I wish people would stop saying "This is like MGS2 where you'll praise the game's twist in a few years" when it's nothing like MGS2.
MGS2 did get a lot of hate for the bait n switch with Raiden, but thing is that happened very early on in the game. Yeah nobody saw it coming, but they didn't just throw Raiden at us and do nothing with it. They built up on the concept that we weren't playing as Snake, but a new faceless character with barely any personality or interesting traits. And it all paid off during the finale on Arsenal Gear with The S3 plans. The game didn't just throw it out there when we arrived on Arsenal Gear, it culminated at that point. Ultimately Snake telling Raiden to find his own identity and Raiden rejecting the idea of being anyone else but himself, was a great message to all the players who played MGS2, more so towards the ones who wanted to play as Solid Snake for the entire game.
And the Raiden bait isn't even what people praise the most about MGS2, but rather the AI's foreshadowing of modern society and their methods of trying to create context. I love MGS2 for all of that, and while it may not have the best writing or dialogue, its story is pretty damn brilliant and worth every bit of praise.
Onto MGSV, looking back at the game in 5 years will definitely change our perception of the twist, but it won't change how the actual twist was presented in the game. For my experience with the game, Huey's Trial had just ended and Mission 46 had been unlocked. No build up, nothing. It's something that literally came out of nowhere, but for all the wrong reasons. Playing through the hospital again was a bore, especially with all the tutorial prompts. Although it may have exposed the twist earlier than intended, allowing the player to switch to Ishmael at certain points would've definitely been more interesting. Or perhaps during cutscenes we saw things through his perspective? Anything would've been fine really, but instead we just play the prologue again just to get a new cutscene that shows the twist before cutting to the ambiguous ending.
See now in a few years that's going to be very interesting. The debates for the "There are no facts, only interpretations" quote, Ocelot meeting Big Boss at 6am if he and Venom left at 4am, The 1984 references, and so on are all going to be heavily interpreted in the coming years. Even now there are all these posts going deeper into the game's twist and explaining why/how it could work, or how this actually did somewhat progress Big Boss' character in a way, and honestly it's made me more accepting of it. In the years to come, will we praise these parts of the story? It's possible. But it's not going to change the fact that the story was presented in such a piss poor way, ending with a twist that not only could've been potentially something that rivals MGS2 if it were built up to, but if it were also followed up upon in this game. Not playing as Big Boss isn't the big problem. How it's handled in the story is.
People aren't going to come back and say "Man MGSV's story was brilliant!" just because people have accepted the twist or understood some more of its interpretations. It won't change how Skullface is handled so poorly in the game, or how too much potential story elements are explained in optional tapes, or how Eli's story is literally just thrown away in the game near the end without any satisfying resolution. I haven't even mentioned Chapter 2's theme and how horribly the game plays with it, or rather ignores it.
Kojima clearly had big plans for the game's story. All of this cut content and potential "Chapter 3" leaks and what not are proof of that. But I can't focus on what could've been or how the twist could've been told better if blah blah blah. The game's out, we've played through it, and majority opinion not just in here but all over the internet is about how incredibly disappointing the story was. No amount of years waiting or fake 9/11 DLC rumors are going to change that.
