09-09-2025, 08:58 AM
I am very pro-Sutherland as Snake. I will maintain, that despite Hayter being treated like shit by Kojima - the change itself was good and Hayter as Big Boss was a mistake in the first place. Hayter should have either adopted a different voice for the role if they wanted to keep him (but this is not him, it's on the VA director I suppose) or the switch should have happened with Snake Eater or at *max* by Peace Walker. What little Sutherland has in V, he does very well.
Re: the story - I don't agree that Venom was still a MSF subordinate, I think he was silent simply because Sutherland was expensive, Kojima wanting to cut down on custscenes and dialogue for tapes instead and a more episodic format (immensely stupid decision. I am in favour of interactive story telling, but this was replacing one method of exposition dumping with another - and a less compelling one, at that) and them just kind of running out of time on a lot of things.
It seems Kojima ran into a general wall with V in that he has to sell Big Boss' as a villain but he was incapable of committing to you playing as a force of evil. V is where a lot of story telling sins committed by the prequels came into play; and I believe this is one of them in that Big Boss' arc across 3, Portable Ops, Peace Walker, etc wasn't conductive of such a sharp heel turn.
The solution is theoretically very smart - by treating Venom as a player avatar, by having Big Boss backstab and double cross Venom Snake, robbing him of his identity, and using him as a tool, and by betraying player expectations; you as a player experience what Venom experiences - and you grow to understand Big Boss' hypocrisy and why vision for the world falters. The demon that Venom is trying to excise isn't some abstract concept of sin and wrong doing on the battlefield; it's Big Boss. This lowly mercenary medic becomes a true inheritor of the Boss' will and fights for peace while Big Boss' will, this demon festering inside of him, chases a never ending state of war.
That ending shot is a rejection of Big Boss. I will stand by this and I think it's very evident that this is what Kojima is going for with the mirror and everything that leads up to it - but because the story telling is so fragmented, underdeveloped, and lacking in introspection into V as a character; it's a hard line to connect.
In an ideal world Chapter 3 isn't some Sahelanthropus fight that doesn't matter or Eli spending his entire life hating the wrong guy (which is fucking hilarious, honestly) - it should be Operation N313 from Venom's perspective as he goes rogue against the real Big Boss. A clash of wills and a sunset to a tragic anti hero caught in the cross fire between the inheritors of the Joy's vision for the world.
Re: the story - I don't agree that Venom was still a MSF subordinate, I think he was silent simply because Sutherland was expensive, Kojima wanting to cut down on custscenes and dialogue for tapes instead and a more episodic format (immensely stupid decision. I am in favour of interactive story telling, but this was replacing one method of exposition dumping with another - and a less compelling one, at that) and them just kind of running out of time on a lot of things.
It seems Kojima ran into a general wall with V in that he has to sell Big Boss' as a villain but he was incapable of committing to you playing as a force of evil. V is where a lot of story telling sins committed by the prequels came into play; and I believe this is one of them in that Big Boss' arc across 3, Portable Ops, Peace Walker, etc wasn't conductive of such a sharp heel turn.
The solution is theoretically very smart - by treating Venom as a player avatar, by having Big Boss backstab and double cross Venom Snake, robbing him of his identity, and using him as a tool, and by betraying player expectations; you as a player experience what Venom experiences - and you grow to understand Big Boss' hypocrisy and why vision for the world falters. The demon that Venom is trying to excise isn't some abstract concept of sin and wrong doing on the battlefield; it's Big Boss. This lowly mercenary medic becomes a true inheritor of the Boss' will and fights for peace while Big Boss' will, this demon festering inside of him, chases a never ending state of war.
That ending shot is a rejection of Big Boss. I will stand by this and I think it's very evident that this is what Kojima is going for with the mirror and everything that leads up to it - but because the story telling is so fragmented, underdeveloped, and lacking in introspection into V as a character; it's a hard line to connect.
In an ideal world Chapter 3 isn't some Sahelanthropus fight that doesn't matter or Eli spending his entire life hating the wrong guy (which is fucking hilarious, honestly) - it should be Operation N313 from Venom's perspective as he goes rogue against the real Big Boss. A clash of wills and a sunset to a tragic anti hero caught in the cross fire between the inheritors of the Joy's vision for the world.
![[Image: exzwhnW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/exzwhnW.png)
