Between December 2012 and September 2015, I don’t think there was a single day I didn’t think about Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. I’ve never been this excited for a game before—or since. It was set to deliver the most pivotal chapter in the entire MGS saga, finally connecting the dots between Big Boss’s journey and his eventual showdown with Solid Snake in the original Metal Gear. It promised to reveal the moment he crossed the line and became the villain we’d face on that MSX screen.

The hype surrounding Metal Gear Solid 5 was absolutely massive. The trailers were cinematic masterpieces, sparking endless debates and deep-dive theories across the fanbase (fun fact: the game’s biggest twist was predicted by fans after just the first trailer).

What we didn’t know then was that most of our burning questions would go unanswered, that the game would be widely regarded as unfinished, and that it would mark Hideo Kojima’s final Metal Gear game. And yet, despite what should’ve been a crushing letdown, I still consider it a masterpiece.

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Teamwork, Snake

To close the book on Metal Gear Solid 5, we need to work together

Let’s be clear: Metal Gear Solid 5 wasn’t panned. It earned glowing reviews, swept Game of the Year awards (including here at GamesRadar ), and for good reason—its gameplay was revolutionary. Sure, it was marketed as “MGS goes open world,” but that label alone doesn’t do it justice. What set it apart was how deeply interactive that world was—less a checklist-driven sandbox and more in line with immersive sims, offering a level of player freedom that felt unprecedented at the time.

At its core, Metal Gear Solid 5 thrives on player agency. You come up with a plan, try it, and 99% of the time—it works. Take one mission: Snake must eliminate a PMC official meeting an arms dealer at an airfield. You could storm in guns blazing the second he lands. Extract both and recruit them to Mother Base. Sneak in and plant C4 on the arms dealer’s back. Or strap explosives to a jeep, roll it down a hill, and send it crashing into the chopper during escape. The possibilities are endless—unlike most open-world games, where straying five feet from the beaten path breaks the illusion. This is the game where you can win a tense sniper standoff by calling in an airdrop and having the supply box crush your enemy’s skull.

Then there’s the celebrated reactivity. Play stealthily at night? Enemies adapt with night vision goggles. Favor headshots? Soon they’re all wearing helmets. Few games have raised the bar so high that they end up spoiling entire genres for you. Since The Phantom Pain, most open-world titles have felt hollow in comparison—only rare exceptions like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Dragon’s Dogma 2 have managed to recapture that magic. And it all comes down to freedom—the freedom to experiment, to express yourself, to carve your own path.

From the man who sold the world

As hinted earlier, Metal Gear Solid 5 was “unfinished.” But what does that really mean? The game’s second act offered few new missions, instead recycling objectives with added constraints (no gear, no alerts, etc.). A key mission teased in the collector’s edition was never included. Most notably, we never witnessed the pivotal moment when Big Boss turns—something the E3 2014 trailer seemed to foreshadow with its dark tone. But here’s the twist: that moment wasn’t cut. It was never meant to be in the game at all.

In the final moments of The Phantom Pain, we learn the truth: you weren’t playing as Big Boss. You were a medic caught in the explosion at the start of Ground Zeroes, surgically and psychologically transformed into a living legend—Venom Snake. The real Big Boss appears in a monologue, thanking you for becoming the myth, for carrying the name forward. As Venom walks into the shadows of Outer Heaven, his fate is sealed—destined to be killed by Solid Snake in the original Metal Gear, finally explaining how Big Boss “returned” in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

So we weren’t playing as Big Boss—but when did he become a villain? While The Phantom Pain’s story may feel sparse, its answer to that question is brilliant: it’s essentially saying, “Have you been paying attention?”

In every game where we play as Big Boss, he’s the hero—the savior. But look back at Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: he runs a private military company, profiting from war on all sides. He forcibly recruits soldiers. He takes in Chico, a child soldier. After stopping a nuclear launch, he keeps Metal Gear Zeke and arms Militaires Sans Frontières with nukes. And let’s not forget: he steals a man’s identity and implants a false memory so that he can die as a symbol, all to inspire more recruits. That’s not heroic—that’s monstrous.

In the E3 2013 trailer, Big Boss says, “Kaz, I’m already a demon.” And whether intentional or not, that line captures the entire narrative philosophy of the game. There was no sudden fall from grace. No dramatic betrayal or breakdown. No turning point—because Big Boss was never truly a hero. He was already a demon long before The Phantom Pain began.

It’s been 10 years since The Phantom Pain launched, and I’ve never felt that level of anticipation for a game again. It’s not hyperbole to say that my excitement for it helped me through tough times. The perfect, completed version of Metal Gear Solid 5 that lived in my mind was flawless. That version never came. But what we got—a near-peerless immersive sim with a minimal yet profound story that reshaped how I see the entire series—remains a masterpiece. Flawed? Yes. But unforgettable. A decade later, I still can’t stop thinking about it.

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