We have still not received an official confirmation that The Phantom Pain is in fact Metal Gear Solid V (even though it most likely is), however, we now have a hint from Hideo Kojima himself that unofficially confirms his involvement with the mysterious game.
Earlier today Hideo Kojima sent a tweet to his followers that contained a picture of computer monitor and the following [Google translated] message, “W here looks like lens flare”. The image on the monitor shows some video editing software paused on a credit title screen that reads “Producer / Game Designer / Director: Hideo Kojima”. The Kojima Productions logo is also displayed, and there is a file name in the upper left hand corner that reads “TPP_GDC2013_720p_ESRB: TPP-GDC2013_03:”. The implication here is that TPP stands for The Phantom Pain and Kojima is heading up the project.
The brief history of The Phantom Pain begins during last year’s VGAs when Konami revealed a surprise trailer for the new IP. The trailer centered around a mullet-sporting protagonist crawling around a hospital, which immediately set off Metal Gear Solid V warning bells within the fan community. A fictitious studio (Moby Dick Studio) founded by American developer Joakim Mogren, was said to be responsible for The Phantom Pain trailer. Not long after that, fans discovered that Joakim was an anagram for Kojima — as in, Metal Gear Solid director Hideo Kojima. There were also multiple MGS references found in the trailer, and the game’s logo contained several lines that could be connected together to spell out Metal Gear Solid V.
No further details were revealed about The Phantom Pain after the debut trailer, until last week when Joakim was interviewed on GTTV. The non-informative Joakim interview has been speculated to have actually been rendered by Kojima’s FOX engine, however, that has not been confirmed. The only official details that came out of the seemingly staged interview was that TPP used the FOX engine and that more of the game would be shown at GDC next week.
All signs currently point to Kojima being involved with The Phantom Pain and that the game is actually Metal Gear Solid V. Hopefully, Konami will drop its ruse next week and we can get an official confirmation on any of the speculation.
