History Videogame / MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker

** During the final mission [[spoiler:to reach Peace Walker and prevent nuclear holocaust]], Big Boss must battle through an onslaught of soldiers in a knock-down, drag-out firefight through the facility to get there in time. In the final area, he is overwhelmed by a platoon of entrenched enemies with a heavy machine gun and a Hind gunhship, that start bearing down on his position and ripping apart his cover. Just as the player pauses to take stock of the situation the game's theme, "Heavens Divide" is heard. It is a melancholic song of loss, futility and love destroyed by conflict.

** 5he existence of the Fulton Recover System, which more or less functions exactly in real life as it would in-game.

** Big Boss appears to be fluent in English, Russian, French, Spanish and [[The Triple Cat]] (assuming a tape with Big Boss and Chico can be trusted).

** Big Boss appears to be fluent in English, Russian, French, Spanish and [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Cat]] (assuming a tape with Big Boss and Chico can be trusted).

** Big Boss appears to be fluent in English, Russian, French, Spanish and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Cat]] (assuming a tape with Big Boss and Chico can be trusted).

** Mocked with Snake's conversations with Trenya. Chico will ask him to speak in Trenya's language&

** Although Miller was on Snake's side pretty much the entire time, he also briefly worked with Cipher as a neutral business partner only under the promise that MSF is allowed to expand as a result. However, after [[spoiler:Paz hijacked ZEKE and then proceeded to, under their orders, prepare a nuclear strike against the East Coast of America]], its implied that Miller quit working with Cipher afterwards, especially considering that the [[spoiler:nuclear strike]] would jeporadize any chances of MSF expanding.

* ExtendedGameplay: After you beat ''Peace Walker'', credits roll and the game seems to have reached a pretty good conclusion. Then a "Chapter 5: Outer Heaven" ominously shows up. There aren't any new story missions except for the occasional "Capture Zadornov" missions. Turns out there's still a TrueFinalBoss to be seen...

* EvilLaugh: [[spoiler:Hot Coldman, plus Paz, but hers is more creepy evil than evil evil.]]

* ArtShift: Unlike ''Portable Ops'', the illustrated cutscenes in ''Peace Walker'' were drawn by various a team of artists led by Yoji Shinkawa, with Ashley Wood credited as a guest artist. This is especially notable during flashbacks of events from ''Metal Gear Solid 3'', which are drawn in a different style compared to cutscenes set in the present. Additionally, some of the final cutscenes at the end of Chapter 5, most notably the final conversation between Snake and Miller, are rendered with real time graphics instead of illustrations.

** HumansAreFlawed: How he sees the human inability to launch a retaliatory strike and thereby cause MAD. [[spoiler:[[OhCrap He's eventually proven wrong about this]]]].

** Snake is hailed throughout the franchise as the "Greatest Warrior of 20th Century", but MSF soldiers quickly outrank him in every possible stat as you progress through the game, and unlike Big Boss, they also have a wealth of passive abilities that enhance them in various ways.
** Snake seems to go back to Mother Base in between each mission (given the micromanaging and helicopter sound effects), which he obviously doesn't do in the story.
** Up to four players can play certain missions in Co-Ops mode and any of them can control Snake if they want to (a feature that was actually highlighted in one of the trailers), despite the improbable nature of Snake working with three full grown duplicates of himself at a time when his actual clones were still infants. Still, the game does give the option to display only one player as Snake and the rest as MSF soldiers, which is pretty convenient to those who feel there's room for only one Big Boss.

* GenreShift: The game design is a mix between ''[=MGS4=]'' and ''Monster Hunter'', with RPG-style "Ranking Up" of individual weapon skills, linear equipment upgrading and grinding missions for resources. This change has introduced a greater emphasis on repetitive battles with large enemy vehicles with multiple weak points that can be looted based on a luck/damage system. This change has led to a complete absence of the boss fights the ''Metal Gear'' series is perhaps best known for: one-on-one combat against creative and bizarre human-sized adversaries. This changes has led to Kojima Productions' classifying ''Peace Walker'' as a "Tactical Espionage Operations" game, rather than "Tactical Espionage Action."

** [[invoked]] In Paz's first few cutscenes, [[{{Anvilicious}} she beats you over the head with her message of peace]], but becomes significantly more nuanced as the game goes on. [[spoiler:Her briefing tapes confirm that Pacifica Ocean had a hard time staying in character for the first few days of her infiltration of the MSF, and as she [[BecomingTheMask grew closer to Snake and Mother Base]] she became more comfortable with acting as Paz.]]

* FullFrontalAssault: Forget that the regular "Naked" option lets you go shirtless (or with a tanktop, for the ladies) into battle; you can get a "Swim Trunks" (or Bikini, for female soldiers) option that lets you carry virtually no equipment and has a terrible camo index. The benefit is that you can run a ''lot'' faster without all that pesky clothing getting in the way ([[MythologyGag "You know, I bet if I took off all this heavy gear]] [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl I could catch her!"]]). This form of bravery also boosts Heroism earned at the end of the stage by 30%... (the damage you take is also outrageous, often certain death, but...)

** The actions soldiers will take on the Outer Ops missions are seemingly random. Soldiers are just as likely to use small arms fire in mechs, or use the inaccurate but powerful Carl Gustav Rocket launcher on a mook with next to no HP.

** Once the player gets the first ending, after the fight against Peace Walker, [=EVA=]'s entire story of [[spoiler:The Boss' sacrifice]] is presented as unlocked cassette tapes.

** Once the player gets the first ending, after the fight against Peace Walker, [=EVA=]'s entire story of [[spoiler:The Boss' sacrifice]] is presented as an unlocked cassette tape audio recording, word for word as it originally appeared in the finale of ''Metal Gear Solid 3''.
* BadassDecay: Invoked. Big Boss, easily the ''Metal Gear'' universe's most renowned badass, was revealed to once have been a quirky and eccentric yet supremely capable soldier in ''Metal Gear Solid 3'', leaving his tragic descent into vengeful obsession with war open to interpretation. While he is melancholic and humble in ''Peace Walker'', he still has his segues into goofy behavior, yet this doesn't stop him from founding the world's first international private military company, destroying [[spoiler:four]] Metal Gear-like A.I. weapons and taking on a massive army all single-handedly ([[CoOpMultiplayer except in Co-Ops mode]]). However, his mythical ruthless prowess is slightly undermined by the fact that his reputation as a legendary soldier that mercenaries flock to increases in relation to how ''merciful'' he is with his enemies (the game charts the player's reputation with a Heroism Rank, which doesn't increase as much when Snake kills enemies in the line of duty - murdering an entire level full of them will usually net the player zero or negative hero points). Even volunteer soldiers will say they joined up ''because'' Big Boss spares soldiers. But from what we know of ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain Metal Gear Solid V]]'', it seems that it will show how he turned into said mythically ruthless warrior.

* EverybodySmokes: This game breaks the tradition of Snake's supporting team lambasting him for his smoking habit; in fact, just about every named character either smokes (Snake, almost every single MSF soldier, Amanda, Chico [[spoiler:and Paz' true persona]]), has smoked in the past (Miller and Gálvez quit) or otherwise uses tobacco products (Huey uses an electronic cigarette, Strangelove and [[spoiler:Pacifica Ocean]] snuff).

* DifficultyLevel: ''Peace Walker'' is the first game in the series since the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' without selectable difficulty levels. Instead, each mission has a pre-set difficulty shown on the selection menu ranging from one to five skulls, with the hardest missions indicated by five RED skulls.

* DownloadableContent: A few camo patterns for the Jungle Fatigues, alternate voices for A.I. bosses, and songs for the in-game Walkman have been released via the Platform/PlayStationNetwork for free. Also, for those who don't have PSN accounts or simply can't access them for one reason or another, [=MetalGearSolid.Org=] allows one to download the packs to their computer that can then be transferred to the PSP.[[note]]Although a slight bit of warning in regards to downloading from [=MetalGearSolid.Org=], sometimes the download packs, when successfully installed onto the PSP, go through the loading process, and yet ''don't'' give you the actual DLC.[[/note]]

* EndOfAnAge: [[spoiler:The ending has Big Boss finally start to cement his FaceHeelTurn towards creating a military for hire and eventually making Outer Heaven, even calling his group Outer Heaven. This is promopted by Big Boss' traumas and Miller pointing out the world will soon change from an era of counter-communism to an era of counter-terrorism and information control, as well as Paz revealing she worked for Cipher and they see the change coming and want to control it all.]]

* CastingGag: In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', [[spoiler:Liquid Snake was voiced by Creator/CamClarke, making him a FakeBrit for the role, while Liquid, in turn, impersonated the American Kazuhira Miller]]. In ''Peace Walker'', Miller is a FakeAmerican, as he's voiced by Creator/RobinAtkinDownes, a ''real'' Brit.

* ArbitraryHeadCountLimit:
** Enemy vehicles can only have four escorts guarding it at a time, regardless of how many soldiers the unit might actually have. When the player kills or captures an escort, the unit will call for a replacement until it runs out of soldiers, forcing the captain to come out from the vehicle and fight for himself.
** Each unit of the MSF has a limit of 50 slots (100 for the combat unit), which allows for a limit of 350 people with 50 of those in the trade waiting room.

* ArbitraryHeadCountLimit: Enemy vehicles can only have four escorts guarding it at a time, regardless of how many soldiers the unit might actually have. When the player kills or captures an escort, the unit will call for a replacement until it runs out of soldiers, forcing the captain to come out from the vehicle and fight for himself.

* AFatherToHisMen:
** While this trait was always well known about Big Boss, this game makes this more evident than in any other. His reputation for sparing his enemies causes people to flock to him, and he is well respected by everyone.
** Genderflipped with Amanda Valenciano Libre, but having a broken leg and the rebels not seeing her as a real replacement for her father, the real leader of the Sandanistas before he got shot. They're happy to follow her, but they don't have as much trust in her as they did in her father. [[spoiler:That is until she leads them and the MSF in a BigDamnHeroes moment to save Big Boss' life at the last second, at which point they refer to her as "Comandante" for the first time.]]

* FragileSpeedster: The Naked uniform (''let's rock''), which despite the name, is really just a shirtless variant of the Jungle Fatigues (for Snake at least; generic MSF soldiers wear tank tops), allows for increased mobility at the expense of lowered camo index, resistance, item slots and ammo capacity. Unlike in ''[=MGS3=]'' (where Snake could only wear Tiger Stripe pants in his Naked uniform), players can apply most of the same camo patterns available for the Jungle Fatigues to their character's pants in Naked.

** Big Boss is hailed throughout the franchise as the "Greatest Warrior of 20th Century", but MSF soldiers quickly outrank him in every possible stat as you progress through the game, and unlike Big Boss, they also have a wealth of passive abilities that enhance them in various ways.

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: [[spoiler:A rare ''mechanical'' case of this. Peace Walker is activated in bipedal mode and after being blown about by a few rockets from Snake, seems to malfunction and starts to lose it. A passing helicopter with Coldman inside fires a couple of shots at it, which seems to bring it to its senses; it shifts into its much-stronger quadrupedal form and remembers it has to go to.]]
** Miller also performs one of these to Snake in regards to The Boss. Snake remains distraught over the ending of Operation Snake Eater, but Miller reminds him that it was ten years ago and that Big Boss should leave it behind him.

* FanDisservice: [[spoiler:Paz constantly taunting you and chortling about killing you quickly turns it into fetish retardant.]]

* FemmeFatale: Strangelove (pre-Chapter 4) was evidentially of this. However, [[spoiler:Paz/Pacifica Ocean]] qualifies for the entire game, in a way that would shock a lot of players when this is found out.

* VulgarHumor: One of Paz's diary tapes indicated that the MSF, when holding birthday parties every month, often had very crude behavior at the parties. For one thing, when Miller attempted to shield Paz from the crude atmosphere at the party, he ended up getting drunk enough to moon the attendees of the party and claiming that they should see the real Miller, causing them to laugh quite a bit.

** Amanda has this reaction when she realizes that the Peace Sentinel are actually continuing the drug trafficking route they originally used and were turning their own country, America, into junkies.
* VictoryFakeout: [[spoiler:So you defeated Peace Walker and the credits roll... what's this? A huge [[PlayableEpilogue post-game]] and a new villain?!]]
* VSign: The [[ArcWords V-sign]]. Also used in a StealthInsult by Zadornov towards Snake, twice. Palm-inwards is the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger in Britain and Australia.

** Going back to the original inspiration for Solid Snake, the movie ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork,'' our hero starts off trying to get people to just "Call me Snake." [[spoiler:And like in that movie, he inverts it at the end. "Call me... Big Boss."]]

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:The entire point of using Peace Walker, as far as Coldman's concerned, is that the people in control of America's nukes couldn't bring themselves to do this if they were attacked by Russia. He was wrong, and they try it.]]
** That's not all Peace Walker does, either. For instance, as its second-most dangerous ability (barring the aforementioned NORAD thing), and its most dangerous physical weapon, the titular mechanoid was mentioned in the briefing tapes to have a hydrogen bomb equipped on it (specifically that huge, death-star esque sphere that acts as its "head") that has a vastly higher explosive yield than even the Tsar Bomba (the biggest nuke in existence). The reason why it has it? It is so that, if it is required to go into enemy territory and if needs be, it can simply waltz into the enemy nation and self destruct.
** It also borderlines Fridge Horror and High Octane Nightmare Fuel when you take both this and Coldman's plan of mass producing Peace Walker and placing them all over Central America: If he or some other madman sees fit, he could easily blow away Central America from the face of the Earth by having the various models self-destruct.
** Miller almost did this to Big Boss in their first encounter (stated in the briefing files) upon defeat by using a grenade to blow them both up, but Big Boss managed to stop him before he could pull the pin, and save his life as well.

** The A.I. Weapons are all named after different stages of a butterfly transformation (Pupa, Chrysalis and Cocoon). The reptile and mammal pods for Peace Walker itself are known as the Aurelia and Imago respectively. Moreover, their [=AIs=] share the same Presidential initials as the Patriots [=AIs=] in ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', with the exception of the BS-imago, which stands for The Boss.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Played with: The weapons that the Peace Sentinel are using (the tanks, choppers, and APCs, not to mention the AI weapons themselves) are described in game as going beyond even overkill, stating that even overkill has its limits.

* TickleTorture: On the Japanese censored torture scene, Dr. Strangelove does this to Snake. The censorship is useless in the end because the consequences of failing the [[PressXToNotDie button mashing marathon]] still result in Snake becoming [[HighVoltageDeath a human Christmas tree]].

* TruthInTelevision: Big Boss and some other major characters look up to Che Guevara. It isn't that far from the truth in real life, where t-shirts are actually sold of Guevara.
** Also, it is heavily implied by some soldiers remarks that they were abandoned by their government after they risked their butts in fighting the Vietnam War, hence their reason for joining the Peace Sentinel. This was actually quite true, as many Vietnam veterans ended up being very much treated very badly, being referred to as "baby killers," among other things.

* UnstableEquilibrium: In true form for a ''Metal Gear'' game, going for HundredPercentCompletion after the end of the game gets you many, many GameBreaker items along the way.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: To a degree, Hot Coldman. His views and work on A.I. controlled nuclear deterrence would be taken up by Cipher and The Patriots and would help serve as a foundation for the Patriot A.I.s and War Economy decades later.

* WhatMeasureIsAMook: Previous titles averted this, but ''Peace Walker'' averts it harder than all those before it. Paz pleads with you to try to spare the lives of the enemies gunning for you, and your rank goes down if you kill an enemy or leave an injured enemy to die. A mortally wounded enemy may be rescued by another one who injects him with life-saving medicine and gratefully says "You saved my life!" Not to mention, every enemy you spare is a potential recruit.
** They've also got their own hopes and dreams... or arguments about Santa existing... or bug catching... or trying to hit on Big Boss... or being creepy...

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Averted with four of the five main locations: the MSF camp in the beginning of the game (prior to being hired by Gálvez and Paz) was explicitly stated to be at the Barranquilla Coast in Colombia. The main setting is not only explicitly stated to be Costa Rica, but the mission select map also goes as far as to show exactly where in Costa Rica the mission is being held at. The location at [[spoiler:Nicaragua]] is explicitly stated to be at [[spoiler:the southeastern shore of Lago Colcibolca]]. Lastly, Mother Base's specific location on the Carribbean Sea is shown on a map [[spoiler:when Coldman is expositing his plan to launch a nuke at Mother Base.]] It's played straight with Isla del Monstrua, as well as the "hotspots" in Outer Ops, the former taking place near the Carribbean sea, but does not go further regarding its exact location, and the latter locations not even being elaborated at all outside of them not being in Costa Rica [[spoiler:(and possibly not Nicaragua)]].

* WorthLivingFor In one of her briefing files, [[spoiler: Strangelove admits to Snake that she planned to die after the completion of the Mammal Pod, but changed her mind after witnessing Peace Walker's sacrifice.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Strangelove''']]''':''' [[spoiler: She was my one reason to live.]]
-->'''Snake:''' [[spoiler: But you changed your mind?]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Strangelove''']]''':''' [[spoiler: ...I did. Because she taught me the dignity of living.]]
* VulgarHumor: One of Paz's diary tapes indicated that the MSF, when holding birthday parties every month, often had very crude behavior at the parties. For one thing, when Miller attempted to do shield Paz from the crude atmosphere at the party, he ended up getting drunk enough to moon the attendees of the party and claiming that they should see the real Miller, causing them to laugh quite a bit.

* VSign: The [[ArcWords V-sign.]] Also used in a StealthInsult by Zadornov towards Snake, twice. Palm-inwards is the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger in Britain and Australia.

** Good luck finding out everything there is to find out about this game on your own. You need to beat certain missions to unlock other missions (ones with highly desirable weapon schematics, like a rail gun) but the official strategy guide doesn't explain which unlocks which. Some missions also must be defeated with an "S" rank (meaning no kills, no alerts, and pretty much speeding through as fast as possible) to unlock a few weapon schematics, and the Extra Ops where you collect weapon schematics actually don't unlock them. On that note, good luck trying to get any codenames for yourself, as the game does not tally the amount of weapons one uses or even weapon range, and the guide doesn't elaborate further on exactly how to unlock them.

** Getting parts for ZEKE. Most people don't know how to get them (you must leave the part you want either completely undamaged, or rather, you ''can'' damage it, but any parts below 90% health gives you a ''very'' low chance of getting the parts -- and some require ''no damage at all,'' very hard with the AI weapons that move around a lot, and even ''then'', it is still very much of a small chance of actually getting the parts even ''if'' you don't damage them at all).

** :Toyed with due to the fact that the characters who idolize Che also idolize ''Big Boss'', who in this game first coins the term "Outer Heaven", takes on his first child soldier with the demand of giving his 'new life' to him, and actively agrees to take on nuclear weapons as a symbol of MSF's power even after the main plot of the game. The entire point is that there's two sides to every story, and the game deliberately reflects the insanity of mutually assured destruction through several lenses, including the insane Coldman's, and that of Miller and Big Boss, who rationalize it purely as a display in order to make other powers leave them alone - all the while seemingly oblivious to the fact that their work-for-hire mercenary group has suddenly taken on power equivalent to a ''small nation''. The game is deliberately grey.

** 'Shockingly reversed at the beginning of the game, then hugely played straight multiple times later on. Before the first mission proper, Gálvez reveals himself as a KGB spy after Big Boss calls him on it, ''and still hiring him to help usurp U.S. control of Central America to trigger a massive socialist revolution that will allow the USSR to destroy America''. As Big Boss is a mercenary (and Gálvez waved a small child at him) he doesn't have too many moral qualms about this and takes the mission anyway (and it is strongly implied that one of the main reasons he decided to undergo the mission initially was to investigate if The Boss had indeed survived).
** Later on [[spoiler:Coldman exposits most of his plan to Big Boss ''twice'', both on occasions where Big Boss was at Coldman's complete mercy and Coldman had nothing to gain from either keeping him alive or letting him know what his plans were (excluding his false data/NORAD gambit, which would probably have been unnecessary had Big Boss known nothing at all). Indeed, if Coldman had kept his mouth shut and/or [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim double-tapped Big Boss on sight]], MSF would have had no idea that a large nuclear bomb was about to fall on them until it was too late.]]

** [[spoiler:''Paz'' talks about how [[GambitPileup everything was either planned or funded by Cipher. If she hadn't let ''that'' on it's likely Big Boss would never have found out and his world-shifting feud with Cipher would never have started.]]]]

* LastDayToLive: Subverted: [[spoiler:Coldman activates Peace Walker so that it would not only launch at Cuba despite Zadornov's betrayal, but also leaked the false data set to NORAD with the intention of forcing them to decide whether to launch the nuke due to the president and most of his staff being out of the country for the SALT II Negotiations, mostly because he is dying from bloodloss from Zadornov's gunshot. Why is it subverted, you ask? It's because unlike most cases, it really did turn out to be his last day to live, and to add insult to injury, they couldn't abort the program because Coldman died before he could divulge the abort code (it was also heavily implied that he specifically did this knowing he'd die before giving out the abort code, and he was the only one who knew about it.)]]

* LevelGrinding: All the weapons have a "Usage Level" that increases the more you use it. Each weapon Rank has their own level unfortunately, and there is even an [[BraggingRightsReward insignia]] for leveling all categories of weapons to the maximum for ''each rank''.

* LostInTranslation: There are three MSF recruits based on voice actors from the Japanese version: Yumi Kikuchi (Dr. Strangelove), Tomokazu Sugita (Miller) and Akio Ohtsuka (Snake). They are found in certain missions as prisoners that the player must rescue. These voice actor recruits are still present in the overseas versions, but instead of being redesigned after their English counterparts, they were simply given randomly generated animal codenames. Recruiting all three of them along with Kojima will award the player with the "special staff recruiter" achievement, despite their lack of any significance in the overseas versions.

* ShesJustHiding: {{Invoked}} InUniverse: [[spoiler:A briefing tape unlocked after playing all of Paz's diary tapes that takes place after Paz was defeated by Snake has Snake hinting at the possibility that Paz survived the fight due to her both landing in the water as well as wearing scuba gear.]]