Hideo Kojima was present at GDC 2013 and he has officially confirmed that The Phantom Pain is indeed Metal Gear Solid V. The Phantom Pain made it's debut at Spike TV's VGA 2012 awards and caused a lot of internet controversy. On top of the confirmed news, Metal Gear Ground Zero, which was announced at PAX Prime 2012 is said to play a big part in MGV. In fact, it's the prologue portion of the game.

"'Ground Zeroes' is a prologue of MGSV," Kojima said. "9 years after that event will be 'The Phantom Pain.'" Metal Gear Solid 5 comprises these two parts, much like Metal Gear Solid 2 opened with the Tanker chapter, then moved onto the Plant portion starring Raiden. "The game play demo I presented today is the opening of [The Phantom Pain] which is tutorial that starts from crawling." [Update: Contrary to what Kojima said during the GDC panel today, Konami has confirmed with Joystiq that Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain are indeed separate games.]

Personally, I was a non-believer particularly because the trailer of The Phantom Pain was just so odd. I felt it was more of a horror game if anything. But this confirmation news has me puzzled about what the premise of the upcoming game will be. Perhaps The Phantom Pain is the opening part after the prologue and Snake makes some sort of dramtic escape... Heck, I don't even know when the new events take place. Man it's all tangled up for me!

All I know is, i'm happy there's another Metal Gear game brewing that's not a hack and slash. Don't get me wrong, Metal Gear: Rising was good, but I miss the espionage. So what do you guys think about this news? What are your thoughts on these combination of games. And would you believe Kojima went through all that trouble to hide the truth??