Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s Missing Ending Leaves Fans Disappointed

If you haven’t played Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and you don’t want the game spoiled for you, you should really stop reading beyond this point. Like, right here… just end it. Don’t even bother reading the next word because it might contain a spoiler – it’ll just pop out at ya! So really, just put the tab in your favorites or keep it open for a rainy day because fans are angry about the missing ending in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and the real ending is chock full of spoilers.

Pixel Dynamo is one of the many sites sprawled across the web reporting on the fact that just about most gamers who seem to have completed The Phantom Pain have had two major gripes with the game…

[Spoilers Ahead]

…The first issue is obviously that Quiet doesn’t come back as a buddy if you complete the story missions as intended. This sent the “feels” meme posting through the roof. I’m sure there are some statistics somewhere showing imageboards being filled to the brim with “feels” and the Quiet story arc ending.

The second issue is that the actual ending for the game is supposed to be the mission “The Phantom” or episode 51 “Kingdom of the Flies”. The mission, however, is not in the game because Konami was cutting the budget for The Phantom Pain and Kojima didn’t have time or resources to implement the game’s real ending.

There’s a lengthy 18 minute behind-the-scenes video that was included on a bonus Blu-ray disc that came with the collector’s edition of the game, which GamingBolt picked up from YouTuber Inzaa. You can check it out below.

SPOILER – Metal Gear Solid V – Episode 51

This video comes from the bonus content blu ray disc, found in the PS4 collector’s edition. At this point we don’t know if it was really planned to be in the game, if it’s a rejected idea.

As the video points out, the real ending is there: a showdown with Metal Gear Sahelanthropus and resolution involving the lingual plague. We also get to see the seeds planted that turn Eli into Liquid Snake and how Psycho Mantis joins Liquid’s reignited Fox Hounds after Big Boss bites the dust to Solid Snake.

One of the other big things that the missing episode/missions contain that many gamers complained about with the original release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a boss fight with Metal Gear. It’s a tradition in the series for Boss/Solid to fight Metal Gear at some point in the big finale. Not having this mission in the game and not having a conclusive finale to the story involving Big Boss, Liquid, Psycho Mantis and the Sahelanthropus angle left many gamers claiming that in spite of the 10/10 gameplay, the whole story is a cop out.

There are some considering a petition to ask Konami to release the ending as premium DLC, ala Asura’s Wrath. However, some gamers not wearing fanboy goggles decided to be a bit more reasonable about the situation, with LLYDizzle writing…

“But I can’t justify to myself giving money to a company that deliberately cut out an ending just to re-package it and sell if as additional DLC. That’s the worst thing a gaming company can do IMO and a slap in the face to MGS fans everywhere.”

Psycho Mantis and Eli Liquid Snake

Others are a bit more skeptical about jumping on the Konami-hate train, which has taken off from the station and is chugging along like the justified #GamerGate hate for Kotaku. At this junction, Konami needs to tread very carefully with how they approach the resolution of this situation. It determines whether or not they stay Anakin or turn into Darth Vader… more accurately: Konami can either join the dark side with EA and Ubisoft or the light side with Valve and CD Projekt Red.

User FearsOldDesk is going to wait it out and hopes for some sort of official statement before buying a one-way ticket to Ragesville, writing…

“Honestly even if they released it as dlc I’d be content. But knowing konami, they’re gonna release it with a price tag of 40-60 dollars, which I’d be reluctant to pay. The ideal situation would be an update later with the cut content added. I just wish we could get an official statement, keeping everyone in the dark just fuels the flames.”

Some of the complaints about the missing ending see sympathizers saying that gamers shouldn’t be so hostile toward Konami and that movies and music and all sorts of media have missing content all the time. It is true that there are tons of deleted scenes from movies and such. Of course, it’s rare that like an entire ending sequence is missing. Could you imagine if the entire Harvey Dent bit at the end of The Dark Knight wasn’t in there? It would literally defeat the entire purpose of the movie’s title.

JonathanL72 sums it up by saying…

“They cut Key story content, the last mission, Boss Battle & Final Ending. Which now cut leaves the actual ending of the game lacking major story points of the game. The people here aren’t complaining becuase of a random Cutscene or a missing weapon or some little thing like that, they’re complaining about the ending of the game being cut which added a lot to the overall story.”

Whether or not Konami will address the missing ending and amend it remains to be seen, but they were not happy that they had already dumped $80 million into Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Although realistically they should have gone on ahead and given Kojima $100 million to complete the game as intended. It would have been a very, very fitting swan song for his exit from Konami and his departure from nearly 30 years of the Metal Gear franchise.

As it stands, a lot of fans are left very disappointed that the game’s intended ending did not make it into the final cut of The Phantom Pain. A slightly more bitter than sweet ending for Kojima’s farewell run at Konami.



33 thoughts on “Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s Missing Ending Leaves Fans Disappointed



  1. Last I heard, Konami just wants to make mobile games and pachinko. I doubt they’d care enough to slap the proper ending back on, especially if they were against completing it in the first place.

    And how are they going to complete the ending if they already kicked out Kojima and his team? That’s my understanding of the situation, anyway. Maybe I’m wrong. I haven’t been keeping up to date with the world sucking.

    1. And how are they going to complete the ending if they already kicked out Kojima and his team?

      Hypothetically speaking, they would likely have to contract a port house to finish it.

      1. kojima and co are contracted through dec 31, 2015. they could, hypothetically, finish the amazing SP game (would be a 10/10 if completed, as it stands, for me, it is a 6/10). Instead, they are going to stab people in the face for horse armor DLC and metal gear online microtransactions.

  2. I’m thinking that Konami is planning to pull a Subsistence, including the true ending, and maybe adding a way to keep Quiet. Fuck them if they do so.

    1. I wonder if the game had been finished properly if there would have been a way to get Quiet back?

      It seems like something Kojima might do as a “final reward” for diligent players. But there’s likely going to be a lot of demand for a “true ending” as more players beat the game and realize that the real ending was cut.

      I wouldn’t put it past Konami to release a DLC pack with the true ending and a way to keep Quiet. I also wouldn’t put it past die-hard fans to eat it up, pay for it and even defend Konami while doing so.

      Kojima, meanwhile, gets to sit back and appreciate the chaos that ensues from the dedication of his fandom.

      1. I red that if you equip the Butterfly Emblem before the last mission with quiet she stays with no, but I couldn´t try it ´till now because I´m not that far in the game^^

  3. Slightly off topic guys … dont you hate all this retarded bitching abouth the spoilers for phantom pain? What i mean is how people say dont spoil it for me and yet they are here on the web discussing the fudging game …. get over yourself in todays era of information technology. I understand getting angry when some1 spoils game of thrones say at work but …. what do you expect reading about data on the web?

    1. You have no idea how annoying it is when an article containing spoilers has people inside complaining that it has spoilers. I remember posting up an article about some spoilers for Halo 4 and some people whined enough that the article was pulled.

      I understand some people don’t want the game spoiled and that’s fine but if the headline says there are spoilers and there are bolded parts saying “spoilers ahead!” it’s like, so badly I want to ask these people “What are you expecting?!!”

      1. first off billy i understand halo lore as much as i understand why the cactus went on an adventure with a piece of bread to get a computer screen. But i couldnt tell as my second point were you agreeing with me?

  4. Great pointless drop in of Gamergate into this article. btw…Kotaku is just the bootlicker accomplice of a true shitpile site like Gawker. Kotaku is a garish jap tabloid clickbait rag who takes shots at gamers. Yet at least they don’t ruin lives like Gawker.

    1. I honestly wouldn’t doubt the Konami code works at some point in the game. There is also a lot of other stuff supposedly hidden in the game, so maybe there is a way to unlock the true ending.

  5. Great Article here Billy D, thank you for writing it.

    A lot of what is within this article are my feelings exactly, but the one thing that’s been on my mind the most concerning this game, is the so-called feud or bad-blood between Konami and Kojima; honestly,- i don’t know what it actually is per-say.

    What i do know is that whatever transpired between Konami and Kojima, in the end it was a Metal gear solid title that suffered due to whatever petty ordeal occurred through-out those last remaining years of Kojima’s career.

    There is no justifiable excuse to ship an unfinished product, because then the consumer, the fans, those who really love the franchise, and have supported it all these years, suffer most of all.

    1. There is no justifiable excuse to ship an unfinished product, because
      have supported it all these years, suffer most of all.

      The article was getting long in the tooth but you nailed it perfectly with that statement, and it’s something I wanted to touch on.

      Now the legacy of Kojima’s final Metal Gear game will be tainted with an incomplete ending.

      I shudder to think what Konami might do to “fix” it in a half-arsed sequel of some sort.

  6. I just want a way to get Quiet back. She was the only buddy I ever used and it was nice knowing that if the shit hit the fan there was someone with a 50. cal sniper rifle to back me up. I finally de is a to progress the story and am forced to watch her leave…then like 3 days later Konami announces a fix for the bug and my 100+ hour game is completely screwed because I can’t get her back.

    Konami fix this shit. I don’t care how, like let us do her recruitment mission so we can gain access to her again, I don’t really care. But I’ll go out of my way to never play another Konami game if this shit isn’t fixed.

  7. i find it crazy that quiet’s photos are gone but hueys are still there WHY??? on the save i have here gone i had the heli play her theme just to be PP to da max

  8. This website is awful. That banner that automatically scrolls the page down in unforgivable. Web design 101 people, chasing text is never a good look

      1. The website isnt awful the auto scroll is, not hating just tryna give a heads up. I got a OCD about moving text

      2. no sorry for delay. The banner that asks for cookies acceptance. If you clear your cookies then visit page with google chrome you will see it.

  9. Totally agree. I was playing away at (in my opinion), the game of the year with the pleasant hope that when i complete the story I will have Quiet to select and have some fun with.. But not only did she get removed as a selectable character but also as a Buddy!! WTF
    That is a kick in the balls.. ouch…
    But just as my balls were kicked in, they ended the game with Quiet’s Theme music which felt like a knife in my heart.
    No kidding.
    I am depressed as fuck.

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