One of the most captivating stealth action games to date, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain comes packed with a great story, rugged characters and a surprisingly unpolished and sharp ending.
The gameplay mechanics can keep you glued to the game for hours, and it seems that these hours could have been prolonged. We know that Mission 51 is a part of the story that was trimmed before the game's launch, but it seems that it's not the only thing developers left out. A complete chapter was dismissed entirely.
The game has two parts, titled Revenge and Race. Users that dug deep into the game's files uncovered the title card of a third part, named Peace. Additional elements, such as textures of The Boss, easily recognizable by the scar in an S-shape, were discovered.
The surprises keep mounting; scenes in the pre-launch trailers are not part of the final game. Such moments were seen in the E3 2014 trailer: screaming Snake, the burning village, and the African child soldiers being mentored are missing from the 2015 version of the game. The same applies to sequences from the E3 2013 trailer and from the Tokyo Game Show 2014 presentation. Some video pieces that were presented at a PlayStation 4 presentation in 2014 are also missing.
It is discouraging that although it is a spectacular, well-made title, the certain interesting storyboard elements have been abandoned. Players are reasonably wondering: are there more missing parts that the final product departed with? The edits made to The Phantom Pain have a strong impact on the general feel of the game.
Deadlines and budget cuts do not usually modify any game content to the extent that final versions become significantly affected. MGSV is a very transparent example of this, as we know Kojima Productions accelerated development so it could deliver on the scheduled date.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain continues to draw praise for its fantastic mixture of story and content, in spite of the rushed release. The franchise's loyalists can only dream what the full game would've looked like if it was unabridged.
