Skull Face is also softened up between games with much of his vitriol and downright diabolical personality toned down. There are dark moments, but nothing darker than what’s typical for Metal Gear, and they might be even lighter, all things considered. By the time The Phantom Pain rolls around, that overbearing darkness is missing altogether. Nothing in TPP ever gets as remotely dark as Skull Face forcing Chico to rape and beat Paz, and this incredibly overwhelming detail is completely overlooked after Ground Zeroes. Perhaps it’s because the former stars Big Boss and the latter doesn’t, but there is a massive shift going from the prologue to the main game.
Tonally and thematically, Ground Zeroes is a very different game from The Phantom Pain. Metal Gear Solid V, in all respects, is the story of Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain working collaboratively, but, as mentioned earlier, the latter seems rather against mentioning the former outright, only referencing what is absolutely necessary and leaving most of what Ground Zeroes established behind. For a first playthrough, someone can skip GZ on account of it being released independently of TPP and the latter is written, to an extent, with that absence mind. The only real issue with Ground Zeroes being Big Boss’ last game playing a role in The Phantom Pain ’s narrative is the fact that Ground Zeroes isn’t literally mandatory to playing The Phantom Pain. The plot itself so simple that it needs complexity elsewhere to stand out. It’s an ambitious concept to say the least, but it’s one that works in Metal Gear Solid V ’s favor. Control of Big Boss is effectively amputated from the hands of the players at the end of Ground Zeroes and, while they don’t know that Venom isn’t Big Boss, the dichotomy between Venom Snake and what fans would remember from Big Boss creates a sort of pseudo-reverse phantom pain where the loss of Big Boss can be felt even though he’s supposedly there when in reality he truly is gone, but replaced with a body double to give the illusion that he never left at all. Phantom pain is the psychological sensation of feeling pain in a limb that has already been amputated. This gives the prologue an added sense of mysticism in hindsight and greatly adds to that feeling of “phantom pain” Kojima tries to inject into the story.
The twist at the end of The Phantom Pain focuses primarily on the fact that Venom Snake was the playable character and not Big Boss, but it doesn’t touch upon the fact that Big Boss’s last canonical adventure was GZ. To put it bluntly, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is the last time players take control of Big Boss and that’s an incredibly important face for Metal Gear Solid V ’s overall narrative, especially since it’s so understated. Where MGSV lacks in actual narrative, it attempts to make up for in storytelling and Ground Zeroes plays a big role in that. Aside from The Phantom Pain ’s signature twist, Metal Gear Solid V lacks that Metal Gear “punch” present in the rest of the series. There are few actual twists the script tends to be fairly straightforward with intentions and motivations and many of the game’s arcs and themes tend to just exist in their own bubble without interacting with one another in a cohesive manner. Narratively, Metal Gear Solid V is the simplest game in the franchise, perhaps to a fault.
Recognizing and analyzing Ground Zeroes isn’t so much important to understanding The Phantom Pain ’s story as it is important to understanding how The Phantom Pain ’s story is told. There are issues with this expectation, however most notably, The Phantom Pain ’s apparent lack of interest with everything that occurred in Ground Zeroes. The Phantom Pain ’s narrative absolutely expected its audience to have played through Ground Zeroes. While it isn’t handled with nearly as much grace as it should have been, arcs, themes, and characters are all introduced in the prologue that aren’t necessarily reiterated in main game. GZ is undeniably an important piece in understanding TPP ’s puzzle. The same can, and should, be said for Ground Zeroes ’ relationship with The Phantom Pain. Simply analyzing the latter ignored all the crucial context found in the former. It’s certainly possible, but the Tanker chapter directly sets up the events, arcs, and themes of the Plant chapter. Discussing Metal Gear Solid V without discussing Ground Zeroes is akin to discussing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty without touching upon the Tanker chapter.