There is a scene where a bomb is forcibly removed from the open gut of a struggling victim, not to mention a brief shot of a cattle-prod enhanced interrogation conducted by a middle-aged Ocelot. The savage imagery may be hard to handle. Nor did that change on the first day of E3, when Kojima debuted a director’s cut trailer featuring a lengthy, emotional intro dealing with heavy subject matter like torture and political warfare, with scenes of child soldiers training with AK-47s – possibly as support for parties involved in Africa’s black market diamond trade. In typical Kojima fashion, it also raised a lot more questions than it answered.
The initial reveal trailer showed off a lot: a sliver of MGSV’s open-ended stealth, Big Boss on a rescue mission in Afghanistan, new characters and familiar fan favorites. Making its debut at Microsoft’s pre-E3 press conference, MGSV confirmed that Metal Gear is going open world (and that, assuming Kojima isn’t pulling another MGS2-caliber ruse on the gaming public at large, that Kiefer Sutherland is indeed the new voice of Snake), continuing Big Boss’ timeline beyond the events of Peace Walker. Despite not actually being present in any greater sense at E3 2013, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is undoubtedly one of the most impressive next-game games revealed to date (and was easily our game of the show).