Is ‘The Phantom Pain’ Tied To ‘Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes’?

The announcement of Dark Souls 2 was probably the highlight of last night’s VGAs, but another debut for trailer for a game called The Phantom Pain is getting a lot of attention–especially now that it appears that it wasn’t as it seemed.

The trailer for The Phantom Pain for those who haven’t seen it, was about as cryptic as they come, which was very obviously by design. At the end of the trailer, for instance, a gigantic whale made of fire comes crashing down to the ground.

But as gamers have noticed, there are similarities with another franchise, Metal Gear Solid, hidden in plain sight all throughout the trailer. For starters, one of the characters, although briefly seen, looks exactly like Solid Snake.

That’s not all, though. A thread on NeoGAF documents a great number of subtle references to Solid Snake, and there are even characters that appear to be straight out of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

To make matters even more interesting, it seems that the development studio shown at the end of the video, Moby Dick Studios, may not actually exist. Although the “studio” does have a website, there is evidence found online so far to suggest that it even exists.

If this is some elaborate scheme hatched by Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, then what we saw is likely some sort of viral video for Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. Or, for all we know, it could be for Metal Gear Solid V, assuming that game is separate.

Considering what happened with Metal Gear Solid 2, this, for all of its absurdness, actually sounds like something Kojima would do.