"Metal Gear Solid V" Director's Cut Trailer Is a Brutal Work of Art (Video)

"The world calls for wetwork, and we answer. No greater good, no just cause."

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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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). 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.

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. In typical Kojima fashion, it also raised a lot more questions than it answered. 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.

The savage imagery may be hard to handle. 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. MGSV also includes some scenes of waterboarding, possibly the first videogame ever to tackle the subject.

“Why are we still here? Just to suffer?” someone (presumably Sutherland’s admirably gravelly Big Boss) says via voiceover. “Every night I can feel my leg, my arm, even my fingers. The body I’ve lost. The comrades I’ve lost. Won’t stop hurting.” The beautifully edited cuts really show Kojima's cinematic muscle, set to MGSV’s heart-rending theme “Sins of the Father". Die hard Metal Gear fans should prepare to get emotional.

There are other questions, too. What happened to Snake, and to his second in command, Kaz? Is that blonde kid actually Liquid? Whose side is Ocelot on this time? One thing is clear: it’s going to be a horribly long wait till this hits PS4 and Xbox One.

Via Konami

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