On the idea of the Tanker section we play being one of Raiden's VR simulations, I believe its the other way around. The footage we see of Snake using a FAMAS and running from the sea water that we never got to play was Raiden's VR simulation, while what we the player went through was the real thing. Since if the playable Tanker section was the VR, Raiden would know things he isn't meant to in the Plant chapter: - Raiden would know that the official story of Snake sinking the tanker is a lie and that Ocelot sank it. - Raiden would know that the official story of the Big Shell cleaning up an oil spill is a lie if he saw that the sunken tanker was actually carrying Metal Gear RAY. - Raiden would already be aware of Metal Gear RAY's existence. He would not mistake it for the new Metal Gear model Ames mentioned being built in the Big Shell if he knew RAY became active two years ago.
I agree. Whenever Raiden talked about VR missions involving the tanker my assumption was he was referring to the Tanker VR missions in Metal Gear 2 Substance.
The sloppiness of it also makes sense. Snake’s doing a terrible job in the FAMAS one. Tho I do hold some reservations due to Raiden completing 300 of them. That could be a lot, that could be barely anything. And he does idolize Snake so it’s possible he’s learned to perfect his mannerisms in a controlled environment only to fail miserably when actually out there
Also, in regards to another theory that Metal Gear Solid PS1 is a VR mission for Raiden: Colonel says something about being able to shoot while prone, unlike in your VR training. You couldn’t shoot prone in MGS1.
My most intriguing doubt is how did The Patriots get to cover up the Arsenal Gear crash on Manhattan, why nobody in the streets react to it, what did Solidus say before dying and what are the consequences that the Arsenal crash had from there on that would change the world into what we see in 4.
@@maxderratLa Li Lu Le Lo… it makes sense. If nanomachines can jam verbal speech and auditory sound it wouldn’t be a stretch if it can affect memory or visual perception.
I don't understand why people get hung up on the infinite ammo. Both Raiden and Snake carry a nikita missile launcher, a stinger in their butt. Like, you try carrying all that weaponry on you, its just not possible.
I'm surprised so many people get hung up on the infinite ammo bandana thing with either not understanding it or reading too much into it. It's just a fourth wall breaking joke. Like how they joke about swapping discs or memory cards in MGS4. People tend to read way too much into everything Kojima does. Sometimes he does have really intricate and cryptic stuff. But often, he's just making a joke. He could tweet that he likes to put a teaspoon of ginger dressing in his ramen, and people would find a way to say it entirely explains Nicolas Cage's character in Death Stranding 2.
I always assumed that Arsenal Gear went partially over the water and Raiden was actually on the outside and the rest of the Arsenal Gear had it's roof open for the Metal Gear Rays to come on top in order for the Rays boss fight to be initiated. So Raiden was basically fighting the Rays on the back end of Arsenal Gear hence why it's labelled Rectum. But that's me talking
@@ozzibear the fact that with kojima occam's razor is actually not a rule to go by because kojima is that much insane is both scary and endearing at the same time.. "he's just like us!" one would say.
Honestly this is what I always figured too. It seemed obvious, but I get where others are coming from with this being a Hideo Kojima game and expecting the craziest explanation. lol I mean, its entirely possible that its both a bit of reality going on (Olga obviously dies here which was very real.) and a bit of VR/mental craziness which could be giving the area that "endless" look, even if physically they're most likely on top of Aresenal. A big point at this stage of the game was that it was getting harder and harder to tell what was real and what wasn't.
Vamp was waiting for the falafel stand nearby to recover from the accident and make him his falafel which probably cost 20$ (but you get a small soda with it)
I think Arsenal Gear is big enough that any part you see in the game is believable. The Rays boss fight arena is lit up only at the floor, and the roof is so high that light does not reach it. The arena is surrounded by shallow water and houses most of the Rays.
I think this is more likely because the water was to shallow for long metal gears combat but later was deep enough for a metal gear to swim. However, I don't see the point of taking Raiden on top of Arsenal to interrogate him instead of being inside...
@@RadimuxCisco Well either way, we know Kojima is a "tell, don't show" type of person. Any misunderstanding we have with the series is not intentional. Arsenal Gear was the weirdest part in the series and I''m not sure if he was the one that wanted it like that or it was the other writers.
When I first played MGS2 and Snake said "infinate ammo", I thought he was pointing at his head (not the bandana). In other words, I thought he meant using your brain and strategize with it is also an advantage and it is infinate 😅
I thought that as well, as if he meant the brain / spirit is the biggest / deadliest weapon we can have. Especially since I've begun MGS with the 2nd installment XD.
@@chrysm6842 I know about the bandana and infinate ammo, but knowing that MGS never breaks the 4th wall, why now? So i thought he meant using your head lol. Thanks for the reply, now i feel better knowing im not alone on this 😅👍🏼
I always imagined Arsernal was partially in submarine mode, with the area Raiden is on above water and the Rays standing on the rest of the roof, it later raises entirely which is how Ocelot and Snake dived into water
I think the arena being a copy of the photography missions could also be because Raiden has done VR training, and experienced those missions. The nanomachines are now creating an arena he's familiar with by hallucinating his past experience in that VR mission.
As a developer, there's nothing more efficient you can do than purposely leave loose ends and things unexplained in your game. This appeals to people's popular imagination and makes them even more interested in your game, creating and inventing crazy theories to explain these gaps in a way that you alone could never manage. And if they ask you something about it, just give a vague answer to stoke their imagination even more.
Same goes with music lyrics. That’s why modern pop rap is pretty boring nowadays. No more metaphors. Everyone needs you to know that they’re talking about their genitals.
I was scrolling down the comments while the video played and I read yours at the same time as Raiden said the line in the video 😂 the lalilulelo are real
I remember reading somewhere that the RAY boss arena was originally going to be an endless MG RAY hanger space inside Arsenal Gear. No matter where you went, you'd discover more open hanger and *no* walls marking the edge of Arsenal Gear.
I came to theorize myself that the cluster worm GW was affected, not only affected the AI system, but also Raiden himself. Solidus after Arsenal Gear crashes and gives his final speech before the sword duel, he tells Raiden he has traces of The Patriots inside his cerebral cortex, so if Raiden's brain is pretty much a part of The Patriot's network going haywire, it would also mean that the cerebral implants and the censorship, which are his old memories when he was a child soldier, are also affected, so much so that his reality is completely messed up. I mean, even the big shootout with Snake as your partner is simply a representation of when Raiden was back in the killing fields on the civil war.
MGS and other Kojima games take place in some kind of Game-Reality, where its implied to be a full and tealized world, but with the implication that some or all of the characters understand that they are game characters, have some lack of control due to that fact, or other reasons. Snake in MGS2 seems to feel comfortable with that but Raiden has a hard time telling video games from reality, and HIS reality, much like how a player obsessed with the war aspect of the MGS games doesnt realize that war is Hell.
The memetic proxy is permeable from both sides of the membrane - MG:GZ infects you with the meme of Vengeance (Chico's Tape 4, The CIA Agent Interrogation Tape, etc), and if you make yourself in the character creator at the start of MGSV:TPP, you get to burn in Hell in the Pyx in MGS4. As a treat.
TBH, really like your take that the bandanna is Snake's version of the various boss's supernatural abilities. Effectively, "I don't run out of bullets when I wear this, because I believe I don't."
well in mg3 big boss says "you have to get a feel for how many you have left" so this directly contradicts the idea of a bandana giving infinitely ammo OR it simply means that big boss had not yet acquired such a magical item.
@@lightlayagajoie5739 But in that, he isn't wearing THE bandanna right? He always has one, but the on he believes gives infinite ammo one is much longer.
Ok I'm going on a limb, my theory is that the VR arena was used during development to play test having that many Rays on screen simultaneously. The design was minimalist enough that developers could save resources not rendering a more complicated scene. As development continued and their deadline was getting closer they didn't get around to change it. At that point Kojima must have decided using the VR arena for such a pivotal battle fit thematically with what the game was going for, so it stayed that way.
@@maxderrat I'm pretty sure Mantis is stronger as a child because he was being influenced by the will of others and in MGSV their will was a strong very strong form of revenge. Either with Volgin, Skull Face Dude, or Venom Snake himself.
Trust me, as a fellow Metal Gear fanatic, the minor things can often lead to the major things. One for me? In The Twin Snakes, the hallway where Gray Fox wipes out the soldiers. I always love finding little things, or nods. The Heavy Armor Troopers have a gold tag on their vest. On it? Outer Heaven. A few ways to look at it, Liquid was able to get surplus equipment from Outer Heaven. Vulcan Raven was a merc for Outer Heaven, and Ocelot would easily be able to acquire it. Or... Liquid says, "From today, you can call this place... Outer Heaven." So this was him already putting that into effect. Hope your day is going well today!
I always thought MGS 2 was the most Evangelion-Like MGS-Experience. What struck me curious is, there have always been many EVA's references in MGS (like Gray Fox asa Ninja has lot's of similiarities to EVA Unit 00 also his behaviour after he kinda malfunctions and he bangs his head against the ground is a scene very similar to Evangelion) but Kojima never once personally mentioned it? Arsenal Gear at the end of MGS 2 really reminds me of what happens in the last 2 episodes of Evangelion. Everything happens in Shinji Ikaris mind while the real battle is shown in the movie End of Evangelion. The whole ending of MGS 2 is so surreal and bizarre, it would be hard to think that most of the stuff is not going on purely in Raidens mind. Lot's of people say that the story of MGS 2 is the most bonkers story of the MGS universe. This might be true, but there is way more to it. And I've learned here a lot of things I never thought about before. Making the story of MGS 2 timeless, especially with the whole AI twist. Kojima always loves to play with layers of realities. I never made a secret out of it that the story of MGS V is, in contrast to MGS 2, completely bonkers to me. But you will find fantastic stuff there to. The whole substory with Paz and the revelation of this plot was pure brillance. The same, on a smaller scae, could be said about the mission where you have to find Volgin. These are the brillant moments Kojima is playing with the person holding the controller. Nothing is as it seems.
In the real world I always thought it was a launch pad for the Rays, like some kind of magnetic catapult and a kind of torpedo launcher that filled with water combination but you could never see the walls of the chamber because it was so huge. But, in the narrative it’s a weird boss-fight Evangelion arena. It might just be the boss-fight room where there’s nowhere else to go, everything has fallen apart and Metal Gear Solid has been melted down to good guy fight the robot. Maybe Kojima saying “this is what you expect from a game, yes?”. I think anything with the hexagon motifs; Big Shell is made out of hexagons, the pattern under-foot in Arsenal Gear is made from green hexagons and the VR Photography Missions have that pattern too.
the funny thing is. that MGS 2 is a simulation game. because every game is a simulation. but. the funny thing is. that the metta commentary about social media kojima did. was BEFORE social media was even big. and he told us that social media will be controlled. kinda like. because ppl want to consum specific content. and therefore will be in a controlled bubble. which is basically what we have with google/youtube algoritm (btw sorry for bad english) good video as always
A lot of these ideas aren't new, they're just more blatantly obvious. There's a reason that propaganda works so well (and has for at least hundreds of years): people and believe what they want to believe. The internet didn't cause that, people's brains just work that way.
The thing about the infinite bandana is, I find that more reasonable than saying a gun has infinite ammo because its mag is shaped like the infinity symbol (MGS3.)
It also makes you think the hallucinations with psychomantis and all the other tricks were not caused by nanomachines anyway. just because naomy says they aren't doesnt mean she isn't lying.
I think the reality of MGS 2 was left up in the air as it changed during production, there was a lot of cut content from the ending. I assumed the "Rectum" was a storage area near the lower levels where all the Rays are stored (even though Raiden goes up a ladder). Since the Rays are amphibious, they could launch like submarines from under water, and thus, would be stored at the bottom. The added detail of the shallow water is no different than damp, bowels of a classic wooden ship in fantasy fiction. I assumed that platform you were on was the bottom of a type of elevator shaft, and thats the platform resting at the bottom, with a small layer of water. It being all VR explains a lot of the oddities, such as everyone in new york acting indifferent to Snake and Raiden casually standing around after a devastating terrorist attack and battle to the death atop federal hall. The city was more akin to the Matrix film simulations of a city, as opposed to reality. Again, could just be gamey stuff that wasn't really thought of, or it could be part of Kojima's original plan for it all being a VR simulation. Pretty sure Ocelots matter-of-fact explanation of the entire conspiracy is what it just is - a real world test to see if the VR training works, the AI was testing out its subjects in a real world scenario, solid snake wasn't part of it (or WAS he ?!)
the ending reminded me of gta. wheen you are on a mission the street are often cleared as if police had closed the traffic. after mission complete the streets fill again with npcs unworried about any carnage or explosions that took place before. the ost track for when you are where the metal gears are stored is called arsenal's guts btw
My idea is that it was supposed to be a simulation. That's all. Logic didn't need consistency once the cat was out of the bag. When Solidus and Raiden fall from the top of Arsenal, to the top of the federal house, they cover and exaggerated fall(easy to notice with the freecam mode of subsistence). Nobody could have survived that. Reason that makes me think even more that it's a VR simulation. A fake world. And Kojima by making Raiden toss the dogtags with our names was a way to say "stop to believe to this reality, this is not real, not your thing, leave and choose your reality". Then people sent him death treats and so he made MGS2 story a reality in MGS world, and the product of that was MGS4, which has to explain most of the inconsistencies with deus ex makina stuff like the nanomachines. And I hate it.
It's more interesting to consider both possibilities. the game strongly hints in the direction of everything being a simulation but when you also look at it from the perspective that it was still happening in real life there is still an interesting layer of interpretation (that is actually more interesting that oh it's just all a simulation). You just have to overlook some plotholes/unrealism. But that can maybe just be explained by that raiden is confused.
Raiden has played MGS1, which is the VR mission he had played 300 times. And if you save Otocon you get stealth, if you save Meryl you get the bandana. In the opening of the Tanker mission Snake has stealth, so the implication is that Snake saved Otocon and Meryl is dead. But later Snake also has the bandana, which implies that MGS1 as we know it was a VR simulation, where the creators concluded that snake had to either save Otocon or Meryl, but that Snake did the impossible and saved both of them. This is confirmed in MGS4 where they are both alive. It's a way to say "everything you did in the first game isn't canon." And that the real Solid Snake did it better than you did it, even if you got the best rating on the highest difficulty. Solid Snake really is better than that even. Plant is a real world simulation of the VR simulation. It is a real life abstraction of Shadow Moses to see if the conditions can create the ultimate soldier. As in that you can hook a soldier up to a VR reality, and make the perfect soldier. But in Metal Gear Solid 2 it goes wrong. The actors in the simulation try to break free. And the real Solid Snake shows up. Metal Gear Arsenal Rectum is also an abstraction. It's a test arena, it's where Raiden will face not only one Metal Gear but tons of them. It's obvious that it is inside the Metal Gear Arsenal, it's also where Raiden is supposed to fight Solidus like how Snake fought Big Boss. Here is also where the VR thing comes in. Because Metal Gear 1 and 2 are also VR simulations. If you have played through them, you will see that a lot of what snake says when he refers to Outer Heaven didn't happen in the games. Again Kojima is saying that not everything that happened in the games are Canon, he has changed the story a little bit, and the explanation is that this is because the games were flawed VR simulations of real events in that fictional universe. It's a way to fix plot holes and make changes to the story which were forced on the players by the developers. Like Big Boss never says that he is Snake's father in the first games. How does the VR simulation and it's creators deal with seemingly impossible events. They conclude that the supernarural has to be real. Yet Snake and Big Boss went beyond what was possible according to the simulation. The game we are playing is the VR simulation, we are being made into perfect soldiers. And when you think about it, the game wishes to influence people towards non-violence and to be anti-nuclear weapons. But you the player can chose not to co-operate and take whatever you want out of the game. Though you unlike the bigger than the game character Snake will surpass whatever you do, so he is the ideal. Is it a simulation? Yes, the version you are playing is the simulation. Did the events actually happen in the game world? Yes, they did. The tanker is the opposite, there we get to learn the truth, while Raiden has played a different version where Snake was a terrorist. Because they wanted to cover up the existence of the Metal Gear Ray prototype.
Not necessarily re: stealth camo. In MGS1, Otacon mentions that he had multiple stealth camo units that were stolen by a squad of genome soldiers. He very well could've just made Snake a new unit between MGS1 & 2. Also, the menu icon for the MGS1 camo unit and the icon in MGS2 look very different. This could indicate that the unit in MGS2 is a newer version. This could also be substantiated by the fact that the glimmer in MGS1 is dark green and it's more of a clear green in MGS2 and they function slightly differently (the MGS1 unit doesn't get disabled when bumping into someone).
"This game have a major plot hole" Kojima : don't worry, i will make another MGS game to solve that plot hole ! too bad Kojima was fired from Konami so he can't fix those plot holes.
The weirdest thing about MGS2 for me is a personal Mandela Effect experience I had with it. I always remember seeing Arsenal Gear crash into Manhattan. Whenever I play the game now, I'm always thrown off because I'm ecpecting the cutscene, but then it just cuts to them flying off Arsenal Gear after it came to a stop. I would mention the cutscene to friends, and they'd just be bewildered. The first time I owned MGS2 was the Xbox version, and to this day I swear I remember Arsenal Gear losing control, running aground, and plowing through the city and destroying buildings.
I suppose you must have just heard of the censorship due to 9/11 that removed the scene of Arsenal Gear hitting Manhattan, then imagined seeing a version of it playing out in your head and eventually got confused that it was real?
This game came out 23 years ago and we’re still making theories about it; Amazing. MGS2 changed my way of thinking forever and I was a child when I first beat it.
The footage featuring things we didn’t actually see in the Tanker chapter was also e3 footage when MGS2 was early in development. The sections involving flooding were going to be in the game but were cut due to the limitations of the PS2. FAMAS was also going to be in the game and was in there at some point but apparently that gun wasn’t commonly used anymore at that point in time and was never a common gun in the US so all the gun nuts working on MGS2 begged Kojima to remove it from the game. Therefore I don’t think those scenes were intended to imply anything, I think they just used footage they already had to represent the Tanker chapter and didn’t realize or care it had things they already cut.
After seeing a detailed hint on Dr Clark in Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain end credits, it had me thinking. If Cyborg Ninja truly did killed Dr Clark, why was it confirmed to be he instead of she? Either Para Medic had a plastic surgery for gender change, or it was her husband or colleague that was killed in her place. Or if she was “killed”, here is an interesting theory I had read and compiled from the communities back then. Dr Madner, whom was saved by Solid in MG1 only to return as Big Boss ally in MG2. He survived via nanomachines and cyborg technology. It will be years until he helped Raiden when he became a cyborg during his captivity from the Patriots. I brought Dr Madner’s name solely because he has a biggest rival: Dr Clark. Since she betrayed Big Boss, Dr Madner was Big Boss’s trusted person for technology. Dr Clark fascination for movies made her fascinated for cyborg technology and throughout the two were rivals. Dr Clark also became a cyborg herself and had developed the technology for the Cyborg Ninja along the suits for Solidus, Olga, and even future outfits such as The Frogs. She also had developed a similar technology during the 80’s, to which Skull Face had stolen for the Parasite units. Raiden had saved baby Sunny thanks to Big Mama, but he was captured when he was buying time for their escape. In between MGS2 and MGS4, Raiden became a cyborg. Dr Clark was Raiden’s main antagonist, and later on he had defeated her in combat.
The first time I saw it I thought that the hexagon pattern that made up the floor in the arena just moved out of the way to unveil an elevator and the Rays were standing on submerged parts of the Arsenal Gear. Raiden just does his dramatic "standing up while riding an elevator" like in the opening cutscene and it closed up.
This short video could have summed up all your Metal Gear lore into one - it's perfectly stated and I agree with everything in it 100%. The Buddhism theory is a nice touch so thanks for pointing that out - very interesting. Personally, this game had a profound impact on me because it made me feel so....helpless(?). Exactly how Raiden felt. It'd be akin to trying to bring the internet down to save a loved one. You can't. Unless you're Snake. Speaking of the internet... Logos Steve and Max himself are on the money. Just remember the year when this game was made - the fact of what a smartphone can do today was merely science fiction then. Most of the MG series boils down to Kojima predicting how the internet (Patriots) will become so integrated into society (everyone's nose in a smartphone) that we won't even know the internet's the one behind the scenes. We're bombarded with wi-fi signals everyday not including the cellular microwave background emissions....all invisible...like the Patriots, the proud police of the world. Read up on the Dead Internet theory. It's all connected. It can't be stopped. I also wondered about this and usually it boils down to Occam's Razor. Emma's wurm cluster damaged the AI and screwed with the nanomachine network explaining the HIDEO/VIDEO...FISSION MAILED...etc which is a fourth wall break thus screwing with the player's mind. The magic happens on your first real blind playthrough of MGS2 - you don't question it but just go with the flow...Patriot's puppet etc. You have to admit at the time you honestly didn't contemplate if something was real in the game or if anything was amiss...just like Raiden. Even with the AI damaged, you didn't stop did you? You didn't turn that console off, right? It didn't matter if AG had a rectum and where it was located (lol). Remember the Patriots saying "I wonder if you had preferred a fantasy setting?". We honestly all played right into Kojima's vision...his masterpiece and prediction of what's to come called MGS2. ^_^ After finishing the game, I honestly had a sinking feeling in my gut because I knew it was all inevitable but to see it and experience it in a tangible medium as a video game made it even more surreal and horrifying. I remember after the credits and dropping the controller (mind blown) and walking outside looking up at the sky speechless. I'll never forget it. On a side note about the hallucinations - Naomi's conversation with Snake about Mantis and the hallucination at SM were a precursory test of the Patriots' ability to warp reality (physiologically through neuron receptors via FoxDie) thus leading up to the S3 plan screwing with Raiden a few years later. In MGS2 they took it to a whole new level; like you said following up to societal implementation. They are our guardians after all...without them (in our reality today...the internet) our society would collapse. In a way - we're already a slave to the system. Zero proved that in MGS4. So deep yet so simple. Awesome video, man!
The whole Arsenal Gear section is not supposed to be a problem that can be solved with in-world logic. One of the biggest influences to MGS2 was the novel "The New York Trilogy" by Paul Auster which are three short novellas pastiching detective fiction through a postmodern lens. Specifically it's the story "City of Glass" that serves as the biggest influence to the game (and where Peter Stillman got his name from) and concerns a crime fiction author who decides to become a private eye and starts descending into madness as reality itself starts falling apart. It's a story in which the Paul Auster himself is a character and one who's purported author is a different character, like many other pieces of postmodern fiction the line between reality and fiction itself is blurry and muddled. This all goes back to MGS2, just like in City of Glass Raiden not only starts questioning reality itself but also his very own identity and by the time you reach Arsenal Gear reality itself is falling apart and the artificiality of the game itself is laid bare. Arsenal Gear looks like an unfinished level with computer code flying around, the big boss fight happens on an arena reused from a bonus section in MGS:VR Missions, Snake breaks the fourth wall and references the infinity bandana from MGS1 etc. These games all exist in a sort of meta-game world where the characters are simultaneously aware of the fact that they're in a game (when you wanna use the codec push the select button etc) but still take the events in question seriously. You are not meant to relate these events to any form of logic in the MGS world, it is a deliberately supposed to be weird, to feel like the illusion of the games world is breaking down.
I made a little research in the Document of MGS 2 about Rectum, and think I found a little bit of cool info... So long story short... The hangar filler with Rays that we see right after escaping the torture chamber was meant to be seen much later. Yes the rectum is also a hangar. I'll just show you the script: AG hangar "Raiden goes through a door and finds himself in a giant hangar that houses RAY. It is too dark to see ahead, and the ceiling and the walls of the huge room are lost in the gloom. The space is looped so that users cannot reach a wall no matter how far they walk.Solidus' voice, amplified by a megaphone, booms out after Raiden enters the hangar." So yeah... Rectum is actually a remain from gigantic hangar storing Rays. Thank for reading anyways😅
You need a synthesis of these ideas. Raiden is actually hooked up to a sort of VR streaming device inside Arsenal Gear. The Raiden we control is a robotic cyborg body, as suggested by the Skull suit. Raiden is controlling a drone of himself from within Arsenal. So this explains why Snake and Olga betray him. And why she used electricity to KO him. At that point, Otacon uploads a hack to Raiden from his body. Then, when Raiden wakes up on the torture rack, we are seeing inside the AI system. That is where the *real* VR kicks in. Before this point, everything is real but still "VR" via Raiden's remote perspective. Then after, the world itself becomes fully digitized and unreal. This is when the AI freaks out. The vector for the hack on Arsenal is Raiden, and Otacon's programming takes the form of Solid Snake while inside the system. Raiden *does* summon Snake by speaking him into existence. Raiden is basically just a program at this point, controlled by his brain hooked up to some coffin like device. (That's a WHOLE other ball of wax, but I could explain it.) So the RAY fight really is in VR, if you ask me. The Solidus fight at the end is the real part. Raiden is still controlling a robot body, though, after the system "crash" and waking back up. That's how parts of the very end have some elements of unreality. The Patriots are altering what Raiden is seeing, like the seemingly ignorant passersby, but Snake is real once again, and can appear as himself now that the System has been hacked and Solid Snake has become an indelible part of the scenario. The crazy part here is that The Patriots (Hideo Kojima) basically created a VR simulation, then built the facility for that simulation in reality, and ran a planned scenario in it. So it's real, and it's VR, and all the VR comes from real characters. The even crazier part is that we see Solidus, Ocelot, Fortune, and Raiden all have access to this System. I can also explain a lot more about all that if you're curious!
I think the entire game is a VR mission. Because that's literally what a video game is, a Virtual Mission. Image Training. You'll ruin your eyes sitting so close to the TV
I got chills from the "I've completed 300 missions in VR" line, considering how long I spent playing VR missions and replaying the MGS2 demo in anticipation of MGS2's release. It me. Me am Raiden.
I buy that Raiden's perceptions were being altered by the nanomachines so the visual aspects of the rectum are explained. To add something else which is interesting and amusing; Arsenal Gear's areas are specifically named after anatomy. What do many animals do when they feel threatened? They empty their bowels as a defence. What is the purpose for Metal Gear Rays? To defend Arsenal Gear. So the rectum is literally that, a storage area for Metal Gear Rays so they can be immediately ejected from the anus to defend Arsenal Gear when it comes under attack. During the Ray fight you can see countless other Rays in the background. It could also explain why the water is present but the level is low. When we're terrified and we empty our bowel it becomes liquid so Arsenal Gear does the same. In the case of an external defence scenario the rectum fills with water so the Rays can "swim'" out more freely. The serious and the silly combined in true Kojima fashion.
also more simply, the gear is technically a submarine too, so it could very well just the launch pod of the rays, and it work both with it being at the top(more likely) or at the bottom of the gear, if at the top, it's just the gear being in partial-submersion mode, if it's the bottom, you can just say that's residual water from underwater launch testings of the rays.
A few weeks ago, at the age of 45, I had my first colonoscopy. Not only did the doctors not find anything wrong, it was spotless. No polyps, no irritation or infection, no sign of disease or cancer. It was a textbook perfect colon. I have the colon of a 30 year old man in the prime of his life. How do you explain such a thing??? Hmmm?!?!? 🤔 I await your explanation.
I've always felt like MGS2 was framed a lot like Assassin's Creed's Animus, albeit without an overbearing framing of it. We're not seeing events literally unfold, but rather experiencing a VR reconstruction of those events, and the strange appearance of the platform is either down to an inability to recreate that scene properly or it's censorship. Two things feed into this impression for me: the game over screen looks very VR-like, more like a UI that the person experiencing the memories might see (while MGS1's game over screen played it straight), but also a very telling line from Ocelot who tells Raiden in the interrogation room that they're inside the memory of Shadow Moses. It was too late in the game (heh) for it to just be another part of the S3 plan.
It's almost as if the God heard Me. I was having the same exact question from the very first moment I saw the arena. But the question was just lightly hovering above Me until half year ago, when I started to question my own reality on the new level different from before. At the same moment my interest in Metal Gear series stated to Rise. I love and h8 how uncertain tge reality is in this series.
Max, have you ever seen "Metal Gear Solid 4 was a Mistake" by Steak Bentley? It's one of my favorite videos of all time. He goes in depth about some things about MGS4
I'm aware of the video, but I haven't watched the whole thing. I'd probably end up agreeing with a lot of his criticisms. Out of all the MGS games, MGS4 is my least favorite. I still love it though, for all the stuff it gets right.
In MGRising, the concept of "augmented reality" was introduced, and as always, it was implied it was already something (since the original MGS, nanomachine codec communications could be taken as a form of augmented reality). It was always a possibility that the patriot's AI could use everyone's nanomachines to introduce some digitally-generated information to manipulate their perception of reality.
The VR theory is wrong. The level of simulation The Patriots represent is an incomprehensible level of control that lets them make reality into a simulation in a sense. When Raiden is having a crisis of self. It’s being represented by using the imagery of Metal Gear Solid VR to draw parallel to the real life players who probably have that burned into their psyche. This relates to Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel being revealed as Raidens VR training. The game is being played by “Jack” in the post credits title reveal.
I believe that the original intent was to have the battles with the Metal Gears on top of Arsenal Gear on the Hudson River in New York. They had to strip all that out at the last minute because of the Twin Towers tragedy. So they literally just stripped away the backgrounds and added a modified VR Mission floor and quickly reworked how you got there by just cutting content after the ladder climb (explaining a missing entrance to the room in their haste). There was probably a cutscene on top of Arsenal Gear at the Brooklyn Bridge that got cut.
The game mgs is the VR Training and we are Raiden, forged into Solid Snake. Keep that legacy for the character is just an avatar. We are the Les Enfant Terrible
MGS5 isn't part of the series imo. It is the Matrix Resurrections of the series. I.e not meant to be a serious entry in the series but rather a big "fuck you" in videogame form.
Agreed but damn I love the physics of that game 😂 the sandbox itself is so fun. It’s almost like Kojima made the gameplay fun but the story so hollow on purpose. The name is too on the nose.
you should give the game another shot. It's very similar to mgs2 where at release it was hated but now more and more people are realizing how good it is
@@Scratch2C Here's the thing with that though. At what point in the MSX games does Big Boss tell Solid Snake that they are father and son? How did Madnar survive the rockets/mines? How does Frank get "revived" from literally exploding? MG1+2 dont fit any better into the overall story than they did before TTP. And that's fine. Plot holes from those original 2 deserve a free pass.
@@darthkahn45 Forget MGSV for a sec... even in MGS1 (where most people started the series) they had already retconned the story to have Big Boss reveal to snake he was his father. We all loved how Kojima took the story and expanded it then. I also enjoyed the twist revealing the body double in MGSV. Not only as way to bring the MSX games into the main storyline but also explaining and giving answers the exact questions you asked. Now as far as MGSV goes its a fun way of explaining why Big Boss appears in both games without having to rewrite the original MSX games. I dont understand how you dislike this. But were not referring to opinions here. Objectively speaking MGSV does make the original games fit better by filling in those plot holes you brought up.
Honestly, this solution to where the Ray Battle Arena is is very Satisfying to me. Kojima does love Subtext. after all these 18+ something years. Characters talk about how their nanomachines are influencing them in ways all the time in MGS to the point of being a meme, but here it makes alot of psychological sense given a lot of things already established, and how Raiden transitions out of the Ray fight in cutscenes to end up back on the roof of Arsenal Gear.
Excerpt from the script available in The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2: Raiden heads for Metal Gear RAY hangar. AG Hangar Raiden goes through a door and finds himself in a giant hangar that houses RAY. It is too dark to see ahead, and the ceiling and walls of the huge room are lost in the gloom. The space is looped so that users cannot reach a wall, no matter how far they walk. Solidus’ voice, amplified by a megaphone, booms out after Raiden enters the hangar
To me the biggest mystery is something that never got realised into MGS 5 TPP. During the lead up to it's release, Kojima kept saying "in TPP you will return to camp omega, ground zeroes is important and this will involve something video games have never done before" . What in the god damn hell was he talking about I wish I knew 😂
What if, the Big Shell stuff happened in real life but the Arsenal Gear stuff happened in VR? If I recall correctly, Raiden enters Arsenal Gear after Olga knocks him unconscious. She was aware of and participating in the S3 program. It's not that big of a stretch. That would leave the question of Snake's participation. He could have been a VR construct or the actual Snake at any point from then on. (If Olga was helping Snake, she may have been able to help him access the VR simulation). As for the Ray fight platform, I never realized the similarity to photo mode. For my part, I thought it akin to an omnidirectional shooting range (complete with range markers). VR would also explain why there isn't Ray debris everywhere considering you destroy a bunch of them.
It is important to note, that in the first version (Not substance) on PS2, you had to select if you watched MGS1 or played it. If you dont, you start with Raiden. If you do, you start with Snake on Tanker, and then Raiden comments on how he completed over 300 missions in VR. This could be also refference to VR missions, but this means that the videogame Metal Gear Solid, might also be a simulation in the MGS universe. I think that this important detail changes a lot, since you point out the changes in dialogue if you played Tanker. But Tanker is playable if you experienced the MGS1.
I have an original copy of MGS2: Sons of Liberty for PS2 and that never happens. You can't skip the tanker, you must play the tanker first in order to progress and play the plant.
@@patrick22014 th-cam.com/video/1HtoNTbGMwM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=N5PrPX84pg27VEGM , from my understanding, it seems to only be in the PAL version for some reason.
I mean, arsenal is massive. Its meant to contain a small fleet of rays. So to me, most likely is youre in a sort of hanger for them. Theres water because the area is meant to be filled before deploying the rays so arsenal doesnt have to deal with a sudden shift in mass from just opening a door and letting water flood in. Which i imagine for a submarine (even one as big as arsenal) would be a huge problem. And it has the name it does because its the staging area for releasing them.
I first played MGS 2 when I was 8 or 9, so obviously a lot of the meta stuff flew over my head at that age, but it took an extraordinary amount of time for me to really think about the arena with any degree of depth. I've played MGS 2 more than any game, but it's only been in the last couple years that I started to really wonder about the arena. Your theory is better than anything I could come up with. This is part of what I love about the world of Metal Gear, the slippery reality it's based in lends itself to almost infinite speculation.
Wish Konami stuck with the Raiden prequel instead of the one we got in Revengeance, it would've neatly tied up loose ends cause as someone who've played MGS2 and seeing Raiden suddenly turned in to Cyborg in MGS-IV. Knowing that we never got to see his awesome story line in action just leaves me wanting more.
I never considered that the glitching ai system was affecting what Raiden saw. I always thought he was outside standing on the dorsal structure of arsenal
Maybe MGS2 is a Simulation “based on a true story” in which the player assumes the role of Raiden and somebody not the Patriots after the events of Revengeance is trying to change the player into a mental copy of Raiden who is the closest thing to a successor of Solid Snake.
This makes perfect sense. The "Fission Mailed" incident tells us that, around this time, Raiden's senses can't be fully trusted, but the one thing that remains consistent and natural to him, is the thing he's been doing since he was a wee lad, killing.
I like this explanation a lot because I always tripped out on that part too, of Raiden climbing the ladder and just out of nowhere ending up in this giant arena. The break of reality due to the nanomachines makes a lot of sense.
To me, the biggest unsolved mystery, especially if we consider MGSV unfinished content as non-canon, is what happened to Eli and Metal Gear that he stole, why he didn't seem to use it to do anything, and why he needed Rex in MGS1.
The water being shallow doesn't mean it's not the exterior of Arsenal Gear. Arsenal Gear can just be partially submerged at the time and the Rays are walking on the back of it towards a raised platform that is jutting out of the water.
The Ray Arena is Tobira. An “island door” of Buddhist beliefs where enlightenment can open a portal to a different location. Whether this is physical, mental or spiritual. This ties into the otherworldly aspect of MGS2 and also being easily linked to the “science” of Nanomachines like you described towards the end of the video. These beliefs all stemming from Japanese spiritualism is too similar to not be an inspiration I think. Kojima has shown an interest in these concepts across all the MGS games to a varying degree.
I love this simple explanation. His nanomachines acting up is almost certainly a side effect of the worm destroying GW, and whether that's enough to cause hallucinations on its own, I think that + the psychological stress of the entire mission so far, Raiden having his own reality break, his PTSD condition from being a child soldier and seeing his father figure, Solidus, AND factoring in his countless VR missions (including simulated tanker mission and potentially simulated shadow moses) , it makes sense that in the most stressful situation of his life single handedly fighting multiple metal gears, the world around him might fade away and to survive, the entirety of his attention must be dedicated to running around and shooting down metal gear ray units. He might as well be on the digital floor of a VR simulation for all he cared at that moment. It makes perfect sense.
I think the reason for the arena looking like the photography room is that it's Raiden sees this as the finaly of his mission. His 100% completion goal. Remember, in VR mission the higher the completion percentage the closer you can get to the center. Since Raiden runs without any barriers in the arena, this might be his brain thinking that this is it, he completed 100% or maybe even 110%
The scene that you cut to which supposedly shows Snake running from a flooding tanker is actually a series of (C4?) explosions on the tanker, presumably the very same passageway he used to escape.
I mean, it could technically just be an elevated platform on the back of arsenal with the rest of it under water and the rays walking on its slightly submerged back.
I'm glad people are finally catching onto this theory. This was my interpretation as well. Raiden is wired to have his experience controlled by the Patriots, then a worm cluster spreads through the AI Raiden is linked to. Hence, everything Raiden experiences between that point and GW shutting down is him wildly hallucinating with elements from his training (VR missions and meta gameplay elements) creeping into reality. You can see this by how the VR overlays inside Arsenal increase up until the point there's ONLY the VR overlay. Then, when Solidus confirms GW has shut down, the VR overlay is gone and they are simply on top of Arsenal.
The way Raiden percieves the Arsenal Gear-Rectum location in Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty may also have some analogies with how Punished "Venom" Snake percieves the Mirror/Sink room in both Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain Episodes 0 Prologue Awakening and 46 Truth The Man Who Sold The World "for a S-Special reason."
Totally agree, this is exactly how I explain it but I don't articulate it as well as you. Thanks for making this video, also it was great seeing a clip of myself pop up in the video. Hope to see you at MGSCON2!
I always think the location for Ray fight was Raiden's distortion perception of reality, except it was not due to the GW virus. I think when Raiden was fighting the most adverse battle he had ever faced, he put himself in a zen mode. Either through nanomachine or his will alone, Raiden concentrated his mind and transformed the battle arena (the top of Arsenal Gear) into something he was familiar with: a VR training environment. This way he could focus only on the elements that were important and performed the impossible. Also this explains why he was "teleported" to the top of Arsenal Gear smoothly at the end of the fight.
As a NYer I've always thought that there are a number of details that don't make sense about the logistics of the setting and the cutscenes we see when you begin to pick it apart. Big Shell is supposed to be in New York Harbor, basically the part of the Hudson river that has the Statue of Liberty in it, which is at the south end of Manhattan. This makes sense because the tanker is traveling south as Snake jumps off the GW bridge (northern tip of Manhattan), which you can see looking off each side as you're playing and NJ is to the right and Manhattan is to the left of the tanker's direction. But in a cutscene near the end Arsenal Gear glides under the GW bridge (initially was supposed to crash through it but edited because of 9/11). This doesn't make sense, because it means Arsenal Gear is traveling north up the Hudson River to get back to the bridge, but then immediately after this scene it crashes into the Financial District, which is the southern part of Manhattan. The only way this makes sense is if Arsenal Gear is for some reason traveling north while everyone is in it while submerged, it then hits the surface like someone else pointed out for the Ray boss fight in this VR space, then its rerouted south while on the surface, crashing through/passing under the bridge, and then doing a U-turn to crash through the Financial District. But I don't believe anyone mentions it traveling north- and there's no real reason to, as there's nothing up there that would be of importance to Arsenal Gear, the Patriots, Ocelot, etc. Unless the AI is bugging out. But this is all total speculation.
About the infinity bandana Solid uses, we have to remember that The Boss had a weapon with unlimited ammo back in 1964, just because the megazine looks like an infinity symbol by BB's words. I know the MGS world is interesting and has a lot of real themes and real life problems in its story, but lets remember that "silly" things are always common in these games by desing, like The Pain controling bees just because.
The Tanker mission as we play it can't be VR because Raiden would know of Otacon, Olga and Ocelot. But during the Plant chapter he acts like he first meets them.
If the Tanker Mission were just an VR Training, than Raiden would have known that Snake did not destroy an Oil Tanker in the Hudson River. The Tanker VR Mission that Raiden see, must have been an altered Version.
MGS1 had a flying psychic and a small scale shapeshifter, weird stuff had already been happening. I never questioned MGS2 being "real" despite all of its weird stuff.
I just always assumed Arsenal was still partially submerged with the RAYs walking on the deck still covered in a few feet of water. After the fight, Olga, Fortune, Snake, etc. arrive on the scene, Raiden gets choked out and we're all on top of Arsenal. I doubt Raiden was out for a long time while everyone relocated. You can also see some of the octagonal paneling on the deck, similar to what lights up under your feet when you move on the lit platform during the fight. Maybe it's like a helipad or an elevator for RAYs that allow the Arsenal to remain submerged, but deploy units from within it. The lights making it easy to see in the dark.
After the metal gear Ray boss fight Solidus knocks Raiden out and kills Olga When Raiden wakes up they're no longer in the boss arena or "rectum" but rather on top of arsenal gear
S3 is a training kernel. Just a mobile VR training HQ. Arsenal's internal structure is an augmented reality environment. The surface is also "wired" up. Like the Danger Room in Xmen. These are basically giant empty rooms using nanomachine links to simulate visuals in the person's eyes. This is also how Snake and Raiden can see the Radar and Codec. And VR training. "Infinite ammo" is a meta joke. He's likely just referring to it as a good luck charm.
My theory is that Raiden is inside an arena inside of Arsenal Gear. The hexagonal platform he is running on is the stage and the front where the RAYs are is somewhat similar to the Las Vegas Sphere concert hall. Like a huge LED screen or something that projects the image outside?
Also, doesn't Snake jump into the water here as well after Fortune is killed? I always assumed this took place on the main deck of Arsenal Gear. I never really understood where they were exactly in the world, though.
Something I got from DRK/Threedogg's Twitch channel, OuterHeaven, is that the reason for everything MGS2 is because it's just a game - so says Kojima himself, apparently. The universe in which the story takes place is not real. That doesn't just necessarily mean that MGS2 isn't "canon". It means that the concept of "canon" is also a false premises. Kojima wanted to make you feel like you were Raiden. He wanted to merge real life and the game as much as possible. He also didn't want to make MGS2, but was forced to by Konami. So the whole game is also a kind of a troll, as well.
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This is the greatest Metal Gear Solid 2 rectal examination ever made
huh?
Rectal examination?
You can really tell which replies were made by people who haven't watched the video yet. LMAO!
@@Nevir202 you can really tell who didn't get the joke LMAO!
@@L.K.48 You'd need to have made a joke for that to be applicable. And being one doesn't count.
On the idea of the Tanker section we play being one of Raiden's VR simulations, I believe its the other way around. The footage we see of Snake using a FAMAS and running from the sea water that we never got to play was Raiden's VR simulation, while what we the player went through was the real thing. Since if the playable Tanker section was the VR, Raiden would know things he isn't meant to in the Plant chapter:
- Raiden would know that the official story of Snake sinking the tanker is a lie and that Ocelot sank it.
- Raiden would know that the official story of the Big Shell cleaning up an oil spill is a lie if he saw that the sunken tanker was actually carrying Metal Gear RAY.
- Raiden would already be aware of Metal Gear RAY's existence. He would not mistake it for the new Metal Gear model Ames mentioned being built in the Big Shell if he knew RAY became active two years ago.
I agree. Whenever Raiden talked about VR missions involving the tanker my assumption was he was referring to the Tanker VR missions in Metal Gear 2 Substance.
Same!
The sloppiness of it also makes sense. Snake’s doing a terrible job in the FAMAS one. Tho I do hold some reservations due to Raiden completing 300 of them. That could be a lot, that could be barely anything. And he does idolize Snake so it’s possible he’s learned to perfect his mannerisms in a controlled environment only to fail miserably when actually out there
I think that was taken from the beta version of MGS2. They used assets also used in twin snakes.
Also, in regards to another theory that Metal Gear Solid PS1 is a VR mission for Raiden: Colonel says something about being able to shoot while prone, unlike in your VR training. You couldn’t shoot prone in MGS1.
When I was a kid, Snake having the infinite bandana was confirmation was that Meryl didn't die and he didn't surrender during torture
Yeah, that too.
Snake also had the stealth camo so I think it's meant to be ambiguous somewhat.
@@SamsarasArt in meryl ending otocon still survives so he could gave giving him the camo later
@@SamsarasArt I'm thinking that Otacon probably made one for Snake after the Shadow Moses incident. since you know, he's the creator of the tech.
Well, I don’t think we need to speculate that, since snake start the tanker mission with the camo active
My most intriguing doubt is how did The Patriots get to cover up the Arsenal Gear crash on Manhattan, why nobody in the streets react to it, what did Solidus say before dying and what are the consequences that the Arsenal crash had from there on that would change the world into what we see in 4.
This
To the whole Arsenal Gear thing... Nanomachines. No really. I'm giving you the MGS4 answer.
@@maxderratLa Li Lu Le Lo… it makes sense. If nanomachines can jam verbal speech and auditory sound it wouldn’t be a stretch if it can affect memory or visual perception.
People were there at Federal Hall so I assumed that they went out to the streets to see Arsenal Gear up and close .
wasnt there people looking at arsenal gear when it crashed and were policemen all around the area ?
The infinite ammo line went over my head the first time and i thought it was just snake saying his intelligence is more than enough ammunition for him
Never heard this take and I really like it!
Same here. I just thought that he'd find a way to find more ammo
That’s how I always took it too, and I think in canon that was what Snake meant.
I don't understand why people get hung up on the infinite ammo. Both Raiden and Snake carry a nikita missile launcher, a stinger in their butt. Like, you try carrying all that weaponry on you, its just not possible.
His Father big boss ate a light up mushroom to charge his battery lol
I'm surprised so many people get hung up on the infinite ammo bandana thing with either not understanding it or reading too much into it. It's just a fourth wall breaking joke. Like how they joke about swapping discs or memory cards in MGS4. People tend to read way too much into everything Kojima does. Sometimes he does have really intricate and cryptic stuff. But often, he's just making a joke. He could tweet that he likes to put a teaspoon of ginger dressing in his ramen, and people would find a way to say it entirely explains Nicolas Cage's character in Death Stranding 2.
The Boss' infinite ammo gun in MGS3... they're just having some fun breaking the fourth wall and acknowledging game mechanics for a joke
I always assumed that Arsenal Gear went partially over the water and Raiden was actually on the outside and the rest of the Arsenal Gear had it's roof open for the Metal Gear Rays to come on top in order for the Rays boss fight to be initiated.
So Raiden was basically fighting the Rays on the back end of Arsenal Gear hence why it's labelled Rectum.
But that's me talking
You know what occams razor is? You're theory actually makes the most logical sense but this is a hideo kojima gane we are talking about...
I like this theory the most.
@@ozzibear the fact that with kojima occam's razor is actually not a rule to go by because kojima is that much insane is both scary and endearing at the same time..
"he's just like us!" one would say.
Honestly this is what I always figured too. It seemed obvious, but I get where others are coming from with this being a Hideo Kojima game and expecting the craziest explanation. lol
I mean, its entirely possible that its both a bit of reality going on (Olga obviously dies here which was very real.) and a bit of VR/mental craziness which could be giving the area that "endless" look, even if physically they're most likely on top of Aresenal. A big point at this stage of the game was that it was getting harder and harder to tell what was real and what wasn't.
Another big mystery of Metal Gear 2 is.... why Vamp watches Raiden hand his Dog Tags to Snake during the credits.
He is the audience, watching from a distance as snake passes Raiden his choice of identity.
Vamp was waiting for the falafel stand nearby to recover from the accident and make him his falafel which probably cost 20$ (but you get a small soda with it)
I think Arsenal Gear is big enough that any part you see in the game is believable. The Rays boss fight arena is lit up only at the floor, and the roof is so high that light does not reach it. The arena is surrounded by shallow water and houses most of the Rays.
I think this is more likely because the water was to shallow for long metal gears combat but later was deep enough for a metal gear to swim. However, I don't see the point of taking Raiden on top of Arsenal to interrogate him instead of being inside...
@@RadimuxCisco Well either way, we know Kojima is a "tell, don't show" type of person. Any misunderstanding we have with the series is not intentional. Arsenal Gear was the weirdest part in the series and I''m not sure if he was the one that wanted it like that or it was the other writers.
When I first played MGS2 and Snake said "infinate ammo", I thought he was pointing at his head (not the bandana). In other words, I thought he meant using your brain and strategize with it is also an advantage and it is infinate 😅
I thought that as well, as if he meant the brain / spirit is the biggest / deadliest weapon we can have. Especially since I've begun MGS with the 2nd installment XD.
@@chrysm6842 I know about the bandana and infinate ammo, but knowing that MGS never breaks the 4th wall, why now? So i thought he meant using your head lol. Thanks for the reply, now i feel better knowing im not alone on this 😅👍🏼
@@LeoCharlesMGS never breaks the 4th wall...uh... is that sarcasm? What series were you playing XD
@@LeoCharlesMGS constantly breaks the fourth wall or did you forget about mantis
I always imagined Arsernal was partially in submarine mode, with the area Raiden is on above water and the Rays standing on the rest of the roof, it later raises entirely which is how Ocelot and Snake dived into water
same
also very plausible, if not the actual truth
That is exactly how I always imagined it!
Yeah no this is exactly what's going on, the similarities to that VR mission is just an easter egg of sorts.
Yeah it was floating in the middle of the ocean.
I think the arena being a copy of the photography missions could also be because Raiden has done VR training, and experienced those missions. The nanomachines are now creating an arena he's familiar with by hallucinating his past experience in that VR mission.
As a developer, there's nothing more efficient you can do than purposely leave loose ends and things unexplained in your game. This appeals to people's popular imagination and makes them even more interested in your game, creating and inventing crazy theories to explain these gaps in a way that you alone could never manage. And if they ask you something about it, just give a vague answer to stoke their imagination even more.
Cow tools
I know a game that does this, but it's actually a front for Mossad.
You never wanna dev with a loose end🤣😂😂🤣
yeah just don't contradict yourself and you are set
Same goes with music lyrics. That’s why modern pop rap is pretty boring nowadays. No more metaphors. Everyone needs you to know that they’re talking about their genitals.
I've completed 300 missions in VR! I feel like some kind of legendary mercenary.
they are definitely not making fun of the player. this is only about raiden and how he isn't as cool as snake
I was scrolling down the comments while the video played and I read yours at the same time as Raiden said the line in the video 😂 the lalilulelo are real
Alright, we skip that part.
JACK DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT DAY IS TOMORROW?
NO ROSE, SHUT UP.
@@maverickjoga at least kojima gave his "version of the player" a girlfriend 🤣
I remember reading somewhere that the RAY boss arena was originally going to be an endless MG RAY hanger space inside Arsenal Gear. No matter where you went, you'd discover more open hanger and *no* walls marking the edge of Arsenal Gear.
I came to theorize myself that the cluster worm GW was affected, not only affected the AI system, but also Raiden himself. Solidus after Arsenal Gear crashes and gives his final speech before the sword duel, he tells Raiden he has traces of The Patriots inside his cerebral cortex, so if Raiden's brain is pretty much a part of The Patriot's network going haywire, it would also mean that the cerebral implants and the censorship, which are his old memories when he was a child soldier, are also affected, so much so that his reality is completely messed up.
I mean, even the big shootout with Snake as your partner is simply a representation of when Raiden was back in the killing fields on the civil war.
welp, it was just what I wrote before seeing the whole video, had some chores told to do before I could finish seeing it lol
@XxDeViLBrInGeRxX ok, but who are you replying to? Did they delete their reply?
MGS and other Kojima games take place in some kind of Game-Reality, where its implied to be a full and tealized world, but with the implication that some or all of the characters understand that they are game characters, have some lack of control due to that fact, or other reasons. Snake in MGS2 seems to feel comfortable with that but Raiden has a hard time telling video games from reality, and HIS reality, much like how a player obsessed with the war aspect of the MGS games doesnt realize that war is Hell.
Even Snake is seen through an idolized lens, from the Tanker chapter, to Raiden's interactions with him.
The memetic proxy is permeable from both sides of the membrane - MG:GZ infects you with the meme of Vengeance (Chico's Tape 4, The CIA Agent Interrogation Tape, etc), and if you make yourself in the character creator at the start of MGSV:TPP, you get to burn in Hell in the Pyx in MGS4. As a treat.
TBH, really like your take that the bandanna is Snake's version of the various boss's supernatural abilities. Effectively, "I don't run out of bullets when I wear this, because I believe I don't."
well in mg3 big boss says "you have to get a feel for how many you have left" so this directly contradicts the idea of a bandana giving infinitely ammo OR it simply means that big boss had not yet acquired such a magical item.
@@lightlayagajoie5739 But in that, he isn't wearing THE bandanna right? He always has one, but the on he believes gives infinite ammo one is much longer.
Ok I'm going on a limb, my theory is that the VR arena was used during development to play test having that many Rays on screen simultaneously. The design was minimalist enough that developers could save resources not rendering a more complicated scene. As development continued and their deadline was getting closer they didn't get around to change it. At that point Kojima must have decided using the VR arena for such a pivotal battle fit thematically with what the game was going for, so it stayed that way.
That’s actually a great theory lol. It definitely feels like an arena used for testing.
Other mysteries:
Why is Psycho Mantis so much stronger as a child?
Why is Ocelot's personality so different in MGSV?
Psycho Mantis?
OH MY GOD! That's such a good point about Mantis.
Maybe it is because Mantis was indoors during MGS1, and didn't want to completely wreak the base
@@maxderrat I'm pretty sure Mantis is stronger as a child because he was being influenced by the will of others and in MGSV their will was a strong very strong form of revenge. Either with Volgin, Skull Face Dude, or Venom Snake himself.
Childs naturally got more vivid imagination but I don't know.
Trust me, as a fellow Metal Gear fanatic, the minor things can often lead to the major things. One for me? In The Twin Snakes, the hallway where Gray Fox wipes out the soldiers. I always love finding little things, or nods. The Heavy Armor Troopers have a gold tag on their vest. On it? Outer Heaven.
A few ways to look at it, Liquid was able to get surplus equipment from Outer Heaven. Vulcan Raven was a merc for Outer Heaven, and Ocelot would easily be able to acquire it. Or...
Liquid says, "From today, you can call this place... Outer Heaven." So this was him already putting that into effect. Hope your day is going well today!
I am still wondering about the mystery as to why President Johnson groped Raiden
We need special video!!!!!!!!!!;;;0!0!0!0!!0
cuz he was horny
he was h*rny
Because he was attracted to Raiden XD.
IIRC, The Document of MGS2 stated that Johnson thought Raiden was Olga due to his Skull Suit. By groping him, he realizes Raiden is someone else.
I always thought MGS 2 was the most Evangelion-Like MGS-Experience. What struck me curious is, there have always been many EVA's references in MGS (like Gray Fox asa Ninja has lot's of similiarities to EVA Unit 00 also his behaviour after he kinda malfunctions and he bangs his head against the ground is a scene very similar to Evangelion) but Kojima never once personally mentioned it? Arsenal Gear at the end of MGS 2 really reminds me of what happens in the last 2 episodes of Evangelion. Everything happens in Shinji Ikaris mind while the real battle is shown in the movie End of Evangelion. The whole ending of MGS 2 is so surreal and bizarre, it would be hard to think that most of the stuff is not going on purely in Raidens mind. Lot's of people say that the story of MGS 2 is the most bonkers story of the MGS universe. This might be true, but there is way more to it. And I've learned here a lot of things I never thought about before. Making the story of MGS 2 timeless, especially with the whole AI twist.
Kojima always loves to play with layers of realities. I never made a secret out of it that the story of MGS V is, in contrast to MGS 2, completely bonkers to me. But you will find fantastic stuff there to. The whole substory with Paz and the revelation of this plot was pure brillance. The same, on a smaller scae, could be said about the mission where you have to find Volgin. These are the brillant moments Kojima is playing with the person holding the controller. Nothing is as it seems.
In the real world I always thought it was a launch pad for the Rays, like some kind of magnetic catapult and a kind of torpedo launcher that filled with water combination but you could never see the walls of the chamber because it was so huge.
But, in the narrative it’s a weird boss-fight Evangelion arena. It might just be the boss-fight room where there’s nowhere else to go, everything has fallen apart and Metal Gear Solid has been melted down to good guy fight the robot. Maybe Kojima saying “this is what you expect from a game, yes?”.
I think anything with the hexagon motifs; Big Shell is made out of hexagons, the pattern under-foot in Arsenal Gear is made from green hexagons and the VR Photography Missions have that pattern too.
Hexagon shaped storm on Saturn. Saturn is the god of time and harvest. Perhaps that symbolism ties into Kojima’s philosophy in some way.
Notice those hexagons make an appearance in the form of floor tiles in the hospital in Cyprus
the funny thing is. that MGS 2 is a simulation game. because every game is a simulation. but. the funny thing is. that the metta commentary about social media kojima did. was BEFORE social media was even big. and he told us that social media will be controlled. kinda like. because ppl want to consum specific content. and therefore will be in a controlled bubble. which is basically what we have with google/youtube algoritm (btw sorry for bad english)
good video as always
he based it on some book that I'm forgetting the name of that predicted the modern era.
A lot of these ideas aren't new, they're just more blatantly obvious.
There's a reason that propaganda works so well (and has for at least hundreds of years): people and believe what they want to believe. The internet didn't cause that, people's brains just work that way.
The thing about the infinite bandana is, I find that more reasonable than saying a gun has infinite ammo because its mag is shaped like the infinity symbol (MGS3.)
infinite ammo my ass thats like 160- 200 rounds MAX
It also makes you think the hallucinations with psychomantis and all the other tricks were not caused by nanomachines anyway. just because naomy says they aren't doesnt mean she isn't lying.
I think the reality of MGS 2 was left up in the air as it changed during production, there was a lot of cut content from the ending. I assumed the "Rectum" was a storage area near the lower levels where all the Rays are stored (even though Raiden goes up a ladder). Since the Rays are amphibious, they could launch like submarines from under water, and thus, would be stored at the bottom. The added detail of the shallow water is no different than damp, bowels of a classic wooden ship in fantasy fiction. I assumed that platform you were on was the bottom of a type of elevator shaft, and thats the platform resting at the bottom, with a small layer of water.
It being all VR explains a lot of the oddities, such as everyone in new york acting indifferent to Snake and Raiden casually standing around after a devastating terrorist attack and battle to the death atop federal hall. The city was more akin to the Matrix film simulations of a city, as opposed to reality. Again, could just be gamey stuff that wasn't really thought of, or it could be part of Kojima's original plan for it all being a VR simulation.
Pretty sure Ocelots matter-of-fact explanation of the entire conspiracy is what it just is - a real world test to see if the VR training works, the AI was testing out its subjects in a real world scenario, solid snake wasn't part of it (or WAS he ?!)
the ending reminded me of gta. wheen you are on a mission the street are often cleared as if police had closed the traffic. after mission complete the streets fill again with npcs unworried about any carnage or explosions that took place before.
the ost track for when you are where the metal gears are stored is called arsenal's guts btw
My idea is that it was supposed to be a simulation. That's all. Logic didn't need consistency once the cat was out of the bag.
When Solidus and Raiden fall from the top of Arsenal, to the top of the federal house, they cover and exaggerated fall(easy to notice with the freecam mode of subsistence). Nobody could have survived that.
Reason that makes me think even more that it's a VR simulation. A fake world. And Kojima by making Raiden toss the dogtags with our names was a way to say "stop to believe to this reality, this is not real, not your thing, leave and choose your reality". Then people sent him death treats and so he made MGS2 story a reality in MGS world, and the product of that was MGS4, which has to explain most of the inconsistencies with deus ex makina stuff like the nanomachines. And I hate it.
It's more interesting to consider both possibilities. the game strongly hints in the direction of everything being a simulation but when you also look at it from the perspective that it was still happening in real life there is still an interesting layer of interpretation (that is actually more interesting that oh it's just all a simulation). You just have to overlook some plotholes/unrealism. But that can maybe just be explained by that raiden is confused.
Cope. Mgs 4 was peak fiction filled with heavy emotions.
Raiden has played MGS1, which is the VR mission he had played 300 times. And if you save Otocon you get stealth, if you save Meryl you get the bandana. In the opening of the Tanker mission Snake has stealth, so the implication is that Snake saved Otocon and Meryl is dead. But later Snake also has the bandana, which implies that MGS1 as we know it was a VR simulation, where the creators concluded that snake had to either save Otocon or Meryl, but that Snake did the impossible and saved both of them. This is confirmed in MGS4 where they are both alive. It's a way to say "everything you did in the first game isn't canon." And that the real Solid Snake did it better than you did it, even if you got the best rating on the highest difficulty. Solid Snake really is better than that even.
Plant is a real world simulation of the VR simulation. It is a real life abstraction of Shadow Moses to see if the conditions can create the ultimate soldier. As in that you can hook a soldier up to a VR reality, and make the perfect soldier.
But in Metal Gear Solid 2 it goes wrong. The actors in the simulation try to break free. And the real Solid Snake shows up.
Metal Gear Arsenal Rectum is also an abstraction. It's a test arena, it's where Raiden will face not only one Metal Gear but tons of them. It's obvious that it is inside the Metal Gear Arsenal, it's also where Raiden is supposed to fight Solidus like how Snake fought Big Boss.
Here is also where the VR thing comes in. Because Metal Gear 1 and 2 are also VR simulations. If you have played through them, you will see that a lot of what snake says when he refers to Outer Heaven didn't happen in the games. Again Kojima is saying that not everything that happened in the games are Canon, he has changed the story a little bit, and the explanation is that this is because the games were flawed VR simulations of real events in that fictional universe. It's a way to fix plot holes and make changes to the story which were forced on the players by the developers. Like Big Boss never says that he is Snake's father in the first games.
How does the VR simulation and it's creators deal with seemingly impossible events. They conclude that the supernarural has to be real. Yet Snake and Big Boss went beyond what was possible according to the simulation.
The game we are playing is the VR simulation, we are being made into perfect soldiers. And when you think about it, the game wishes to influence people towards non-violence and to be anti-nuclear weapons. But you the player can chose not to co-operate and take whatever you want out of the game. Though you unlike the bigger than the game character Snake will surpass whatever you do, so he is the ideal. Is it a simulation? Yes, the version you are playing is the simulation. Did the events actually happen in the game world? Yes, they did. The tanker is the opposite, there we get to learn the truth, while Raiden has played a different version where Snake was a terrorist. Because they wanted to cover up the existence of the Metal Gear Ray prototype.
Not necessarily re: stealth camo. In MGS1, Otacon mentions that he had multiple stealth camo units that were stolen by a squad of genome soldiers. He very well could've just made Snake a new unit between MGS1 & 2. Also, the menu icon for the MGS1 camo unit and the icon in MGS2 look very different. This could indicate that the unit in MGS2 is a newer version. This could also be substantiated by the fact that the glimmer in MGS1 is dark green and it's more of a clear green in MGS2 and they function slightly differently (the MGS1 unit doesn't get disabled when bumping into someone).
"This game have a major plot hole"
Kojima : don't worry, i will make another MGS game to solve that plot hole !
too bad Kojima was fired from Konami so he can't fix those plot holes.
The weirdest thing about MGS2 for me is a personal Mandela Effect experience I had with it. I always remember seeing Arsenal Gear crash into Manhattan. Whenever I play the game now, I'm always thrown off because I'm ecpecting the cutscene, but then it just cuts to them flying off Arsenal Gear after it came to a stop. I would mention the cutscene to friends, and they'd just be bewildered. The first time I owned MGS2 was the Xbox version, and to this day I swear I remember Arsenal Gear losing control, running aground, and plowing through the city and destroying buildings.
I suppose you must have just heard of the censorship due to 9/11 that removed the scene of Arsenal Gear hitting Manhattan, then imagined seeing a version of it playing out in your head and eventually got confused that it was real?
There’s footage of that cut, cutscene on the Legacy disk and also images from that on the internet
i always thought that the arsenal gear fight was inside of some sort of simulation room akin to the danger room from the x-men
This game came out 23 years ago and we’re still making theories about it; Amazing. MGS2 changed my way of thinking forever and I was a child when I first beat it.
The footage featuring things we didn’t actually see in the Tanker chapter was also e3 footage when MGS2 was early in development. The sections involving flooding were going to be in the game but were cut due to the limitations of the PS2. FAMAS was also going to be in the game and was in there at some point but apparently that gun wasn’t commonly used anymore at that point in time and was never a common gun in the US so all the gun nuts working on MGS2 begged Kojima to remove it from the game. Therefore I don’t think those scenes were intended to imply anything, I think they just used footage they already had to represent the Tanker chapter and didn’t realize or care it had things they already cut.
After seeing a detailed hint on Dr Clark in Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain end credits, it had me thinking.
If Cyborg Ninja truly did killed Dr Clark, why was it confirmed to be he instead of she? Either Para Medic had a plastic surgery for gender change, or it was her husband or colleague that was killed in her place.
Or if she was “killed”, here is an interesting theory I had read and compiled from the communities back then.
Dr Madner, whom was saved by Solid in MG1 only to return as Big Boss ally in MG2. He survived via nanomachines and cyborg technology. It will be years until he helped Raiden when he became a cyborg during his captivity from the Patriots.
I brought Dr Madner’s name solely because he has a biggest rival: Dr Clark. Since she betrayed Big Boss, Dr Madner was Big Boss’s trusted person for technology.
Dr Clark fascination for movies made her fascinated for cyborg technology and throughout the two were rivals. Dr Clark also became a cyborg herself and had developed the technology for the Cyborg Ninja along the suits for Solidus, Olga, and even future outfits such as The Frogs. She also had developed a similar technology during the 80’s, to which Skull Face had stolen for the Parasite units.
Raiden had saved baby Sunny thanks to Big Mama, but he was captured when he was buying time for their escape.
In between MGS2 and MGS4, Raiden became a cyborg. Dr Clark was Raiden’s main antagonist, and later on he had defeated her in combat.
The first time I saw it I thought that the hexagon pattern that made up the floor in the arena just moved out of the way to unveil an elevator and the Rays were standing on submerged parts of the Arsenal Gear. Raiden just does his dramatic "standing up while riding an elevator" like in the opening cutscene and it closed up.
This short video could have summed up all your Metal Gear lore into one - it's perfectly stated and I agree with everything in it 100%. The Buddhism theory is a nice touch so thanks for pointing that out - very interesting. Personally, this game had a profound impact on me because it made me feel so....helpless(?). Exactly how Raiden felt. It'd be akin to trying to bring the internet down to save a loved one. You can't. Unless you're Snake. Speaking of the internet...
Logos Steve and Max himself are on the money. Just remember the year when this game was made - the fact of what a smartphone can do today was merely science fiction then. Most of the MG series boils down to Kojima predicting how the internet (Patriots) will become so integrated into society (everyone's nose in a smartphone) that we won't even know the internet's the one behind the scenes. We're bombarded with wi-fi signals everyday not including the cellular microwave background emissions....all invisible...like the Patriots, the proud police of the world. Read up on the Dead Internet theory. It's all connected. It can't be stopped.
I also wondered about this and usually it boils down to Occam's Razor. Emma's wurm cluster damaged the AI and screwed with the nanomachine network explaining the HIDEO/VIDEO...FISSION MAILED...etc which is a fourth wall break thus screwing with the player's mind. The magic happens on your first real blind playthrough of MGS2 - you don't question it but just go with the flow...Patriot's puppet etc. You have to admit at the time you honestly didn't contemplate if something was real in the game or if anything was amiss...just like Raiden. Even with the AI damaged, you didn't stop did you? You didn't turn that console off, right? It didn't matter if AG had a rectum and where it was located (lol). Remember the Patriots saying "I wonder if you had preferred a fantasy setting?". We honestly all played right into Kojima's vision...his masterpiece and prediction of what's to come called MGS2. ^_^
After finishing the game, I honestly had a sinking feeling in my gut because I knew it was all inevitable but to see it and experience it in a tangible medium as a video game made it even more surreal and horrifying. I remember after the credits and dropping the controller (mind blown) and walking outside looking up at the sky speechless. I'll never forget it.
On a side note about the hallucinations - Naomi's conversation with Snake about Mantis and the hallucination at SM were a precursory test of the Patriots' ability to warp reality (physiologically through neuron receptors via FoxDie) thus leading up to the S3 plan screwing with Raiden a few years later. In MGS2 they took it to a whole new level; like you said following up to societal implementation. They are our guardians after all...without them (in our reality today...the internet) our society would collapse. In a way - we're already a slave to the system. Zero proved that in MGS4.
So deep yet so simple. Awesome video, man!
The whole Arsenal Gear section is not supposed to be a problem that can be solved with in-world logic. One of the biggest influences to MGS2 was the novel "The New York Trilogy" by Paul Auster which are three short novellas pastiching detective fiction through a postmodern lens. Specifically it's the story "City of Glass" that serves as the biggest influence to the game (and where Peter Stillman got his name from) and concerns a crime fiction author who decides to become a private eye and starts descending into madness as reality itself starts falling apart. It's a story in which the Paul Auster himself is a character and one who's purported author is a different character, like many other pieces of postmodern fiction the line between reality and fiction itself is blurry and muddled. This all goes back to MGS2, just like in City of Glass Raiden not only starts questioning reality itself but also his very own identity and by the time you reach Arsenal Gear reality itself is falling apart and the artificiality of the game itself is laid bare. Arsenal Gear looks like an unfinished level with computer code flying around, the big boss fight happens on an arena reused from a bonus section in MGS:VR Missions, Snake breaks the fourth wall and references the infinity bandana from MGS1 etc. These games all exist in a sort of meta-game world where the characters are simultaneously aware of the fact that they're in a game (when you wanna use the codec push the select button etc) but still take the events in question seriously. You are not meant to relate these events to any form of logic in the MGS world, it is a deliberately supposed to be weird, to feel like the illusion of the games world is breaking down.
This.
Nanomachines Son
Senator is wise
bingo
So the answer is “ nanomachines, son.”
I made a little research in the Document of MGS 2 about Rectum, and think I found a little bit of cool info...
So long story short... The hangar filler with Rays that we see right after escaping the torture chamber was meant to be seen much later.
Yes the rectum is also a hangar.
I'll just show you the script:
AG hangar
"Raiden goes through a door and finds himself in a giant hangar that houses RAY. It is too dark to see ahead, and the ceiling and the walls of the huge room are lost in the gloom. The space is looped so that users cannot reach a wall no matter how far they walk.Solidus' voice, amplified by a megaphone, booms out after Raiden enters the hangar."
So yeah... Rectum is actually a remain from gigantic hangar storing Rays.
Thank for reading anyways😅
You need a synthesis of these ideas.
Raiden is actually hooked up to a sort of VR streaming device inside Arsenal Gear. The Raiden we control is a robotic cyborg body, as suggested by the Skull suit. Raiden is controlling a drone of himself from within Arsenal.
So this explains why Snake and Olga betray him. And why she used electricity to KO him. At that point, Otacon uploads a hack to Raiden from his body. Then, when Raiden wakes up on the torture rack, we are seeing inside the AI system. That is where the *real* VR kicks in.
Before this point, everything is real but still "VR" via Raiden's remote perspective. Then after, the world itself becomes fully digitized and unreal. This is when the AI freaks out. The vector for the hack on Arsenal is Raiden, and Otacon's programming takes the form of Solid Snake while inside the system. Raiden *does* summon Snake by speaking him into existence. Raiden is basically just a program at this point, controlled by his brain hooked up to some coffin like device. (That's a WHOLE other ball of wax, but I could explain it.)
So the RAY fight really is in VR, if you ask me. The Solidus fight at the end is the real part. Raiden is still controlling a robot body, though, after the system "crash" and waking back up. That's how parts of the very end have some elements of unreality. The Patriots are altering what Raiden is seeing, like the seemingly ignorant passersby, but Snake is real once again, and can appear as himself now that the System has been hacked and Solid Snake has become an indelible part of the scenario.
The crazy part here is that The Patriots (Hideo Kojima) basically created a VR simulation, then built the facility for that simulation in reality, and ran a planned scenario in it. So it's real, and it's VR, and all the VR comes from real characters.
The even crazier part is that we see Solidus, Ocelot, Fortune, and Raiden all have access to this System. I can also explain a lot more about all that if you're curious!
I think you overthink Olga's HF sword : It's like a taser.
I think the entire game is a VR mission. Because that's literally what a video game is, a Virtual Mission. Image Training.
You'll ruin your eyes sitting so close to the TV
@@bagggers9796no, the virtuous mission.
@@bagggers9796 XD.
isn't that more or less the plot of one of the snake tales
I got chills from the "I've completed 300 missions in VR" line, considering how long I spent playing VR missions and replaying the MGS2 demo in anticipation of MGS2's release. It me. Me am Raiden.
Me me. Im on season 3
I buy that Raiden's perceptions were being altered by the nanomachines so the visual aspects of the rectum are explained. To add something else which is interesting and amusing; Arsenal Gear's areas are specifically named after anatomy. What do many animals do when they feel threatened? They empty their bowels as a defence. What is the purpose for Metal Gear Rays? To defend Arsenal Gear.
So the rectum is literally that, a storage area for Metal Gear Rays so they can be immediately ejected from the anus to defend Arsenal Gear when it comes under attack.
During the Ray fight you can see countless other Rays in the background. It could also explain why the water is present but the level is low. When we're terrified and we empty our bowel it becomes liquid so Arsenal Gear does the same. In the case of an external defence scenario the rectum fills with water so the Rays can "swim'" out more freely.
The serious and the silly combined in true Kojima fashion.
also more simply, the gear is technically a submarine too, so it could very well just the launch pod of the rays, and it work both with it being at the top(more likely) or at the bottom of the gear, if at the top, it's just the gear being in partial-submersion mode, if it's the bottom, you can just say that's residual water from underwater launch testings of the rays.
7:20 "300 missions in VR" = MGS the VR missions.
Its meta not to refer to Raiden, but the PLAYER. If you beat VR Missions that is lol
A few weeks ago, at the age of 45, I had my first colonoscopy. Not only did the doctors not find anything wrong, it was spotless. No polyps, no irritation or infection, no sign of disease or cancer. It was a textbook perfect colon. I have the colon of a 30 year old man in the prime of his life. How do you explain such a thing??? Hmmm?!?!? 🤔
I await your explanation.
Nanomachines
the doctors obviously full of shit
your arsenal gear rectum was spotless from the rays
MSGV in no way brings the series to a full-circle conclusion. There are only more questions than answers after playing V.
Congrats on 400K subs Max!
Thanks bro!!! :D
I've always felt like MGS2 was framed a lot like Assassin's Creed's Animus, albeit without an overbearing framing of it. We're not seeing events literally unfold, but rather experiencing a VR reconstruction of those events, and the strange appearance of the platform is either down to an inability to recreate that scene properly or it's censorship. Two things feed into this impression for me: the game over screen looks very VR-like, more like a UI that the person experiencing the memories might see (while MGS1's game over screen played it straight), but also a very telling line from Ocelot who tells Raiden in the interrogation room that they're inside the memory of Shadow Moses. It was too late in the game (heh) for it to just be another part of the S3 plan.
Is there another clip close to analyzing Ergo Proxy, another part, and thank you for your effort
Ergo Proxy?
It's almost as if the God heard Me. I was having the same exact question from the very first moment I saw the arena. But the question was just lightly hovering above Me until half year ago, when I started to question my own reality on the new level different from before. At the same moment my interest in Metal Gear series stated to Rise. I love and h8 how uncertain tge reality is in this series.
Max, have you ever seen "Metal Gear Solid 4 was a Mistake" by Steak Bentley? It's one of my favorite videos of all time. He goes in depth about some things about MGS4
I'm aware of the video, but I haven't watched the whole thing. I'd probably end up agreeing with a lot of his criticisms. Out of all the MGS games, MGS4 is my least favorite. I still love it though, for all the stuff it gets right.
@@maxderrat How would you rank the mgs games from worst to best?
In MGRising, the concept of "augmented reality" was introduced, and as always, it was implied it was already something (since the original MGS, nanomachine codec communications could be taken as a form of augmented reality). It was always a possibility that the patriot's AI could use everyone's nanomachines to introduce some digitally-generated information to manipulate their perception of reality.
The VR theory is wrong. The level of simulation The Patriots represent is an incomprehensible level of control that lets them make reality into a simulation in a sense. When Raiden is having a crisis of self. It’s being represented by using the imagery of Metal Gear Solid VR to draw parallel to the real life players who probably have that burned into their psyche. This relates to Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel being revealed as Raidens VR training. The game is being played by “Jack” in the post credits title reveal.
I believe that the original intent was to have the battles with the Metal Gears on top of Arsenal Gear on the Hudson River in New York. They had to strip all that out at the last minute because of the Twin Towers tragedy. So they literally just stripped away the backgrounds and added a modified VR Mission floor and quickly reworked how you got there by just cutting content after the ladder climb (explaining a missing entrance to the room in their haste). There was probably a cutscene on top of Arsenal Gear at the Brooklyn Bridge that got cut.
Whoevers reading this, i think you're cool
I think you’re cool too :)
No you
You're the coolest
I think you're a russian spy
You're goddamn right.
The game mgs is the VR Training and we are Raiden, forged into Solid Snake. Keep that legacy for the character is just an avatar. We are the Les Enfant Terrible
MGS5 isn't part of the series imo.
It is the Matrix Resurrections of the series.
I.e not meant to be a serious entry in the series but rather a big "fuck you" in videogame form.
Agreed but damn I love the physics of that game 😂 the sandbox itself is so fun. It’s almost like Kojima made the gameplay fun but the story so hollow on purpose. The name is too on the nose.
you should give the game another shot. It's very similar to mgs2 where at release it was hated but now more and more people are realizing how good it is
Hard disagree it makes mg1 and mg2 make sense in the overall story.. while being a signature Kojima game that messes with the gamer.
@@Scratch2C Here's the thing with that though. At what point in the MSX games does Big Boss tell Solid Snake that they are father and son? How did Madnar survive the rockets/mines? How does Frank get "revived" from literally exploding?
MG1+2 dont fit any better into the overall story than they did before TTP. And that's fine. Plot holes from those original 2 deserve a free pass.
@@darthkahn45 Forget MGSV for a sec... even in MGS1 (where most people started the series) they had already retconned the story to have Big Boss reveal to snake he was his father. We all loved how Kojima took the story and expanded it then. I also enjoyed the twist revealing the body double in MGSV. Not only as way to bring the MSX games into the main storyline but also explaining and giving answers the exact questions you asked.
Now as far as MGSV goes its a fun way of explaining why Big Boss appears in both games without having to rewrite the original MSX games. I dont understand how you dislike this. But were not referring to opinions here. Objectively speaking MGSV does make the original games fit better by filling in those plot holes you brought up.
Honestly, this solution to where the Ray Battle Arena is is very Satisfying to me. Kojima does love Subtext.
after all these 18+ something years. Characters talk about how their nanomachines are influencing them in ways
all the time in MGS to the point of being a meme, but here it makes alot of psychological sense given a lot of things
already established, and how Raiden transitions out of the Ray fight in cutscenes to end up back on the roof of Arsenal Gear.
Excerpt from the script available in The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2:
Raiden heads for Metal Gear RAY hangar.
AG Hangar
Raiden goes through a door and finds himself in a giant hangar that houses
RAY. It is too dark to see ahead, and the ceiling and walls of the huge room
are lost in the gloom. The space is looped so that users cannot reach a wall,
no matter how far they walk. Solidus’ voice, amplified by a megaphone, booms
out after Raiden enters the hangar
To me the biggest mystery is something that never got realised into MGS 5 TPP. During the lead up to it's release, Kojima kept saying "in TPP you will return to camp omega, ground zeroes is important and this will involve something video games have never done before" . What in the god damn hell was he talking about I wish I knew 😂
What if, the Big Shell stuff happened in real life but the Arsenal Gear stuff happened in VR? If I recall correctly, Raiden enters Arsenal Gear after Olga knocks him unconscious. She was aware of and participating in the S3 program. It's not that big of a stretch. That would leave the question of Snake's participation. He could have been a VR construct or the actual Snake at any point from then on. (If Olga was helping Snake, she may have been able to help him access the VR simulation).
As for the Ray fight platform, I never realized the similarity to photo mode. For my part, I thought it akin to an omnidirectional shooting range (complete with range markers). VR would also explain why there isn't Ray debris everywhere considering you destroy a bunch of them.
It is important to note, that in the first version (Not substance) on PS2, you had to select if you watched MGS1 or played it. If you dont, you start with Raiden. If you do, you start with Snake on Tanker, and then Raiden comments on how he completed over 300 missions in VR. This could be also refference to VR missions, but this means that the videogame Metal Gear Solid, might also be a simulation in the MGS universe. I think that this important detail changes a lot, since you point out the changes in dialogue if you played Tanker. But Tanker is playable if you experienced the MGS1.
This is not true
I have an original copy of MGS2: Sons of Liberty for PS2 and that never happens. You can't skip the tanker, you must play the tanker first in order to progress and play the plant.
@@patrick22014 th-cam.com/video/1HtoNTbGMwM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=emHNw2-T03M4zEBk
@@patrick22014 th-cam.com/video/1HtoNTbGMwM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=N5PrPX84pg27VEGM , from my understanding, it seems to only be in the PAL version for some reason.
@@patrick22014 th-cam.com/video/1HtoNTbGMwM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=hqFtxxyAvQbczLlm It seems to be only in the PAL version, but it is there.
I mean, arsenal is massive. Its meant to contain a small fleet of rays. So to me, most likely is youre in a sort of hanger for them. Theres water because the area is meant to be filled before deploying the rays so arsenal doesnt have to deal with a sudden shift in mass from just opening a door and letting water flood in. Which i imagine for a submarine (even one as big as arsenal) would be a huge problem. And it has the name it does because its the staging area for releasing them.
I always assumed Snake was being snarky about the headband as a cute callback, not really being literal about it giving him infinite ammo.
I first played MGS 2 when I was 8 or 9, so obviously a lot of the meta stuff flew over my head at that age, but it took an extraordinary amount of time for me to really think about the arena with any degree of depth. I've played MGS 2 more than any game, but it's only been in the last couple years that I started to really wonder about the arena. Your theory is better than anything I could come up with. This is part of what I love about the world of Metal Gear, the slippery reality it's based in lends itself to almost infinite speculation.
Wish Konami stuck with the Raiden prequel instead of the one we got in Revengeance, it would've neatly tied up loose ends cause as someone who've played MGS2 and seeing Raiden suddenly turned in to Cyborg in MGS-IV. Knowing that we never got to see his awesome story line in action just leaves me wanting more.
I never considered that the glitching ai system was affecting what Raiden saw. I always thought he was outside standing on the dorsal structure of arsenal
Maybe MGS2 is a Simulation “based on a true story” in which the player assumes the role of Raiden and somebody not the Patriots after the events of Revengeance is trying to change the player into a mental copy of Raiden who is the closest thing to a successor of Solid Snake.
Please god do not mention Revengeance and mgs 2 in the same breath...
This makes perfect sense. The "Fission Mailed" incident tells us that, around this time, Raiden's senses can't be fully trusted, but the one thing that remains consistent and natural to him, is the thing he's been doing since he was a wee lad, killing.
I like this explanation a lot because I always tripped out on that part too, of Raiden climbing the ladder and just out of nowhere ending up in this giant arena. The break of reality due to the nanomachines makes a lot of sense.
To me, the biggest unsolved mystery, especially if we consider MGSV unfinished content as non-canon, is what happened to Eli and Metal Gear that he stole, why he didn't seem to use it to do anything, and why he needed Rex in MGS1.
The water being shallow doesn't mean it's not the exterior of Arsenal Gear. Arsenal Gear can just be partially submerged at the time and the Rays are walking on the back of it towards a raised platform that is jutting out of the water.
The Ray Arena is Tobira. An “island door” of Buddhist beliefs where enlightenment can open a portal to a different location. Whether this is physical, mental or spiritual. This ties into the otherworldly aspect of MGS2 and also being easily linked to the “science” of Nanomachines like you described towards the end of the video. These beliefs all stemming from Japanese spiritualism is too similar to not be an inspiration I think. Kojima has shown an interest in these concepts across all the MGS games to a varying degree.
I love this simple explanation. His nanomachines acting up is almost certainly a side effect of the worm destroying GW, and whether that's enough to cause hallucinations on its own, I think that + the psychological stress of the entire mission so far, Raiden having his own reality break, his PTSD condition from being a child soldier and seeing his father figure, Solidus, AND factoring in his countless VR missions (including simulated tanker mission and potentially simulated shadow moses) , it makes sense that in the most stressful situation of his life single handedly fighting multiple metal gears, the world around him might fade away and to survive, the entirety of his attention must be dedicated to running around and shooting down metal gear ray units. He might as well be on the digital floor of a VR simulation for all he cared at that moment. It makes perfect sense.
I think the reason for the arena looking like the photography room is that it's Raiden sees this as the finaly of his mission.
His 100% completion goal.
Remember, in VR mission the higher the completion percentage the closer you can get to the center.
Since Raiden runs without any barriers in the arena, this might be his brain thinking that this is it, he completed 100% or maybe even 110%
I just assumed they wer estanding on top of a partially submerged Arsenal. Although those Ray units in the distance seem to be quite far away.
"When you know that your time is close at hand
Maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down here is just a strange illusion"
Iron Maiden
The scene that you cut to which supposedly shows Snake running from a flooding tanker is actually a series of (C4?) explosions on the tanker, presumably the very same passageway he used to escape.
ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD
ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD
ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD
IT ALL in our souls...
I always took the infinite ammo thing to also be a nod to his knowledge. Cqc technics and also a 4th wall break with the new game plus item
I mean, it could technically just be an elevated platform on the back of arsenal with the rest of it under water and the rays walking on its slightly submerged back.
If ur a massive metal gear Fan u would know there only exist 2 metal gear games and 4 metal gear solid games.
Nothing else exists.
I'm glad people are finally catching onto this theory.
This was my interpretation as well. Raiden is wired to have his experience controlled by the Patriots, then a worm cluster spreads through the AI Raiden is linked to. Hence, everything Raiden experiences between that point and GW shutting down is him wildly hallucinating with elements from his training (VR missions and meta gameplay elements) creeping into reality. You can see this by how the VR overlays inside Arsenal increase up until the point there's ONLY the VR overlay. Then, when Solidus confirms GW has shut down, the VR overlay is gone and they are simply on top of Arsenal.
The way Raiden percieves the Arsenal Gear-Rectum location in Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty may also have some analogies with how Punished "Venom" Snake percieves the Mirror/Sink room in both Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain Episodes 0 Prologue Awakening and 46 Truth The Man Who Sold The World "for a S-Special reason."
Totally agree, this is exactly how I explain it but I don't articulate it as well as you. Thanks for making this video, also it was great seeing a clip of myself pop up in the video. Hope to see you at MGSCON2!
I always think the location for Ray fight was Raiden's distortion perception of reality, except it was not due to the GW virus. I think when Raiden was fighting the most adverse battle he had ever faced, he put himself in a zen mode. Either through nanomachine or his will alone, Raiden concentrated his mind and transformed the battle arena (the top of Arsenal Gear) into something he was familiar with: a VR training environment. This way he could focus only on the elements that were important and performed the impossible. Also this explains why he was "teleported" to the top of Arsenal Gear smoothly at the end of the fight.
As a NYer I've always thought that there are a number of details that don't make sense about the logistics of the setting and the cutscenes we see when you begin to pick it apart. Big Shell is supposed to be in New York Harbor, basically the part of the Hudson river that has the Statue of Liberty in it, which is at the south end of Manhattan. This makes sense because the tanker is traveling south as Snake jumps off the GW bridge (northern tip of Manhattan), which you can see looking off each side as you're playing and NJ is to the right and Manhattan is to the left of the tanker's direction.
But in a cutscene near the end Arsenal Gear glides under the GW bridge (initially was supposed to crash through it but edited because of 9/11). This doesn't make sense, because it means Arsenal Gear is traveling north up the Hudson River to get back to the bridge, but then immediately after this scene it crashes into the Financial District, which is the southern part of Manhattan.
The only way this makes sense is if Arsenal Gear is for some reason traveling north while everyone is in it while submerged, it then hits the surface like someone else pointed out for the Ray boss fight in this VR space, then its rerouted south while on the surface, crashing through/passing under the bridge, and then doing a U-turn to crash through the Financial District. But I don't believe anyone mentions it traveling north- and there's no real reason to, as there's nothing up there that would be of importance to Arsenal Gear, the Patriots, Ocelot, etc. Unless the AI is bugging out. But this is all total speculation.
About the infinity bandana Solid uses, we have to remember that The Boss had a weapon with unlimited ammo back in 1964, just because the megazine looks like an infinity symbol by BB's words.
I know the MGS world is interesting and has a lot of real themes and real life problems in its story, but lets remember that "silly" things are always common in these games by desing, like The Pain controling bees just because.
The Rectum was the friends we made along the way
The Tanker mission as we play it can't be VR because Raiden would know of Otacon, Olga and Ocelot. But during the Plant chapter he acts like he first meets them.
If the Tanker Mission were just an VR Training, than Raiden would have known that Snake did not destroy an Oil Tanker in the Hudson River.
The Tanker VR Mission that Raiden see, must have been an altered Version.
MGS1 had a flying psychic and a small scale shapeshifter, weird stuff had already been happening. I never questioned MGS2 being "real" despite all of its weird stuff.
I just always assumed Arsenal was still partially submerged with the RAYs walking on the deck still covered in a few feet of water. After the fight, Olga, Fortune, Snake, etc. arrive on the scene, Raiden gets choked out and we're all on top of Arsenal. I doubt Raiden was out for a long time while everyone relocated. You can also see some of the octagonal paneling on the deck, similar to what lights up under your feet when you move on the lit platform during the fight. Maybe it's like a helipad or an elevator for RAYs that allow the Arsenal to remain submerged, but deploy units from within it. The lights making it easy to see in the dark.
Didn't Snake jump over the edge into the water chasing after Liquid Ocelot?
After the metal gear Ray boss fight Solidus knocks Raiden out and kills Olga
When Raiden wakes up they're no longer in the boss arena or "rectum" but rather on top of arsenal gear
S3 is a training kernel. Just a mobile VR training HQ. Arsenal's internal structure is an augmented reality environment. The surface is also "wired" up. Like the Danger Room in Xmen. These are basically giant empty rooms using nanomachine links to simulate visuals in the person's eyes.
This is also how Snake and Raiden can see the Radar and Codec. And VR training.
"Infinite ammo" is a meta joke. He's likely just referring to it as a good luck charm.
My theory is that Raiden is inside an arena inside of Arsenal Gear. The hexagonal platform he is running on is the stage and the front where the RAYs are is somewhat similar to the Las Vegas Sphere concert hall. Like a huge LED screen or something that projects the image outside?
Also, doesn't Snake jump into the water here as well after Fortune is killed? I always assumed this took place on the main deck of Arsenal Gear. I never really understood where they were exactly in the world, though.
Something I got from DRK/Threedogg's Twitch channel, OuterHeaven, is that the reason for everything MGS2 is because it's just a game - so says Kojima himself, apparently. The universe in which the story takes place is not real. That doesn't just necessarily mean that MGS2 isn't "canon". It means that the concept of "canon" is also a false premises. Kojima wanted to make you feel like you were Raiden. He wanted to merge real life and the game as much as possible. He also didn't want to make MGS2, but was forced to by Konami. So the whole game is also a kind of a troll, as well.