In this video we will start with the story of Big Boss, the legendary soldier. This means we will be covering Metal Gear Solid 3, Portable Ops, and Peace Walker. Metal Gear Solid 3 is set during the Cold War in 1964 starring a CIA agent named Naked Snake. The game starts with Snake being sent to a Russian jungle to rescue a Soviet scientist named Sokolov who is being forced to build a nuclear-equipped tank called the Shagohod. Snake is aided over radio by the commander of a unit called FOX, codenamed Major Zero as well as his military mentor, a legendary woman known as The Boss. He also is assisted by a nurse named Paramedic and weapons expert Sigint. Snake easily infiltrates and rescues Sokolov, but while escaping encounters The Boss, as well as her elite “Cobra Unit”, who have decided to defect to the Soviet Union and betray the US. She then takes Sokolov and delivers him and 2 Nuclear “Davy Crocket” Warheads to a Russian Colonel Volgin. Shocked, Snake tries to stop the Boss, but she throws him off a bridge and Volgin detonates one of the mini-nukes in the distance. Once Snake is rescued, Russia blames this on The Boss, and subsequently, on the US. To prove their innocence and prevent nuclear fallout, the US agrees to secretly send Snake back into Russia to retrieve Sokolov and the Shagohod, defeat Volgin and grab the remaining nuke, and above all, kill the Boss.
A week later, Snake is sent back as part of “Operation: Snake Eater”. Snake learns he will be aided by Soviet defectors named ADAM, but when he goes to meet him, he is met with his accomplice, EVA, instead. EVA is undercover as Sokolov’s Wife. Throughout his mission he often encounters a man named Ocelot and his formidable Ocelot Unit who work with Volgin. After defeating Ocelot, Snake recommends that he should use a revolver instead of his current gun. Snake also has to defeat The Boss’s Cobra Unit that consists of 5 members: The Fear, The Pain, The Fury, The End, and The Sorrow. Eventually Snake finds Sokolov and the Shagohod, but is captured by Volgin in his fortress, a base called “Groznyj Grad”. Snake hears Volgin kill Sokolov, and then is tortured himself. During the torture, Ocelot fires his gun at EVA, but Snake protects her and takes the shot to his right eye. After the torture Snake is sent to a cell which he escapes from.
He continues his mission and when going to destroy the Shagohod he learns of a group called the Philosophers that are made up of the most powerful men in Russia, China, and the US who essentially control the world. However, after the end of WW2, they begin to fight over the Philosopher’s Legacy, a joint fund of over $100 Billion. The organization broke up and Volgin illegally inherited the Legacy and the US wants it back. Snake continues on and manages to destroy the Shagohod while Volgin attacks him and EVA with it. Volgin is also killed. Snake’s only mission left is to kill his mentor, The Boss. They battle, and after an emotional confrontation Snake manages to kill her in a field of flowers.
EVA and Snake manage to escape Russia and make it to Alaska where they spend 1 night together. In the morning, EVA is gone but left a tape recorder revealing that she was actually a Chinese spy sent to retrieve the Legacy. It also reveals that The Boss did not actually defect to Russia, but was deeply undercover to infiltrate Volgin’s ranks and find the Legacy for the US. After the Nuke incident, she was also ordered to die at Snake’s hands to prove the US’s innocence to Russia.
After returning to the US, Snake is honored with the title of Big Boss by the President. However, Snake doesn’t care, and is torn up over killing his innocent mentor. Snake ends by paying his respects to The Boss’s nameless grave. It’s also revealed that the Legacy that EVA stole was a fake, and that ADAM has half of the real one. ADAM also turns out to be Ocelot, working for the CIA the entire time.
That’s the end of Metal Gear Solid 3. This then leads into Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops. Portable Ops takes place 6 years after Operation Snake Eater. Snake’s former team FOX unit has gone rouge and left the CIA. As a former member, Snake is attacked and captured. Believed to be in possession of the other half of the Philosopher’s Legacy, Snake is tortured by Lieutenant Cunningham, a member of FOX. Afterwards Snake is thrown into cell across from that of a Green Beret named Roy Campbell. Snake learns through Roy that they're on the San Hieronymo Peninsula in Colombia. The two manage to escape to a communication tower to call for help. He attempts to call Major Zero, but is instead greeted by Paramedic and Sigint who inform him that he and Zero are being charged with treason and that the only way for Snake to be cleared from the charges is to find and apprehend the leader of the rebellion FOX, Gene. Snake and Roy decide it’s too dangerous to act alone, so they slowly convince Gene’s mercenaries that it’s in their best interest to help them. Snake and his squad eventually defeat the top members of FOX, such as the teenage soldier Null, and made their way to Gene. Along the way he learns that Cunningham is actually working for the Pentagon and was trying to persuade Gene to launch a nuke at Russia and tarnish the CIA’s reputation and prolong the Cold War. Cunningham doesn’t realize that Ocelot has informed him of this early on. Gene plays along until the end where it’s revealed that his real plan is to launch he nuke at the US using his Shagohod like tank, RAXA.
Gene aims to create an army nation, dependent on War. Snake foils his plans and destroys RAXA. Upon defeat, Gene recognizes Snake’s thirst for war, and gives him the funds, plans, and everything he was going to use to build “Army’s Heaven”. Upon returning home, Snake founds FOXHOUND with Roy Campbell, a black ops military group for the US. In the Pentagon, Ocelot steals documents to find and eliminate the remaining Philosophers. It’s revealed that Major Zero wants to recreate the Philosophers with a group called the Patriots with the help of Ocelot, who only agrees on the terms that Big Boss is involved. The Patriots would use the Philosophers Legacy to change the way the US was run and make a more honorable country. This marks the end of Portable Ops.
Now, before I go into Peace Walker, a lot actually happens between these 2 games chronologically. Big Boss agrees to join The Patriots, as well as Paramedic and Sigint. Big Boss eventually would be come to represent a hero-like symbol for the US. Big Boss came to resent this role, and he and Zero had increasingly different ideals and how the Patriots should operate. Zero took the concept to mean control of the entire world by a group under a single will to ensure unification; Big Boss believed that The Boss wanted a world where soldiers were not used as tools by the government. A Year later, Big Boss got injured and became comatose during a battle. Afraid of losing his “symbol”, Zero created the Les Enfants Terribles projects. Paramedic used Big Boss’s DNA to create clones of Big Boss, with EVA acting as surrogate mother. Once Big Boss awoke, this was the last straw, he decided to leave The Patriots and the US to form Militaires Sans Frontières, or Soldiers without Borders. This sets up Peace Walker.
The year is now 1974 and Snake and his associate Kazurai Miller have established MSF, an army for hire, just off the Colombian Coast. Kaz introduces Naked Snake to Paz Ortega Andrade and Ramón Gálvez Mena, two potential clients. Since Costa Rica has no army, Gálvez tells Snake the Costa Rican government authorized him to purchase the MSF's services in stopping an invading armed group. Kaz and Snake, who believe the invaders to be CIA, accept the offer, and are provided an offshore platform in the Caribbean as a base. Though initially reluctant, Snake agrees to the deal when given a recent audio tape containing The Boss' voice.
During his mission, Snake rescues Amanda Libre, a mercenary, who informs him of the CIA’s presence. Snake is also tasked with rescuing Amanda’s brother, Chico. After the rescue he learns of a CIA base in the mountains. While infiltrating, Snake witnesses a confrontation between Hot Coldman, a CIA operative and Huey Emmerich, a scientist. Snake learns that Coldman is transporting a bipedal nuke launcher by the name of Peace Walker. Snake advances to shut Peace Walker down. On his way he encounters a researcher named Cecile Caminades. Upon gaining access to the Peace Walker facility, Snake encounters a scientist named Sr. Strangelove and is surprised to hear she has duplicated The Boss’s personality perfectly inside an AI core called the Mammal Pod. She details that the pod can enable a nuclear retaliation without hesitation, and that The Boss' decision-making skills are most suited for the task of planning the attack. Snake enters the Mammal Pod and talks with the AI, which turns out to be the voice in Gálvez's tape. Shocked at the misuse of The Boss' legacy, Snake attempts to take out the main parts of it.
Inside the pod, Snake passes out and wakes up in a large courtyard, where he sees a helicopter carrying the Mammal Pod away. Kaz calls Snake and informs him of the new location Peace Walker is being held. Snake sneaks through the base and reaches Peace Walker's hangar, where he slips through to the Mammal Pod and interrogates the Boss AI about Operation Snake Eater. Before he can destroy the AI, Snake is surrounded and captured. Coldman explains that the Peace Walker Project is part of a plan to reclaim US strategic superiority lost during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the various arms control treaties established ever since. Coldman also admits to being the mastermind of Operation Snake Eater. Now captured, Snake is tortured by Strangelove about the Boss' ideals, allowing her to perfect the Boss AI. Later, Snake escapes his cell and returns to the hangar, only to find Paz in Coldman's hands. Coldman reveals he plans to have Peace Walker fire a nuke at MSF's Mother Base. Peace Walker is brought to the surface, where Snake fights it; not long into the battle, however, Coldman attracts Peace Walker's attention, allowing him to escape with it along with Paz and Strangelove. Snake pursues Coldman.
Determined to save Paz, Snake follows Peace Walker to an American missile base. With the MSF inbound and the base on red alert, Snake fights his way to the communications tower and confronts Coldman, who is ready to launch Peace Walker's nuke. Before Coldman can input the launch code, his troops suddenly turn their guns on Coldman as Gálvez appears who reveals himself as KGB operative Vladimir Zadornov. Zadornov reveals that, while working with Coldman all along, he was using him to his own ends, and blackmails Strangelove into changing the false data to target Cuba; since a Soviet ally will be attacked from a South American US base, the backlash will result in Soviet sympathy that will divide the Americas, granting in KGB influence. After failing to persuade Paz into shooting Coldman, he critically wounds Coldman himself and attempts to assassinate Snake to make him a martyr akin to Che Guevara; before he can; the MSF overpower the Soviet forces and capture Zadornov. After Zadornov, Paz, and Coldman are flown off to Mother Base, Strangelove apologizes to Snake for torturing him.
As he dies, Coldman inputs the Peace Walker activation code, keeping Cuba as the target; however, he also sends fake data to the US, making Peace Walker launch both a genuine attack on the Communists, and a false one on the US. In the absence of the President and Vice-President, they initiate a DEFCON 2 alert, and Huey urges Snake to destroy Peace Walker. Snake damages the unit enough to stop the genuine launch and immobilize it, but the false data transmission continues. With the US getting closer to nuclear retaliation and Peace Walker being too heavy to force into the ocean, Huey patches Snake to the National Military Command Center to convince the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs not to launch. Despite Snake proving his identity to the Chairman, some of the Joint Chiefs do not believe Snake and take over the authority to launch.
As the fake impact approaches, Peace Walker taps into The Boss’s personality and Peace Walker then drowns itself to stop the signal before US retaliation, proving The Boss' innocence through her AI duplicate's non-violent choice. As Peace Walker sinks below the lake, Snake comes to terms with his past, but feels betrayed by The Boss hoping for peace; as a result, he throws away her old bandanna and finally officially inherits the title Big Boss from her.
Strangelove joins MSF and works with Huey on Metal Gear Zeke, an AI-controlled mech later armed with Peace Walker's recovered nuke. Zadornov also escapes several times, forcing Snake to repeatedly recapture him. After his seventh escape, Big Boss finds him at the shooting range and kills him in self-defense. Snake is suspicious because Zadornov's escapes point to an inside job; Kaz then warns Snake that Zeke has activated.
Paz turns out to be at the controls and identifies herself as Pacifica Ocean, an agent of Cipher. She plans to launch a nuclear strike at the US East Coast, and then frame the MSF as a terrorist cell responsible. Snake destroys Zeke, only for Paz to warn Snake he will eventually be seen as an international criminal; Zeke then detonates, the blast throwing Paz overboard. Although she is believed dead, Big Boss suspected that she survived.
Following Zeke's destruction, Kaz admits knowing Pacifica and Zadornov's identities and purposes well beforehand, and that "Cipher" is Major Zero, who perpetrated the whole plot and indirectly triggered and funded MSF's expansion. Although Snake is angry at him, Kaz explains MSF set a new trend in military operations with their actions and predicts that the end of the Cold War will give rise to regional conflicts where MSF can thrive. Since MSF disrupted the global military balance of power, Big Boss warns that certain forces will definitely try to take them down, hence their need to continue operating outside of society as an independent force.
In a later address, Big Boss tells his troops that their group will serve under anyone regardless of nations and ideologies, and they will soon build a nation they can call their own, named Outer Heaven.
This is where Peace Walker ends, and where Kojima’s new FOX Engine game, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes will take place. Following Ground Zeroes, Kojima has announced that there will be a Metal Gear Solid 5. This will either be another pre-Metal Gear Big Boss game, or as many speculate, a remake of Metal Gear 1 and 2.