Hideo Kojima wanted to end Metal Gear more than once over the course of the franchise’s lifetime. Metal Gear Solid 2 was a grand finale whose narrative threads were intentionally left hanging, and Metal Gear Solid 3 was a prequel specifically designed to avoid stepping on MGS2’s story while ending the story where it all “began.”

Metal Gear Solid 4 was meant to be the franchise’s absolute last game, going so far to age Snake into a dying old man– but the series persisted. Following the wake of MGS4’s very definitive finale, Hideo Kojima returned to Metal Gear with a fervor. Solid Snake’s story may have been over, but the franchise’s father found new motivation in Big Boss.

10 The Era Of Big Boss

Modern Metal Gear is synonymous with Big Boss, to the point where many consider him the true franchise protagonist over Solid Snake. After all, it’s Big Boss’ actions who influence the course of the entire story. It’s his legacy that the main villains fight over in the Solid games, and it’s his image that Solid Snake was created in.

Every mainline entry released after Metal Gear Solid 4 focuses on Big Boss and his legacy in an intimate manner. He’s the main playable character in both Peace Walker & Ground Zeroes, and Venom Snake in The Phantom Pain exists to comment on the relationship between audience and avatars through their relationship with Big Boss.

9 A Farewell To Tactical Espionage Action

Metal Gear Solid famously featured the tagline “Tactical Espionage Action” up through the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. When Hideo Kojima returned to Metal Gear, his priorities for the franchise had changed. As Peace Walker was developed for the PSP, Metal Gear would now prioritize bite sized gameplay in chunks. Missions became longer and more complex come Metal Gear Solid V, but the overall game design builds off the foundation Peace Walker has set– trading away focused solo adventures in favor of mission based narratives.

8 Tactical Espionage Operations

This system was titled “Tactical Espionage Operations,” owing to the managerial role Big Boss ends up playing in the post-MGS4 games. Not only did gameplay become mission based, players now had an entire motherbase to take care of. Big Boss’ era focused on his rise to power, leading into the events of Metal Gear 1.

As a result, Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain both feature the player building up their own army, upgrading their base, commissioning new weapons, and even constructing their own Metal Gear in the case of PW.

7 Soldier Recruitment

Soldier recruitment was technically introduced before Metal Gear Solid 4– in Portable Ops– but Peace Walker finalized the idea and refined what it would become in The Phantom Pain. Through the Fulton system, Big Boss can kidnap enemy soldiers and indoctrinate them into his army. These soldiers are even playable and come with their own stats. While logic would dictate that Big Boss would have the highest stats in the series, both PW and TPP feature optional soldiers who outclass BB himself.

6 No More Human Bosses

One of the biggest downsides of the Big Boss era is the complete disappearance of human bosses. Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain can’t even compare to Metal Gear Solid 4 in terms of boss personality. After the series built a reputation for memorable boss fights, the shift is disappointing to say the least.

Worse, bosses in general are just worse designed in the post-MGS4 games. Boss fights in Peace Walker are all vehicles with obscenely high health pools while The Phantom Pain’s boss fights tend to pit Venom Snake against zombified super soldiers with no personality, if not Sahelanthropus.

5 Darker Than Ever

Metal Gear has always been a dark franchise, never shying away from the realistic political and militaristic horrors that control our world. Hideo Kojima is a well read auteur and that’s shown clearly through his scriptwriting & direction. It’s also resulted in his stories becoming progressively darker with time.

All the post-MGS4 games center themselves on Big Boss losing his ideals and turning into the same global superpower he’s trying to overthrow in an attempt to create a soldier’s utopia where war never ends. Big Boss even enlists child soldiers in Peace Walker.

4 Flashier Tech

Building off of Snake Eater, Big Boss’ games take place before the events of the original Metal Gear. MGS3 is set in the 60s, PW is set in the 70s, and TPP is set in the 80s. While Metal Gear Solid 3 actually tries to feature tech appropriate for its era, Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain– which released after Metal Gear Solid 4– feature far flashier tech than any of Solid Snake’s games. Big Boss’ tool kit is more at home in the 2000s than the 20th century, especially in TPP. The idea here is that this technology has simply been tucked away, but it’s still more than a little jarring.

3 Revengeance

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance had an interesting development cycle. What began as an interquel set between Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4 ended up a sequel to the latter, focusing on Raiden’s life after the events of Guns of the Patriots. The world is in worse shape, tragically, but the gameplay also ditches stealth in favor of pure action.

Ultimately developed by Platinum Games, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a hack ‘n’ slash spin-off that seemed set to become its own sub-series. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely a Revengeance 2 will happen at this point.

2 Survive

Hideo Kojima and Konami infamously parted ways during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, resulting in Kojima leaving the company & starting his own development studio. Kojima’s departure has since resulted in many decrying Metal Gear Survive as a spin-off Konami made only in the series creator’s absence, but it’s more than likely this is a Kojima idea. Not only has Hideo Kojima expressed interest in making a zombie game in the past (think Guy Savage from Metal Gear Solid 3,) Survive is tonally in-line with Peace Walker’s wackier missions and moments.

1 The End Of Metal Gear As We Know It

Sadly, it seems as though the Metal Gear franchise is now fully dormant in the wake of Metal Gear Survive’s release. At the same time, what story is there left to tell? Metal Gear 1 & 2 can always be remade, but the story wouldn’t be the same without Kojima penning the script.

Both Solid Snake and Big Boss’ arcs have come to an end, with The Phantom Pain truly bringing the narrative full circle. While MGSV’s plot is perhaps underwhelming in execution, it says something meaningful about endings, beginnings, and how we as an audience interact with video games.

NEXT: Metal Gear: 5 Worst Things Big Boss Has Done (& 5 Most Heroic)