Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes was revealed recently at the 25th Anniversary event of the Metal Gear franchise. Since then, videos have surfaced online and I have watched them diligently, and tried to deduce all the questions that lay in the wake of Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes path.
I don’t think I need a disclaimer for this but most of this article is speculation, also contains spoilers for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
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With Ground Zeroes finally announced and looking so damn good, all we have left are to do are unravel all the riddles left in the trailer by Kojima. The entire presentation was amazing, but any true Metal Gear fan isn’t just excited for the new game, but also the new story in complex lattice that is the Metal Gear lore.
Ground Zeroes is presumably set some time after the events of the Peace Walker Incident (1974) A man named Galvez, along with a young woman named Paz, tried to acquire Big Boss and his Military San’s Frontiers (Military without Borders) to stop a war in Costa Rica. However Galvez was actually a KGB agent named Valdimir Zadornov, with plans to use Big Boss to cause a nuclear war.
In the shadows of the plot there was a group called Cipher (Cipher later became known as ‘The Patriots’) which was under the control of Zero. They had orchestrated most of the events during Peace Walker from behind the scenes, and planted Paz as a triple agent to do so. At the end of the game when Paz reveals this and tries to launch a nuke on the United Stated and frame Big Boss for it, the plan for Paz quickly turns sour and Big Boss destroys Metal Gear ZEKE, presumably killing Paz.
My body is ready Boss, please be gentle.
Let’s take a look at the trailer now:
Camp Omega, a US Miliary Base that’s located in the southern tip of Cuba. This is very intriguing, it’s referred to as a ‘black-site’ inside Cuba. An undercover US military facility on Cuban soil outside of US laws during the Cold War? Holding what kind of prisoners.? The fact that this is a black-site means that the US is directly involved, and Chipher’s reach is spreading even further.
After being led trough a little tour of camp with near photo realistic graphics we end up at the cage of this Young Boy, confirmed to be Chico the rebel child soldier from Peace Walker. However this kid concerns me. Big Boss has aged at least 8 years since the Peace Walker incident, but if this really is Chico why does he barely look like he aged a day?
I have a theory that this boy could be a character model swap. Did no one else find it strange that during the chatter between Boss and Miller they never mention Chico? If they have all this information on Paz’s location wouldn’t they have also found out about Chico? Even though Boss or Miller doesn’t mention him, the dialog from the Disfigured Man would lead you to believe he want’s Boss to find him.
Now we come to biggest question of them all. Who is this? Right now it’s up in the air between Volgin and Zadornov. He’s not the right size to be Volgin, and I know its hard to tell his age because his face looks like roadkill that’s been repeated run over by 18 wheelers, but he’s not old enough to be Volgin.
Zadornov on the other hand is much more likely. He calls the boy in the cage a traitor, which would fit Zadornov since Chico and his sister Amanda turned against the KGB to help Snake in Peace Walker.
From the “She didn’t suffer long” line he possibly killed his sister, though it’s more likely that they just killed Paz. Chico isn’t new to being tortured but its possible that he gave up some information in order to get Paz a better deal or death. The “No more war games-” line is a littler weird but could it be that the jack in his chest and whatever that patch over his eye is covering are used from some early form of VR training?
XOF the mirrored version of FOX. Even the colors on the emblem are inverted. ‘From FOX two phantoms were born’ the obvious answer would be Big Boss and Major Zero. Though it could also be for the Military Sans Frontiers and XOF, or even a reference to the cloning project (Les Enfantes Terribles). Really its just a well crafted Kojima riddle that I’ve yet to truly figure out.
XOF looks like a para military group more than likely headed by Major Zero. From the look of their operation, they seem to be a more force oriented group than FOX was. The fact that they discard all of their emblems and markings before a mission leads me to believe instead of infiltration they are purposed for sabotage and maybe used in coups. Infiltrating an enemy army as allies and taking them down from the inside, “The Trojan Horse’s in,” says the burned man.
There are so many questions you can ask from watching the trailer. The biggest question I think is actually a simple yes or no. Is this REALLY going to be this gen? I honestly don’t think so.
This cycle of consoles is easily at it’s end, and a game that looks as impressive as Ground Zeroes, well … I just cant fathom that actually running well on consoles of this generation. Maybe the WiiU since it has the technological upperhand, but I really doubt a PS3 or an Xbox 360 can handle the Fox Engine in their current state.
The gorgeous engine that this game is running on took Kojima 6 years to finish. He’s also someone who announces his games much earlier than their actual release. Ground Zeroes is probably early in development and we still have a few years before it will see store shelves. Now how many more years of this generation do you think we have maybe … 2?
If they even finish the game before the gen closes out it would make more sense to save Ground Zeroes and release it on the next generation of consoles. Then you have have all the pretty rain and lens flares you want. All that aside I have lost at least 5 pints of bodily fluid from the aftermath of this announcement. I hope you guys are half as excited as I am.
