last event and this ending. Were these intentional on Kafka’s part? Probably not, do they reinforce the theme of the novel? Most certainly. Now these can be seen in multiple ways:
- The work isn't finished, therefore imperfect and inherently of lesser quality than a finished piece.
- The work is good despite the flaw of being unfinished, the content that is there is good, and that is all that can be judged
- The work gains a new conceptual layer that fits well with the content that is already present in the work.
TRUTH
The name of the final chapter. Being a rehash of the very first one, but with slight, though significant alterations. This chapter tells you the truth of what happened in the hospital. Or does it? Are the episodes in chapter 2 just rehashes? Are they any different from the first time around? Do they just feature a cranked up difficulty? Or maybe these ‘new’ missions are the way the depicted events really went down? Or maybe the first versions are the truth, or maybe neither. Maybe these missions were just thrown in as padding because the team ran out of time and funds, or maybe they serve a narrative purpose. Are we remembering these missions when we replay them, are we reliving them, are we in a VR mission, are they repeating moments? The first mission gets the [flashback] subtitle, but subsequent missions don’t. Not even when we need to replay them on a higher difficulty. Is it really lazy work by the dev team? Is there more to it?
Being lied to is something that has always happened in the MGS games, the support team has never given the player character complete and true information. The ‘twist’ ending therefore is not a twist ending at all, it does not need the impact of an unexpected turn of events. It just goes to show how the main character and the player is always lied to.
“There are no facts. There are only interpretations.”
Or , as a similar quote by Flaubert posits
“There is no truth. There is only perception.”
IDENTITY
Identity however, is, as always, the main theme running through MGS. What constitutes your identity? The language you speak? The soil you were born on? The face you have? (Skull Face and Venom Snake) the legacy you built? (Big Boss) The words you say? (Quiet) Or is it your actions? And that is where the player steps in. Because the actions are ultimately determined by the one behind the controlls. And that is you. Made clear by the gameplay, granting you more freedom than ever.
People have complained that this is a false sense of freedom, that there is an obvious way in which the game is played best, namely with the tranq gun, and fultoning every single soldier. While this may be true, I hardly ever played the game this way, and that never hurt my experience. I played however I damn well pleased, which mainly involved a large amount of C4 and being long gone by the time I completed the mission from afar. Maybe I could have made the game a lot easier for myself by playing it the way everyone claims to be the ‘right’ way, but it is you that is undermining your own experience, not the game.
In the end, this game, even more than any of the others in the series, is about player identity. Whether you listen to tapes or not, whether you play the tranquilizer-gun-bullet-time-abuse style or find your own way of playing, this game is ultimately about player control and player responsibility. Whether you get frustrated with the lack of good fast travel, or whether you cherish the moments of peace and quiet in between the action (I am also willing to go out on a limb and say that the episodic structure of the game has to do with the way we consume media now, with focus having shifted from film to series, but missing that Netflix 'skip intro' button for some added awareness of the repetitiveness, although detractors will see this as a way for Kojima to plug his name even more than usual). Whether you want to rush through the game taking the easy road, or whether you want to play the game the way you want to play it, doesn’t seem like an incredibly hard choice to me.
I wouldn’t even begin to think any of the metafictional aspects were intentional with most directors or writers, but knowing his track record, this is what Kojima has always done. This isn’t mindless praise based solely on his name, it’s knowing what the team has done before and applying it to this work.
