This Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain launch trailer feels like Kojima's goodbye

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The launch trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is a great big "here's to you" for Metal Gear fans. Edited by Hideo Kojima himself, it dedicates a solid three minutes to the "Evolution & Harmony" of the Metal Gear series before broaching The Phantom Pain - the last and final missing link of Kojima's military/political/philosophical saga.

Fair warning, there are some slight story spoilers ahead, but nothing you won't find out just from watching the trailer.

Then it flips the table with the biggest, scariest, least practical Metal Gear (as in the eponymous nuclear-equipped bipedal walking tanks) ever conceived, complete with Pacific Rim electro-sword. For all the emotional angst of watching Snake complete his transformation into the treacherous Big Boss, Kojima doesn't want us to forget that The Phantom Pain is also hiding some jaw-dropping boss fights. Even if it's Kojima's last, it's still Metal Gear, dammit.

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Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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