I don't particularly understand the supposed "real ending" that happens between Mission 45 & Mission 46.

Big Boss is shown to die, but it is shown that we are somehow the medic the entire time. This is supposedly different from the fake ending that shows Skullface.

Could someone explain the real ending of MGS:V Phantom Pain to me? How do we know which one is the true ending, and how does it tie up with the other games (as this supposedly predates MGS 3 and the other games).

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3 Answers

To my understanding the entire thing is a plan orchestrated by Big Boss.

He wakes up from his coma, and people find out wanting him dead. He disguises himself as Ishmael, and has the medic that took the brunt of the helicopter crash in "Ground Zero" "transformed" into a look alike or decoy. Ironically the medic was also in a coma for nine years.

He then takes it a step farther and has everyone convince this decoy or "phantom" as the game calls him, that he is in fact the real Big Boss. The reasoning is because Big Boss wants Outer Heaven to be a nation, and can acquire this goal with a "phantom" easier...

The Phantom goes on to making an Outer Heaven base in Africa (the setting of the original Metal Gear game for MSX) while the real Big Boss creates a base in Zanzibar (the setting of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake). The Phantom is the Big Boss that Solid Snake fights and I guess kills in the first game, explaining why Big Boss was alive in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

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Spoiler for MG1, 2, MGS4, 5 (as, all the game I will talk about)

• MGS5: Ground Zero (1975), Skull face attack Mother Base, Big Boss is put into coma, as is the Medic.

• Between GZ and TPP: Big boss understand he draw too much attention, between Cypher and Skullface, to be able to create Outer Heaven. He need someone to take the spotlight and draw attention away from him until he is ready. The Medic, still comatose, is transformed into his sosie to that end. The Medic really believe he is Naked Snake/Big Boss.

• MGS5: The Phantom Pain (1984): You, "Phantom" Big Boss, awaken, and go to fight Skullface. If you are really attentive, you can catch some hint about the truth, Venom Snake wear his pants and eyepatch differently than Naked Snake. At the very end of the epilogue (Mission 51: The Truth), the flash in the mirror show you in Outer Haven, during MG1, to confirm that.

• MG1 (1995): "Phantom" Big Boss is killed by Solid Snake.

• MG2 (1999): Real Big Boss create Outer Heaven in Zanzibar Land, and is put into coma as revealed in MGS4.

• MGS4 (2014): EVA and Ocelot (ADAM), have protected the comatose Big Boss from the out of control Cypher, and used Liquid's and Solidus's corpse to repair Big Boss's body. The comatose corpse you see burned by Ocelot is the rest of Solidus's body. Real Big Boss appear at the end, take out Zero, and wish Solid Snake to live a normal life, exempt from the "bunch of old fools's folly".

Hope it resume better the event's of MGS :)

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I personally enjoy the plot twist..in a sense, we the player is the medic therefore is big boss..therefore is the big boss who created outer heaven..and we eventually become Solid Snake who will kill Big boss phantom..i think what hideo kojima is trying to say is that we are all big bosses.. we are here playing phantom pain while the real big boss is somewhere else is Zanibar land.. the twist is not that we're playing as the medic but rather ourselves..

it makes sense to the MGS universe too because in metal gear 1..big boss command Solid snake to kill big boss near the end and that was the story we (thought) we knew all this time..but it turns out we killed big boss phantom

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