Venom Snake

Before Metal Gear Solid V

The character of Big Boss debuted in the original Metal Gear game, where he initially serves as Solid Snake's commanding officer and main radio contact while also serving as the leader of Outer Heaven's forces.^[1] Despite his apparent defeat, the game ends with a message from Big Boss vowing revenge against Solid Snake following the credits.^[2] At the time, there was no indication that the character in the original Metal Gear was a body double. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake has an in-game rumor about Big Boss rebuilt with cybernetic parts after being mortally wounded during the final encounter in the previous game;^[3] this explanation was used for Big Boss's survival in the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database.^[4]

Metal Gear Solid V

Venom Snake makes a minor appearance in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes as an unnamed combat medic and then throughout Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as the player character.

Under his original identity, he was employed by Big Boss's Militaires Sans Frontières private forces. The medic's face is never fully shown (partially obscured when he is on-screen). He accompanies Big Boss to Mother Base in a helicopter following the extraction of Ricardo Valenciano Libre and Paz Ortega Andrade from a U.S. Naval prison facility in Cuba in 1975. While the medic successfully removes a time bomb that was implanted inside Paz's abdomen, he fails to notice the second bomb within Paz's womb. When the second bomb goes off, the medic shields Big Boss from the blast, causing the helicopter to crash in the process. The two men survive the crash, but the medic ends up losing his left arm while fragments of bones and teeth are buried within his body, including a large piece of shrapnel lodged within his cerebral cortex.^[5] Both Big Boss and the medic fall into a coma for the next nine years. During his coma, the medic was transferred to a hospital in Cyprus, where he was subjected to a process of subconscious brainwashing and facial reconstruction in order to be Big Boss's mental doppelganger and draw attention away from his mental template.^[6]

After awakening, Snake escapes the hospital following an attack by XOF strike force and is extracted by Revolver Ocelot.^[7] He takes command of the Diamond Dogs mercenary unit along with a new Mother Base constructed near Seychelles. Snake then engages in a series of missions in Afghanistan and Central Africa as he and Kazuhira Miller seek revenge for lost comrades and pursues the Cipher organization. Along the way, he recruits several individuals into his army, including companions such as the sniper Quiet and the canine D-Dog. Snake ultimately comes face to face with XOF's leader Skull Face, as well as child mercenary leader Eli. During an unspecified time period, he is shown in Outer Heaven receiving a cassette tape from Big Boss, with one side labelled "Operation Intrude N313" (the mission codename in the original Metal Gear), which he plays on a Sony BitCorder device connected to an MSX2 computer (the platform which the Metal Gear series started on). The timeline shown afterward establishes that Big Boss's phantom would later die fighting against Solid Snake in Outer Heaven.^[8][9]

Physical appearance

Venom Snake is distinguished from the real Big Boss by his bionic left arm, the numerous facial scars and the shrapnel "horn" protruding from the right side of his forehead. His eye-patch also differs from the one usually worn by Big Boss, as it has three straps instead of just two. The player is given the option to use the avatar's natural face in place of Snake's after clearing Episode 46, although the avatar's face can be seen prior to that on Snake's reflection in the aerial command center. The decision to have Snake lose his left arm was made early during the development of Metal Gear Solid V, although originally he was supposed to wear a regular prosthetic rather than a bionic arm.^[10]

The game features a hidden "karma" system which causes Venom Snake's appearance to change based on the player's behaviour. Negative actions such as killing people and animals or developing nuclear weapons earn Demon Points. Earning 20,000 causes Snake's horn to grow, and reaching 50,000 makes it grow even longer, with Snake becoming permanently soaked in blood. This demonic appearance is accentuated by Snake's belt, which resembles a tail.^[11] Positive actions such as extracting animals and child soldiers, earning certain achievements, or visiting Mother Base's zoo will eventually reverse these changes, which are purely aesthetic.^[12]

Casting

In Metal Gear Solid V, Venom Snake is portrayed by Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland through voice-over and facial motion capture, briefly appearing as the medic in Ground Zeroes and then as the player character throughout The Phantom Pain. Sutherland plays both Venom Snake and Big Boss but the official credits makes no distinction between either character, with the role simply billed as "Snake". The casting was announced by Konami on June 6, 2013, during the annual Konami Pre-E3 show.^{[13][14][15][16]} Kojima's reason for selecting Sutherland rather than Snake's usual voice actor was to "have a more subdued performance expressed through subtle facial movements and tone of voice rather than words", and that he "needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s". Hollywood producer and director Avi Arad suggested to Kojima that Sutherland could fulfill his requirements.^[17][18][19] Akio Ōtsuka was unaffected by this casting change and continued to voice Snake in the Japanese version.^[20] On March 4, 2015, Kojima said that Snake would have less dialogue in The Phantom Pain than in previous installments, explaining that this would make Snake more an extension of the player, and that he would act based on the player's actions "rather than doing things like making spontaneous comments or flirting with women."^[21]

Naming

The character was initially introduced as "Punished Snake" in the E3 2013 trailer for Metal Gear Solid V, but this moniker would fall into disuse in favor of "Venom Snake", which is the name that was used in most of the promotional imagery and merchandising since E3 2014. Although the final game bills him as "Punished 'Venom' Snake" in the opening sequence of every mission, the codename "Punished Snake" is never spoken by anyone, while the name "Venom Snake" is only mentioned once in the actual script^[7] - otherwise the character is simply referred to as "Snake" or "Big Boss".

During the prologue sequence of the game, the player character is briefly given the name Ahab (エイハブ, Eihabu) by the medical staff protecting him in Cyprus, while Big Boss (whose face is covered bandages) assumes the identity of Ishmael when helping the player thwart off the enemy forces pursuing them in the hospital. These are the names of the protagonist and the narrator respectively in Moby-Dick. According to Kenji Yano, who wrote the novelization of The Phantom Pain under the pen name Hitori Nojima, these names were chosen to symbolize Big Boss handing down the role of protagonist to Venom Snake while he takes a supporting role in the story.^[22]

Bibliography

• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - The Complete Official Guide (Collector's ed.). Piggyback Interactive Limited. ISBN 978-1-908172-76-1.

Footnotes