Should I know much of MGS lore to enjoy the game?

[Brain]

Subject.
I'm a little bit familiar with MGS series, but only by bits. Is knowledge of the story crucial to understand the plot of the game?
Thanks!

[Robert Proctor]

Originally posted by Brain:

Subject.
I'm a little bit familiar with MGS series, but only by bits. Is knowledge of the story crucial to understand the plot of the game?
Thanks!

It certainly helps and yes it does kind of help you understand the plot of the game and very interesting to know the lore and the back story of the game and the game characters

https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_V:_The_Phantom_Pain

[Lar Dass]

this is a prequel so the ones you need to know before this is mgs3/pw/GZ

[cowboygeorgy]

I don't think you should play anything in advance to grasp the story. The story revolves around Snake some kind of an agent who all the time must infiltrate somewhere to obtain something or rescue someone. They'll give you enough references to understand what's going on. Personally I started playing like yesterday and so far I'm not impressed at all to say the least. I played only one MGS 2 before and it was fantastic. This game however even though Im only at the beginning I can quite put my finger on. And since the story starts at the hospital after 9 years of coma the main protagonist don't know himself what the heck is going on so it's basically for you to unravel what's up. MGS 2 is a must play though.

[Farrel]

I'll try and condense what you need to know. I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but yeah, you need to know some of this stuff, really.

I'm skipping over a LOT... Seriously, if you can, play some of the other games some time too. I'd argue order doesn't matter so much. (But MGS3 is -really- important)

Still, here's a really condensed timeline of what you -need- to know.

(MGS3) 'Naked Snake' is sent on a mission to recover a Russian scientist defecting to the west, but things go badly wrong when 'The boss', his mentor and something of a mother figure defects to Russia and is involved in a nuclear incident. In order to prevent a full scale war, Snake goes after the Boss and the Soviet General responsible, Volgin, Killing both and exhonorating the US. However, Snake (Now awarded the code name "Big Boss") is left in turmoil as he finds out the truth of the situation.

(Portable ops & Peace Walker) Big Boss is involved in mercenary work and, learning that this is more than one man can do on his own, starts to form mercenary groups by recruiting soldiers from the enemy. Over the course of the two games, his reputation grows further from his already impressive title as the Boss' sucessor. Portable ops didn't really hold too much plot significance, but in Peace walker, we are introduced to Miller, Paz and Chico.

With Miller's organisational skills and Big Boss' battlefield prowess, their mercenary outfit, MSF (Militares Sans frontiers - Soldiers without borders) goes from strength to strength, eventually becoming a nuclear power. Paz is the apparent innocent student side-kick of the guy bankrolling the startup of this mercenary group, but it later turns out is an agent of a group called 'Cypher' (Which is complicated, but both Big boss and Miller know the guy that started it (Zero), they were friends, then frenemies, now enemies.) Chico is the kid brother of a revolutionary leader in a group trying to bring about a Venezuelan revolt. The only real significance to the story as a whole is that he's fallen for Paz in a big way. At the end of Peace Walker, Paz, on the orders of Cypher, betrays Big Boss and tries to steal their nuclear equipped bipedal tank. "Metal Gear Zeke", loses in the boss fight and is assumed dead.

(Ground Zeroes) Paz survived and is captured by another agent of cypher. Chico, the boy soldier attempts to mount a solo rescue before MSF can react... He gets captured too, and he knows a lot about MSF, their nuclear capabilities, metal gear and everything. Both are captured and tortured. Paz has information on the location of the leader of Cypher, Chico has info on MSF.

Whilst this is happening, the main architect of Metal Gear, Huey Emmerich, has gone over Miller and Snake's head, agreeing to an inspection of MSF's 'mother base' by an international inspection team. Whilst Snake goes in to rescue Paz and Chico, Miller organises MSF to hide their superweapons and evidence of the nastier work they got up to.

The whole situation is a trap, Paz and Chico were used as bait to get Big Boss away from mother base whilst a shadowy group called 'XOF' (a reference to Big Boss' original unit 'FOX') attack and destroy MSF. The main cast escape via helicopter, only to find out too late that Paz has had a bomb planted inside her by XOF's leader figure, Skull Face.

There is an explosion, the helicopter collides with another...

(The Phantom Pain) Begins.


Post Phantom Pain - Big Boss becomes arguably the most important villain in the show, being the antagonist of the original MSX games: Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

[TheFinkinator]

Here is the correct answer: No.

First of all, the game takes place smack dab in the middle of the timeline, so by definition half of the games lore is irrelevant for this game. The most youll be missing out on are the "oo I know who that is from Metal Gear Solid!" moments, which are nice but dont effect understanding this game.

Second of all, the only games whos plot precedes this one are MGS3 and Peace Walker, and of course Ground Zeroes which was really just a demo for this game. You only need to have a basic understanding of those events to understand the direction of the game, and when you start you are given a set of cassette tapes you can listen to while wandering around that cover all of those relevant points for you. The first real mission in the game is to rescue Miller, and by the time i did that, I had already gotten through all those tapes, so even if you go in totally blind you should be totally fine.

That being said play all the other games anyway because this might be the greatest saga of video games of all time.

[TheFinkinator]

Originally posted by Farrel:

it later turns out is an agent of a group called 'Cypher' (Which is complicated, but both Big boss and Miller know the guy that started it (Zero),

Wait when did Miller ever meet Zero?

[abcd]

Only if you want to understand the whole thing.

Otherwise, the emotional arc as presented stands on its own fairly well.

There's quite a lot to miss if you don't grasp the series as a whole though, which is impressive considering how barebones it is.

Originally posted by TheFinkinator:

Originally posted by Farrel:

it later turns out is an agent of a group called 'Cypher' (Which is complicated, but both Big boss and Miller know the guy that started it (Zero),

Wait when did Miller ever meet Zero?

Miller is a Cipher spy, which he admits on an optional tape in PW. They presumably met off-screen.

[Stellar Fox]

Miller is a Cipher spy, which he admits on an optional tape in PW. They presumably met off-screen.

Miller was never a cipher spy. he knew paz's true identity, but the deals he made with cypher, such as giving him information about peace walker's ZEKE, were never to ♥♥♥♥ over big boss, he was just trying to get more funds to help mother base and big boss throughout peace walker

[abcd]

Originally posted by Stellar fox:

Miller is a Cipher spy, which he admits on an optional tape in PW. They presumably met off-screen.

Miller was never a cipher spy. he knew paz's true identity, but the deals he made with cypher, such as giving him information about peace walker's ZEKE, were never to ♥♥♥♥ over big boss, he was just trying to get more funds to help mother base and big boss throughout peace walker

But he did so without really considering the consequences. The same is true throughout MGSV, he couldn't have been a better patsy if he tried. The only thing he seemed to pour as much effort into as securing war criminals for Venom to extract is designing hamburgers people couldn't resist.

Whatever excuse he makes, he isn't any different.