It hit me this morning as I was putting the pieces together from finishing last night, perhaps the choice to use a cover version of "The Man Who Sold The World" is an additional hint at the body double twist. It could very well just be that Kojima felt the dark synth iteration that Midge Ure performed was more thematically fitting than Bowie's original, but I feel like it was chosen intentionally. Diamond Dogs is very obviously a Bowie reference, so why is the version of a Bowie song we hear a replication and not the original? Could just as easily be a rights thing where Bowie didn't want in or was too expensive, so I won't bet the farm on that. But it was a thought I enjoyed either way.
I should have seen the twist coming a mile away, but it wasn't until Eli's DNA didn't match and the AI Pod not recognizing Snake did it click that something was that off. Chapter 2's awful lack of cohesion between plot points hurts the pacing quite a bit, and I feel like there's some connective tissue missing between where the rest of the game's plot resolves and the "awakening" of Venom as it is revealed to us in Episode 46. A shame that Konami and Kojima butted heads over production issues, at every turn there are hints of a greater desire for ambition that get cut down way too soon. If Kojima ever feels like burning some bridges, it'll be interesting to see just how much he had to take a hacksaw to in order to push the game out by September 1st.
MGS4 felt like a more appropriate sendoff with the countless bits of fanservice and references, but MGSV did give some nuggets of info that help build the greater whole. The tapes with Zero you get after completing Mission 46 give some frame of reference for what the hell he was doing and how his original plan ended up so twisted from what it may have been intended to be. The conversation between Ocelot and Miller where Miller hates the real Big Boss for abandoning him made his unnaturally dickish approach to everything click for me. He feels betrayed and will do whatever it takes to sabotage what BB wants to accomplish. In his anger, he could be taking a far more confrontational route in order to try and send Venom down the wrong path or fuck something up which would throw a wrench into BB's plan.
The MIA Mission 51 would have provided some extra context for Eli's hatred of Boss and why he would go to such lengths to fuck with his legacy in MGS. Liquid decides to chase down Solid because Liquid, Eli, wanted to be the one to snuff the life out of Boss. Little does he realize that the Boss he chased that whole time was a fraud, almost makes his entire arc tragic. He went to hunt down and kill his brother, whom he assumed killed the father that he wanted to murder, and lost it all while his real father just sat in the background and smoked cigars. Big Boss' dismissal of Eli was particularly harsh, "I have nothing to say to him." Solid got it all, even an apology from the tree he fell from.
There's still a few holes that leave a lot to be desired as far as exposition and explanations go, but I think I'm alright with how MGSV played out. I just wish we could have gotten Kojima's original, ambitious title, rather than the cut down version we have now.