One of the more ambiguous parts of the VGAs was a trailer for something called The Phantom Pain. The announcement came with no fanfare and no explanation followed its mysterious trailer debut.
Some clues started popping up, however, pointing to the project being Metal Gear Solid V. One of the main elements is the fact that the character that the trailer seems to focus on appears to be Snake, including similar scars, while some claim to see Metal Gear Solid antagonists Psycho Mantis and Volgin in the trailer.
The video makes reference to a Swedish studio “Moby Dick”, which according to its website was founded by CEO Joakim Mogren. The first name Joakim is, an anagram of Kojima, as in Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame.
Game journalist Alex Rubens also reported on Twitter a post-VGAs Konami party hosted a VIP section full of “people wearing Phantom Pain/Moby Dick Studios t-shirts”. Notably, none of those developers are Swedish.
Perhaps most tellingly, someone imposed the worlds “Metal Gear Solid V” over the logo for The Phantom Pain… and it seems to match up convincingly. So now the only real question is whether or not this is for Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes or for a completely different game called Metal Gear Solid V.
