Spoilers for the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain s story follow.

I really rated MGSV when it was released in September, and it already ranks as one of my favourite games of all time. It's a sandbox game that offers the sort of detailed stealth-action scenarios that Metal Gear has always been famous for, now on a gigantic scale. Sitting uneasily against that is Metal Gear's narrative baggage, over two decades of increasingly complicated lore that's woven into The Phantom Pain through brief, bland cutscenes and a ton of dull audiotapes you can listen to at your leisure. 

To a PC audience coming to Metal Gear for the first time, I imagine it was a case of brushing the story to one side and cracking on with destroying watchtowers with rocket launchers while listening to The Cure—the game does allow you to divorce story from game in a way its predecessors didn t. As someone who's followed the series very closely since the original Metal Gear Solid, though, I find so many of the creative decisions behind the story baffling in tone, approach and content. But there is still one key moment in this messy tale that lifts everything else about the game for me. The ending is amazing.

Months later I'm still dwelling on the biggest left turn in the story, which arrives at the end of the game s second chapter. The key twist in MGSV's epilogue was pre-empted by fans months before release: that you are not, in fact, playing as the Big Boss as seen in Ground Zeroes, but instead a largely anonymous stand-in for the player called 'Medic' (who is renamed and customised by you in the game's prologue). This Big Boss, a post-credits timeline tells us, is the one Solid Snake will someday face in the original Metal Gear as part of the series continuity.

Like a lot of observers I was onto this from the start of MGSV's story. In my review-in-progress piece in September, I called this version of Snake 'an anonymous action hero' and an empty vessel'. I was torn on whether this was the product of the story being deliberately light touch, as Kojima Productions response to criticism of Metal Gear s absurdly long cutscenes, or because it was just too damned expensive to have Kiefer Sutherland in the recording studio for longer than a few days. The fact it's hard to figure this out is one of the story's many weaknesses, but there are others: a mostly dry script, an intro/outro that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game, and the complete reliance on boring audio tapes to fill in background info.

The reveal is by far the most interesting thing about it, however, and it s telegraphed throughout the game in many ways, some clever, some obvious. I reckon Ocelot's quote You're a legend in the eyes of those who live on the battlefield first heard all the way back in MGSV's E3 2013 trailer was a clear nod in that direction—that is, to anyone who looks at Venom Snake, he is Big Boss, even if it's just an artifice.

There are clear thematic connections between this character and MGS2's Raiden, who was deliberately manipulated through a sequence of events designed to mimic the circumstances of the original Metal Gear Solid. Raiden's path in Sons of Liberty was a smart comment on the player s role, but MGSV's twist is much more disturbing and effective for me. Raiden may be a substitute for the player, but he also has his own history as a child soldier, as well as a real girlfriend and some sense of identity—he is still a character. In MGSV you spend tens of hours playing as someone with none of that. You are an impostor. As the Medic , you re as anonymous as any of your loyal soldiers on Mother Base.

Its effect on my perception of the rest of the game has been huge. There are two levels on which you can enjoy this twist: the obvious one is that, like Raiden but more so, 'Medic' is the embodiment of the player, and this twist is designed to make you reflect on that. You were never Big Boss, of course. You're just pretending to be him.

Medic, then, is nothing more than whatever you've invested in him—and ultimately, my Big Boss has been through countless giant-scale battles, fought in the way that I wanted to, listened to Rebel Yell by Billy Idol because I like it and lived to tell the tale. The epilogue takes away the pillar of his identity as Big Boss, and all you're left with is every unscripted experience you've had in the battlefield, no backstory other than the one you ve just created. The ending is about what MGSV the game is. More than any other entry in the series, V is a freeform experience shaped by your intent—and such an ending is a perfect thematic match for this game Kojima Productions has created, a true military action sandbox where few situations ever play out the same way. In the epilogue s reveal cutscene, the real Big Boss explains on tape that you and him now share that title—your actions, as his phantom, as the player, have earned that status. You showed that becoming Big Boss requires nothing more than the commitment and self-conviction as the player to do so. Big Boss looks into the mirror, and you stare back.

There s also another, more literal angle to the reveal I ve been considering more and more. If you think of Medic not just as a symbol of the player, but as a character in that universe, his story is unusually tragic and unsettling. He s first seen in Ground Zeroes, extracting the bomb from Paz, and when the second explosive goes off, he jumps in front of Big Boss to take the shrapnel without hesitation. Having lost nine years of his life to a coma, he then gives up his own identity to assume that of his ally for his protection, through both hypnotherapy and plastic surgery, then builds an entire army and forges relationships on an entirely false premise.

It brings yet another level of weirdness to his affectionate interactions with Quiet, too—in retrospect, that s pretty much the only meaningful relationship he forges with any person in The Phantom Pain, and she thinks she s interacting with the real Big Boss. But she never was.

What else do we know about the Medic, too? He eventually becomes evil Big Boss in the original Metal Gear on MSX—so there s a period between The Phantom Pain where he goes from this relative hero character that you ve created to someone who is ultimately corrupted. And who in the series lore remembers the Medic? Only Big Boss, Miller and Ocelot know who Venom Snake actually is. He s a nobody, an unsung hero slotted into MGS lore.

I enjoyed so little about the story but find a lot of meaning in this one moment. I don t mind that the cutscenes in MGS5 fill in very few of the gaps in the series timeline—for Metal Gear fans, MGS4 s barrage of cutscenes were surely enough to convince them that any more of that fan service torment was unwelcome. But the story feels deliberately unfinished—Quiet, Huey and Eli (Liquid Snake) all just vanish in various ways throughout chapter two, stripping more and more of Metal Gear s lore away from The Phantom Pain. Hell, even the Metal Gear from the game is removed from the story when Eli steals Sahelanthropus in his final appearance in the story, all discussion about the cut mission 51 aside. There s no closure in a grand cutscene—I believe you re supposed to feel an emptiness as a player by the end of chapter two. In keeping with the twist, you look upon everything that s left after the story s played out—and it has little relation to Metal Gear as we knew it. What remains is what you ve created.

It s Mother Base, full of the men and women you ve recruited. D-Dog, who you discovered and raised on the battlefield yourself. It s your history with every mission and every Side Op. The Metal Gear-ness of it is all rendered largely irrelevant—it s a fascinating statement of finality and a curious parallel to Kojima s apparent departure from Konami. He s seemingly gone, Kojima Productions is no more, and you re only left with what you ve built in his game. That couldn t possibly have been deliberate—though the idea that it might be only adds to the myth behind its creation.

Don t take this as a wholesale endorsement of the story—I have a number of major problems with the execution of it. For one, it feels like I ve played through a non-canon entry in the series, without the same quality or style of voice acting I m used to from the series, and without any of the scripting flavour or much of the humour. MGS5 s story felt aimless, and the decision to recast some characters like Snake and Ocelot but not others like Huey Emmerich smacks of random decision making that passes on zero benefit to players. The game itself is pure Metal Gear, but the scripted narrative stitched into it, including the endless boring audiotapes, is almost worthless. As a story in and of itself, it s the worst in the series by far. This one reveal, however, which ties so deeply into the player s role in MGS5, saves it for me. It s a twist that s entirely about playing a systems-driven sandbox game.

In my review-in-progress of MGS5, I made a point that a lot of other people have made as well: Maybe the lack of a traditional narrative is the developers way of underlining that The Phantom Pain is about the stories generated by the players themselves. The connections you can make in the battlefield with D-Dog, for example, or arguably even Quiet, are player-generated and little to do with the cutscenes or audiotapes.

But that one scripted twist enhances every unscripted moment. It says that the player's choices are all that matter, because there is no real character here except the one you decided to be. Take the legend of Big Boss away and all you have is the legacy of the player. He was always the best man we had... says the real Big Boss in the 'Doublethink' tape that unlocks after the game's conclusion. This is just a detour in his journey to hell.

Special thanks to Metal Gear thinker Dan Dawkins, who originally made the stripping back observation to me, helped me articulate my thoughts on MGS5 in conversation and writes great Metal Gear pieces like this one.

After I reviewed MGS5 in September, I needed a break from the game after about 50 unbroken hours with it in four days. I came back to The Phantom Pain a little later and hoovered up some bits and pieces I wanted to do, like finding the tent in a misty valley that plays recordings from doomed Silent Hills PS4 demo PT, or extracting specialists I knew I needed for certain weapons, or finally making the most of my extensive military vehicle collection by firing sky rockets at everything. The Side Ops give you compelling reasons to keep playing MGS5 long after the credits.

This past weekend I returned to MGS5 once more, during the launch week of Fallout 4, naturally. I played 16 hours of Side Ops at a gentle pace, and somehow it made me love MGS5 even more now than when I reviewed it. And I gave it 93%. By not being coupled to the urgency of the main story, the Side Ops give you scope to properly experiment with Snake s toybox in how you tackle enemy bases, and manage to bring out the best in the game as a result, even if the objectives tend to be rote compared to those in the story. Usually you can completely fashion your approach to a situation, unless it s capturing a bear—there you ve pretty much got no option apart from firing 30 tranquiliser darts at its head without being gored to death. Even then you could lose your temper and call in an airstrike on the bear, I suppose.

In retrospect I was doing the Side Ops a disservice by rushing between. I d always finish one, jump back in the helicopter and head to another drop point at another part of the world to do another. But really, Side Ops should be completed in geographical order rather than in the numerical order they re presented as within MGS5 s iDroid menus. They re meant to be treated like sidequests in an RPG like Skyrim—a natural detour in your journey around the world, a breadcrumb trail to lead you between adventures. The helicopter is too easy an option in MGS5 s world, even though it s a necessary one, and removing the journeying aspect reminds me a bit of how I ended up using the cabs in GTA 4 too much instead of enjoying the city.

The Side Ops are what make The Phantom Pain a great open world game. You re meant to enjoy the drive between quests with your excellent dog in the passenger seat, or galloping there on horseback—it s a much more comfortably paced way to enjoy MGS5 s two colossal environments than always running for chopper pick-up points. Sometimes I pull over to collect plants, or shoot four guys guarding an outpost in the head, before climbing back into my jeep and running over a goat. It s the best fun, and tells me that MGS5 doesn t necessarily reach its full potential until you re out of the gauntlet of main story missions.

They can also be genuinely rewarding in a way that sidequests frequently aren t. It s not unlike a Kojima Productions game to bury its secrets quite deep, but most of the coolest unlockable weapons are buried outside of the main story. I m a long-time Kojima Productions fan, and for ages I ve wanted Snake to wear the unlockable Jehuty robot hand from Zone of the Enders that allows you to drag enemies from a distance towards Snake. I m not one for spoiling things with walkthroughs, so I only just unlocked that this past weekend—turns out you need to dart and extract a legendary bird (not the Pok mon kind) from next to a waterfall before you can research it. Obviously.

Stumbling across that reward on my travels felt cool, if a little bit abstract, but the more time I spend doing the Side Ops on these long journeys, the more convinced I am that this is the way the game is meant to be played. MGS5 needs nothing more than the vaguest excuse for exciting things to happen: turn up to a place whenever you want, however you want, with the guns or ally of your choice and see what happens. The Side Ops are pure MGS5. There are well over a hundred of them.

I could play this game forever.

I'm afraid this news just isn't as important as yesterday's news that Metal Gear Online lets you wear a cat as a hat, but bear with me: there's cash. Konami has partnered with ESL to create a tournament that they're calling the Metal Gear Online Global Championship.

Beginning December 1, players in each of the four included regions—North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia/Australia—will be able to participate in weekly online tournaments.

Each month there's $1,000 USD available for each region, and the tournaments are due to run until the end of February, so that's a total of $12,000 in prize money overall. 

It's not the most an esport has ever had to offer by any means, but it ought to give us an opportunity to get a good look at Metal Gear Online ahead of its PC release early next year. If you happen to own the game on console and you'd like to enter, you can do so via the ESL site. Just pick your region—or "edition"—and go from there.

D-Dog gets all the love and praise (and it's deserved he's the best video game dog of the year), but as any cat lover will tell you, cats are better than dogs. Our feline friends don't make very practical video game companions though, but Konami sees things differently: Metal Gear Online now has a fashionable cat hat. While it appears to offer no practical advantages, it's definitely a cat serving as a hat and for that reason, it's the best hat in video games.

There are a bunch of other new additions and tweaks in the most recent Metal Gear Online update. The PF rating screen has been revamped, there are new Grade 8 weapons, and there are new security devices for FOBs. The full update is over here, but all you really need is embedded below.

Dogs. Who are they? What do they do? Where do their barks really come from? While we can t answer the oldest canine questions, we at PC Gamer know a thing or two about which dogs are better than others, especially in PC video games.

There have been some gorgeous dogs in games throughout the years—they re the only reason we remember Call of Duty: Ghosts, for instance—but in 2015, two standout specimens captured the attention of game-playing canine literate: D-Dog from Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Dogmeat from Fallout 4. Appropriately, each publisher used dog imagery and bark evocation to appeal to the hardcore dog crowd. It worked: the games came out to mass critical acclaim, and now nearly every comment thread on either game eventually devolves into a dogged debate on absolute dogness. So, it s time we kenneled the tired question: who is the better video game dog?

I couldn t properly judge the two specimens without proper guidance, so I turned to the American Kennel Club for a crash course on dog value. It didn t take long to understand. The AKC s beginner s guide borders on poesy with its bullseye description of why we dog people do what they do: Showing dogs is a great sport where the thrill of competition is combined with the joy of seeing beautiful dogs. Wow. But since we re a video game publication dealing with dogs that don t exactly exist, we had to tweak the AKC s rules just a bit—let s call ourselves an unofficial extension of the AKC, then, hereby known as the PC Gamer Virtual Kennel Club. And for the first time ever, this instantly prestigious organization will be giving out the much sought after PC Gamer VKC Blue Ribbon Award. Let the show begin!

Criteria

First, we need to define the criteria by which our contestants will be judged. In an AKC dog show, dogs are judged by how well each conforms to their breed standard, the reason being that, The dog s conformation (overall appearance and structure) is an indication of the dog s ability to produce quality puppies. Tell you what, I don t know a joy greater in this world than a Quality Puppy™. So, even though these virtual dogs true ability to spit out perfect pups is based on a programmed ability to do so, we ll play along, but throw in some game-specific criteria as well.

Dogmeat is obviously a German Shepherd, so we ll have no trouble determining his worth.

D-Dog is tricky. Big Boss finds him in Afghanistan, and he looks pretty similar to a Siberian Husky. The implication is that he s part wolf, though, and without AKC approved guidelines for wolf conformity, we ll have to play some dog show jazz.

Height

Each dog has an estimated healthy height as determined by the AKC (22 to 24 inches for German Shepherds, 21 to 23.5 inches for Siberian Huskies), but MGS and Fallout 4 don t have virtual wickets included in the game. It s a pretty big oversight, but as a resourceful dog fan, I m not ready to go paws up quite yet (unless we re talking bellyrubs). Dogs aren t measured from the head, as might be expected. They re actually measured from the withers, which is essentially the base of the neck above the front legs. Since we don t have a comparable method for measuring the dogs (Four Nuka Colas stacked? Four dead guards high?) the PCG standard will aim for overall size potential, because the bigger the dog, the more places to get some good scratching in.

Dogmeat: Hop into the console, click on Dogmeat, and type setscale 10 . D-Dog: Half a Big Boss-ish.

Winner: Dogmeat

D-Dog is pretty damn big and intimidating, but with a few tweaks in the console, Dogmeat can grow to the size of a certain big (red) dog and fulfill a few childhood fantasies.

Proportion

The AKC conformity generally states that each specimen should be longer than they are tall. I think that s a pretty silly rule, especially if a dog chooses to walk on two feet like a person. A good dog shouldn t be judged on something they can t necessarily control anyway. But a dog can control how fit and nimble they are, which leads to good muscle and bone health. Basically, the PCG standards for conformity are thus: which dog is more jacked?

Dogmeat: A bit wiry from all those irradiated snacks. D-Dog: Jacked. Look at those broad shoulders. Phew.

Winner: D-Dog

Dogmeat, we know it s hard out there in the wasteland, but maybe start lifting heavier bones and chomping down a few more mirelurks to meet that protein quota. Don t forget the Rad-X though.

Substance

The AKC conformity for substance varies for each breed, but none are a fun read. Essentially, dogs get penalties for excess weight. Dogs are getting jipped for eating all those bones we throw. And we should be throwing bones, because dogs are great and deserve them. So we ve altered the standard for conformity yet again as a passive aggressive punitive measure against the AKC for implying dogs shouldn t be chomping on whatever sauce they can. It s a dog-eat-dog world out there, but only because we re withholding treats for points. Shame. Anyway, since video game dogs don t have to worry about food, the PCG standards for conformity will be based on the amount of polygons each has. More polygons means a prettier pup.

Dogmeat: Knows how to rub in the dirt, looks like a cardboard puppet doing it. D-Dog: Super detailed, fluid, tail and panting animations. I could watch it forever.

Winner: D-Dog

Dang. Going on record as saying that is The Best Panting Animation of All Time.

Gait

According to AKC conformity, most breeds should have a smooth, seemingly effortless gait. They should be quick and light without tripping up. I can get into it. Fallout 4 and MGS5 both feature dogs that can t afford to be clumsy, lest they trip and fall into a pool of radioactive goo or alert the guards and get torn up by an APC. So PCG is mostly with the AKC on this one, except that I doubt there is a WalkBad function buried in either of their code. We ll thus be altering the standard for conformity to give each dog a bonus for their lack of adherence to their intended adherence to physics. True video game dog athleticism requires grace in routine movement, but it also requires grace in flying through the air to body slam mutant molerats.

Dogmeat: This happened. D-Dog: He gets carried away by a big balloon sometimes, so what?

Winner: Dogmeat

A flying dog is a flying dog.

Coat

AKC coat conformity descriptions have more descriptive words for hair than I ever thought possible. Ideally the coat should be well-maintained, never too coarse, but not too silky either—in the general region of impossible. Dog hair standards are out of control. The best kind of dog hair is the kind you find on your black t-shirts after every wash, even if your dogs live a few states away. Since Dogmeat and D-Dog are usually covered in a combination of blood, dirt, fish guts, and or horse shit, we ll focus on a better area of dog representation: fashion. Who wears what, and who wears it best?

Dogmeat: It s possible to equip Dogmeat with a small assortment of puppy paraphernalia, such as a red bandana and blacksmith goggles. It just might be the second cutest thing on this planet... D-Dog: ...Because the cutest thing is the aplomb with which D-Dog can pull off battle dress. Each of D-Dog s outfits is a slick combination of both function and style.

Winner: D-Dog

While Dogmeat s bandana and dog raider armor are to die for, D-Dog s canine knife sheath and battle dress have looks that will literally kill.

Temperament

AKC conformity for temperament is different for each breed. There are huge digressions about what it means for a dog to be full of life or calm and collected. I get that these writers are really into their practice and want to be as specific and romantic as possible. This is a dramatic competitive sport, after all. But every massive wall of dog temperament text could be chopped, seasoned, and reduced in a pan over a low heat to one savory characteristic: is the dog chill? Does your dog know how to get riled up and have a good time? Can they nap and catch up on shows without a whimper? If so, then the dog is chill. We at PCG will use chillness as our standard for dog temperament conformity and you should too.

Dogmeat: You can point to drugs and Dogmeat will grab the drugs and bring them to you. Sometimes, he ll even bring you surprise drugs. D-Dog: He ll stab a guy. That s some hairtrigger loyalty, sure, but I worry about D-Dog s agency.

Winner: Dogmeat

D-Dog will kill for you, but as Big Boss, that s old hat. Dogmeat makes sure your pretty colors quota is up to standard in a dreary post-apocalypse. That s puppy love.

VKC Blue Ribbon winner

D-Dog!

Dogmeat is great, don t get me wrong, but D-Dog takes the meat pie. Dogmeat is caring and loyal, but not really in it with the player. D-Dog is there from the get-go, the moment he waddles up in the desert and yips and yaps slew me on the spot—not with a knife, but with love at first sight. Sure, it s a bit disconcerting that he ll kill anyone and everyone without a second thought, and sure, D-Dog can t actually fly without help—that s just the thing though. D-Dog and the willing player form a symbiosis. They depend on one another to be the best (stealth infiltrators) they can be. On top of that, no other dog this year looked as fit or functioned better.

Congratulations, D-Dog, you truly are a good boy.

The Phantom Limb Project is the name of my new band, but it's also a project dedicated to giving a young man named James a prosthetic limb. Not just any prosthetic limb, but a Metal Gear Solid V-inspired bespoke limb, made with the help of Konami.

The team's work is going to be documented in a series of blog posts, culminating in a three-part documentary. There are no images of the prosthetic yet, but I'm presuming it will be outfitted with a range of modular combat upgrades, like Big Boss' metal arm in The Phantom Pain. Even if it doesn't, it should look pretty nifty—Sophie De Oliviera Barata, the prosthetics artist working with Konami, has made "SteamPunk arms and cyborg-inspired legs", as part of her Alternative Limb Project.

Here's Konami announcing the initiative:

"Inspired by the prosthetic limb seen in KONAMI s METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN, KONAMI is working closely with renowned prosthetics artist, Sophie De Oliviera Barata and a team of engineers, roboticists and product designers, to produce a highly stylized and multi-functional limb for 25-year-old James Young, drawing from the Metal Gear Solid aesthetic. James tragically lost an arm and a leg when he was dragged on to the tracks, between two carriages of the London DLR as it was pulling in. Despite his loss, James refuses to let it interrupt his life and hobbies of travel and video games. He has become extremely adept at playing games one-handed, and was carefully selected by Sophie as a candidate comfortable with the idea of an eye-catching alternative limb and who would benefit from the capabilities it offered."

"Sophie De Oliviera Barata started her career making hyper-realistic prosthetic limbs for amputees, but realized there was huge demand for more unique adaptations; ones that reflected the personality of its user. This lead her to establish the Alternative Limb Project, wherein users could have a say in their prosthetic, creating limbs that people look at in amazement instead of looking away. Her past designs have included SteamPunk arms and cyborg-inspired legs, and she also designed the crystal leg used by amputee performer Viktoria Modesta during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics. She enjoys a reputation as an innovator and a free-thinker and has given talks at TED and the Wired Medical Event about her work and its effects."

This week's Mod Roundup is mostly about guns! One mod lets you shoot guns out of people's hands in GTA 5, while another lets you decorate your guns in Fallout: New Vegas. You can also acquire suppressors that don't break every five freakin' seconds in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Finally, in a mod that has nothing to do with guns but has something to do with grenades, you can craft magic bombs in a Skyrim mod that completely overhauls cooking and alchemy. Enjoy!

Disarm, for GTA 5

Howdy, gunslingers and sharpshooters! This GTA 5 script lets you take careful aim and shoot the gun right out of someone's hands, be they armed pedestrians or angry cops. Check out the video above, and find the script right here at 5 Mods.

Enhanced Suppressors, for Metal Gear Solid 5

Ever wonder why Snake's R&D department can give him robotic arms and warp gate technology but can't cook up a suppressor that doesn't break after a few shots? This mod makes suppressors more durable without making them completely unbreakable. You'll find it at Nexus Mods.

Cooking and Alchemy overhaul, for Skyrim

The elements of cooking and alchemy have been reworked in this Skyrim mod, adding new effects, renaming them based on potency (which will sort them from weakest to strongest), and even giving you the ability to cook and throw crafted grenades and bombs. There are also 100 new ingredients in the world, and 50 new insects and fish you can harvest for your concoctions. You can grab it here at Nexus Mods.

Paint Your Weapon, for Fallout: New Vegas

If you'd like to make your favorite Fallout gun unique, now you can. Paint it, it decorate it, and customize it using items like books and holotapes found in the Wasteland. Then grab a paint gun and visit a workbench. Your weapon will not only look nicer, it'll be easier to use, with increased damage and better chance to crit. It's here at Nexus Mods.