Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Peace!


Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, originally known as Metal Gear Solid 5, is the latest game of the Metal Gear series. It was released in 2010. The second sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, this game was released on the PlayStation Portable just as the previous sequel, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, was.

Ten years have passed since Operation Snake Eater and Big Boss has created his army, the Militaires Sans Frontières. He is approached by representatives from Costa Rica requesting they support their government and push out a mysterious armed force occupying the region. Kazuhira Miller encourages Big Boss to send the MSF to protect these clients; however, Big Boss is initially reluctant of this offer until one of the representatives presents Big Boss with a tape that contains a recording of interest to him, along with a complimentary Sony Walkman. Six days later, the MSF move into action.

"Borrowing" elements from the hugely popular Monster Hunter PSP games (including the monsters) and with a greater emphasis on succinct mission structure and plot. As the player captures more enemies and rescue allies, their army and arsenal grow from a handful of guys on an oil rig to a huge base with fantastic weapons. The game is probably the biggest yet in terms of sheer content for the Metal Gear series, features a much more balanced Story to Gameplay Ratio, can be played single-player or cooperatively, and is just plain fun.

Peace Walker has received a strong critical response as well as approval by the Metal Gear fanbase. Being the first game to succeed the series "finale" Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots yet taking place earlier in the series continuity, it adds new gameplay and fleshes out the Metal Gear universe while delivering more of the series' well known quirky humor and political commentary.

Peace Walker is a part of the overseas versions of Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection for the Play Station 3 and Xbox 360, with redone graphics and controls. It was released as a standalone game in the Japan titled Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD Edition in 2010.

Warning: This game may make you want to visit Costa Rica.

It will be followed by Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Not to be confused with Metal Walker.

Tropes used in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker include:
  • A Father to His Men: An already known trait of Big Boss, but more evident in this game than in any other.
    • Genderflipped with Amanda, 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).
  • Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Mugihito ended up causing a catastrophe involving nukes.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Boss AI decides to drown itself to prevent an all-out nuclear war, much as the real Boss sacrificed herself. This only annoys Big Boss again, having already rejected The Boss's own sacrifice as a betrayal to what The Boss taught him as a soldier.
  • AKA-47: Despite being named and credited properly in Portable Ops, the AK-47, AUG, and vz.61 are rendered into Bland Name Products here. The similarity between As and Rs/Vs and Us in Peace Walker's various inventory fonts makes this tricky to spot, though.
    • The AK here is Handwaved with being a variant, and the other weapons, you have to get blueprints for.
    • Some weapons appear in this game before their Real Life counterparts did. For example, the Steyr AUG was not developed until 1977, yet the MSF has access to it in 1974. However, it should be noted that the game hints that they developed the weapons based on design specs, meaning they most likely developed them first in-universe.
  • The Alcatraz: Mother Base's brig qualifies, as Mother Base itself was separated from the mainland in the Carribbean Sea, although Zadornov frequently escaped, especially from the second point onward when the guards confiscated his prosthesis to prevent him escaping like he did the first time. Miller even compares Zadornov's escapes to escaping Alcatraz Island in an optional radio call of the third Zadornov mission.
  • Amazon Brigade: One of the insignias encourages you to do this, by staffing your entire base with females, with the exception of Miller, Chico, and Huey. In order to effectively get that many women, you have to keep grinding rescue missions and do some AP recruiting, since females are only found as prisoners or as volunteers. Apparently, Miller and Snake also considered doing this in-universe, going by the "Queen Bee" briefing tape, where they decided to create "an army of Queen Bees" due to indecisiveness regarding whether Strangelove, Paz, Cecile, or Amanda should be Mother Base's "Queen Bee."
  • Arc Words: "Deterrence" and "Peace," of course.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: The Rubber Slug Twin Barrel Shotgun. All the fun of using a shotgun with none of the rating-lowering kills! Invaluable during Base Defense/non-stealth Eliminate All Enemies missions.
    • Even more so, CQC has never been so effective and cool looking for gameplay! It's almost a Game Breaker given how easily you can put down huge hordes of Mooks non-lethally with the tiniest effort, but then again, you are Big Boss...
      • It's even the only way to recruit AP soldiers (soldiers better than those that volunteer normally), especially with large groups of up to ten (or more), with a measly one minute time limit. Just keep pressing the fire button.
    • The M47 will absolutely trash anything. The only problem is that it's only got three shots and isn't that great against vehicles that move a lot, but calling in a resupply is a trade off for normal grinding slug fests against vehicles - it takes significantly less to destroy vehicles with it.
    • The Bandanna allows infinite ammunition and/or suppressor durability on all weapons that need ammo. This turns many guns into a Game Breaker, like the Gatling Gun, the Fulton Launcher, or the above-mentioned M47. For some custom vehicle fights, you really do not want to run out of ammo - and if you want to S-rank final custom vehicle fights, you will need the bandanna.
    • The accurized M37 - a SNIPER SHOTGUN! Knock down enemies from afar!
    • The G11 and CAWS, weapons with special ammunition that got canceled due to the Cold War ending and fletchette rounds deemed too sucky, respectively. The G11 has a good ammo capacity, great firing rate, and decent damage, and the CAWS is a devastating full-auto shotgun.
    • The Gatling Gun. It has one of the fastest firing rates in the game, the DPS [damage-per-second] it causes is not to be laughed at (to the point where it outdamages some missiles!), and with the already game breaking Bandanna....
    • The Patriot, which has a bottomless magazine like the Gatling Gun. However, unlike the Gatling Gun, which has a pause in aiming, is heavy, and needs either the Bandanna or supply drops, this baby has by default infinite ammo, and is obviously lighter, though it is significantly weaker and has a lesser firing rate.
    • Skills. Channeler allows one to find items on their map (useful during "find that item" missions), Green Beret raises critical chances (more damage) among other effects, and that's just combat alone. Some other passive skills are required to create weapons and items.
  • Awesome Yet Impractical: The railgun needs a second partner to charge, banishing access to its full power to the realm of Co-Ops. On top of that, at full charge it can inflict tremendous damage to anything it hits, but the time spent charging could easily be used to take down enemies in quicker, more practical ways. Without a buddy with Peace Walker or Ad-Hoc Party, it's reduced to merely being a mid-tier rifle; not the worst, but it's inaccurate compared to other sniper rifles and not as strong as others.
    • There's some debate as to whether or not the PTRS/PRTD are this. They're both sniper rifles that will one shot anyone, but they're heavy and aiming has a two second pause. However, some players use them to shatter helicopter canopies without alerting everyone with a rocket launcher, which forces the commander to lean out for an early kill/capture, but as with everything else, it takes a very long time, but it's better than endless fultoning of soldiers and firefights.
    • The Stealth Camouflage could be considered this, in a way. Although you are practically invisible to all mooks and non-AI vehicles, using it will null you from the beloved S Rank, which some missions require for the best weapons, like the M47, or Railgun.
    • The Tanegashima Musket has a 1/3 chance of creating a tornado with the properties of a Fulton balloon when the bullet (or rather, ball) hits a soldier. Unfortunately, as a weapon, it's very impractical, since it's a single shot rifle with pitiful damage and has an awful reload time.
    • The EM Net. Sure, free tanks and APCs are nice for the final Outer Op missions, but it takes impracticality Up to Eleven; most vehicles have a short time (under 1 second to capture a Custom!?) until they can move again, meaning that up to 3 other people have to press the buttons, the escorts will still attack you, and even after all that, IF you capture the tank/APC, you won't get an S Rank.
    • Battle Cries provide varying effects that can help your team or yourself in some fashion, but using a Battle Cry means you won't get a S Rank. Ditto the Sidekick skill, though it applies only in CO-OPS play.
  • Backstory: The Data Files provide large amounts of this, including two different retellings of the same sequence of events by different people. Unusually, most of these are revealed only after the A-Plot is resolved.
  • Badass Decay: 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 during MGS3, 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 behaviour, yet this doesn't stop him from founding the world's first international Private Military Company, destroying four Metal Gears and taking on a massive army all single-handedly (sometimes). 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 your reputation with a Heroism Rank, which doesn't increase as much when you kill enemies in the line of duty - murdering an entire level full of them will usually net you zero or negative hero points.) Even volunteer soldiers will say they joined up because BB spares soldiers!
    • The soldiers joining Big Boss because he spares his enemies was also implied in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake by Kyle Schneider, where he (and presumably the rest of the surviving members of the resistance) felt a lot of gratitude towards Big Boss despite his being the one who led Outer Heaven specifically because he saved their resistance from the NATO bombing of Outer Heaven, even though they were technically his enemies.
  • Badass Normal: Played straighter here than any other point in the Metal Gear timeline; Peace Walker has a complete absence of supernaturally empowered human boss characters, and a random soldier or Big Boss must take down gigantic mecha... several times... by himself. Even lampshaded by Kaz during the fight with the Cocoon - "If anyone can do it, it's you, Boss!"
    • In hindsight, this is almost a 'slap in the face' to the claim in Metal Gear Solid 4 that Big Boss' reputation was wildly exaggerated, and exploited for the purpose of creating a hero for the masses. At the point where he single-handedly storms...and defeats...the secret U.S. base in Nicaragua, and Heaven's Divide begins playing, Manly Tears threaten to flow.
  • Batter Up: Variation: If Snake or another MSF soldier carries the Human Slingshot Post with him/her into a single player mission, he or she will use the post as a substitute for a club or a baseball bat and whack the enemy soldiers silly. What's even better is that despite the size of the object, it only stuns the enemy without killing them. Using it this way during a mission will also prompt Miller to contact the player and state "That's not what it's used for!"
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Several times over the course of the game, Miller will extoll the virtues of using Fulton Recovery to increase the size of MSF's staff. Until your recruiting drives Mother Base over capacity, when you start getting CODEC calls telling you to knock it off, because the base has become dangerously overcrowded, with sounds of fighting and commotion in the background.
  • Becoming the Mask: Paz/Pacifica Ocean. Listening to her audio diary reveals her Character Development: she goes from flatly hating and deriding everyone in MSF to wishing she could spend just a few more days among them before being forced to carry out her betrayal.
  • Best Beer Ever: Galvez has this reaction to Costa Rican coffee. Then again, some coffee aficionados might say this is justified...
    • Also the reaction of the MSF members who volunteer or are persuaded into joining in their flavor text. It's implied they joined up for the coffee.
  • Blatant Lies: Whenever meeting someone new in the jungle of Costa Rica, Snake claims to be something other than the obvious soldier he appears to be. A photographer, an entomologist, an ornithologist, and so on. Everyone he tells this to immediately pokes holes in this claim with humorous results when it's clear he has no freaking clue what he's talking about. But they don't push it too far. He has a rifle.
    • Paz hates MSF and everyone in it! I'm just acting, I swear! Stupid!
  • Bifauxnen: The traditional game completion tuxedo can be worn by female units. Combined with their military haircuts...
  • Big Damn Heroes: The Sandinistas. See Crowning Moment of Awesome below.
  • Bi the Way: Strangelove at the end.
    • Big Boss and Kaz might count, depending on whether the player counts the Dating Kaz mission as canon or not.
    • Paz doesn't mind getting molested by Strangelove... well, sort of. She catches on later.
  • Bonus Boss: The upgraded versions of the Pupa, Chrysalis and Cocoon AI weapons. In addition, the other vehicles fought in Extra Ops missions could also count.
    • There's also the monsters.
  • Book Ends: Not the game itself, but the series of gameplay prerelease trailers (four in total) had the first showcasing the Missile base in Nicaragua in the fourth chapter, and the last showcasing that same location (as well as the Mine Base briefly).
  • Boring but Practical: Want to level up your weapons fast? Find a dummy, get out your Bandanna, and start shooting. You pretty much have to Level Grind them this way if you don't want to replay mission after mission.
    • If you want the best Doctors, Developers, and Spies, you need to go through the same level to rescue a POW/capture an enemy stronghold in their departments (enemy placement is never randomized, so these things get repetitive quick).
      • On the other hand, if you're a speedrunner, the lack of randomized enemy placement is a godsend, allowing the player to basically choreograph an optimal way through each mission.
    • The Mk 22 pistol. Given that you're encouraged to recruit rather than kill enemies, it'll probably be your primary weapon for most of the game.
  • Brick Joke: At the beginning of the game, Naked Snake's cigar lighter was dying out, forcing him to temporarily abandon Smoking before going out to train alongside his soldiers, until Zadornov uses his prosthetic glove to gain a smoke. Later on, in the ending, a dying Zadornov attempts to kill Big Boss by using a Rocket Punch, but instead just supplies him with a makeshift lighter in the form of his prosthetic hand.
    • Somewhat similar in spirit: When Kazuhira Miller is going to suggest implementing the mercenary business into MSF (Outer Ops), Naked Snake asks if Kazuhira's idea was MSF-brand rations. The player later can develop Curry, which are technically rations with the MSF logo in the International versions, at least.
    • When meeting Cecile, Big Boss explains that he is carrying his assault rifle out of self defense when Cecile mistook him for a poacher for his having a gun. Sure enough, one of the few times he actually uses his rifle in a cutscene is when he shot Zadornov when the latter attempted to gun him down shortly before the ZEKE battle.
  • Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: All over the place.
  • Calling Your Attacks: All of the AI weapons do this, even the supposedly sentient Peace Walker; often musically, depending on the boss. In the Extra Ops missions, the "Custom" variants of the bosses change their quotes; instead of calling their attacks, they are apparently sentient and now say "Die!" and "I'll squash you like a bug!" (This doesn't change the fact that each attack has its own call, a call that does not change between fights.) The "mech unit" bosses call their attacks too. ("Take THIS!" "This one packs a punch!" etc). The soldiers do this too sometimes ("Grenade!").
  • Chekhov's Gun: Invoked twice in the game on two separate occasions, all for a single event. The first time is in the beginning of the game, when Snake arrives at the Colombian base to train with his soldiers, it focuses in on his snake-shaped scar for a few seconds, indicating that it would have some importance to the story, and was later commented on in regards to Strangelove, although Snake refuses to discuss why it is there. Turns out that "scar" was actually a fake, used to smuggle in a jigsaw so he could cut open the lock in case he ended up captured, as he did in this mission. The second time was in the aftermath of Snake's failed escape after infiltrating the mine base. If the player manages to complete the QTE in the cutscene in question that cumulates in Snake snatching Strangelove's ID badge, the last few seconds of the ending cutscene focuses in on Snake holding onto the ID badge, suggesting that it is important. That's because Snake can use it to simply unlock the lock shortly after capture.
  • The Chessmaster: 'Kaz' Miller qualifies easily. Pay attention to EVERYTHING he says, from his orders to his rationalizations. One could say he's been manipulating everything from the start to build the first unofficial PMC business.
    • Not quite. It's also very likely that, although he did manipulate some aspects, he did not know about Paz's orders about her launching a nuke at the United States to frame MSF.
    • Hot Coldman qualifies. Aside from him being the guy Gene mentioned in Portable Ops, he also manipulated various factors to ensure that his goal would come close to succeeding: For starters, he had the false data programmed into Peace Walker, and it is also heavily implied that he also directly programmed the Mammal Pod with not only leaking the Peace Walker data to NORAD without even his allies knowledge, but also the overall programming of the Mammal Pod (He mentioned being the only one to know the abort code, something that apparently even the Mammal Pod's creator didn't know). In addition, when Coldman was dying and activated Peace Walker, Coldman claimed that he was the only one who knew the abort code, and was heavily implied to have intended to die before he gave out the abort code. In addition, it could be argued that he might have manipulated Zadornov into shooting him so he'd have the perfect excuse to do such an action (although he certainly didn't anticipate that Zadornov would actually change the target to Cuba).
  • CIA Evil, KGB... Still Evil the reason the MSF got involved in the first place is because a KGB operative hired the MSF to investigate Costa Rica as to what the Peace Sentinels, a CIA group, was up to and then drive them out. The CIA group in question was not very nice, to say the least. KGB was also proven to be just as bad, and in fact was technically allied with them until they changed the target of Peace Walker's retalitory strike to Cuba. They're actually rogue (though the sentinels have no idea), with the fact that Coldman was actually an exile at that time, as well as his trying to convince the CIA to give funding for his brainchild, Peace Walker's mass production, as well as the fact that he intended to launch a live nuke via Peace Walker just to step up negotiations with the Peace Sentinels.) The CIA was also implied to be not good in EVA's tapes.
  • Climax Boss: After the fist-pumpingly-awesome Get To The Control Tower mission, it seems like it'd be hard for the final battle with Peace Walker to top that. Two words: it's better.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Strangelove electrocutes Big Boss in order to gain information on why he had to kill The Boss (either by lightning rods or by laughing rods, depending on whether you're talking about the English or Japanese version). It's also heavily implied that she did not like having to torture Big Boss at all, as future torture sessions have her becoming more reluctant to continue/kill Big Boss, and later she actually apologizes to Big Boss for her part (English version only, the Japanese version, for obvious reasons, simply had her apologize without specifying why she is apologizing to Big Boss).
  • Colossus Climb: The "Cocoon" AI weapon is so huge and so covered in guns that you can—and must—climb all over it to get to its AI pod. The weapon appears to have been designed with this trait in mind—it's completely covered in gun turrets and missile launchers, and there is no place on it where you're safe. Even hiding underneath it isn't safe; it's got a long flexible robot arm with a chainsaw and machine gun to attack you there too, if it doesn't decide to just lower itself on you and squash you directly.
  • Completely Missing the Point: During a Motive Rant, Coldman cites an incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis where a Soviet commander refused an order to nuke an American ship as an example of why deterrence is flawed. In fact, that one incident sums up WHY deterrence works; no one wants to kick off the chain reaction that kills the world.
    • It isn't quite that simple, Coldman's perspective is that the incident shows that protocols related to deterrence are flawed because, while the soldier took an action that was in everyone's best interest, he failed to carry out an order. The trope still applies though because this was with regards to starting a conflict, whereas Coldman's idea of an automated MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction) is by default a reactionary measure.
  • Continuity Nod: Galvez notes that if the Peace Sentinels kill Snake, the MSF and FSLN will make Snake a revolutionary icon, something discussed in MGS4.
    • Coldman sent the Boss to her death, alluded to in Portable Ops.
    • Kaz mentions at the end that eventually the Cold War will end, and then the focus would shift from anti-Communism to anti-terrorism, which would make mercenary companies even more in demand, pointing all the way towards MGS4, though he was more talking about the various merc organizations Big Boss leads.
    • Big Boss's experience with use of the Fulton Recovery system goes back to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where in the Virtuous Mission it was to be his means of escaping Tselinoyarsk with Sokolov, and with Portable Ops Plus, where it was used occasionally (whenever it was found) to retreat from a level.
    • Although most likely unintentional because of the changing of real-life products during localization, Narc Soda was also used as the Zero Calorie soda drink (Narc Soda was Drebin's favorite drink in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)
    • The Surround Indicator from Portable Ops/Portable Ops Plus returns as a usable item.
  • Creator Cameo: Hideo Kojima is hiding inside one of the trucks next to the one that carried nukes. You peek in, he's just STANDING there. He gives a little wave and you hear the Fulton Balloon sound effect, indicating he's heading to your base. Stat wise, he ranks among the best in intel and medicine, isn't too shabby at R&D, but is a mediocre cook, and has THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM when it comes to combat stats.
  • Crossover: Monster Hunter elements are included in their own missions, complete with the return of Trenya, Velociprey, and boss battles against Tigrex or Rathalos.
    • Did we mention that you also get to fight an organic version of Metal Gear Rex?
  • Curb Stomp Battle: When Snake is caught by the Peace Sentinels, and they attempt to arrest him, he manages to easily defeat six soldiers, two of which he ended up forcing another soldier to shoot at his own allies and snatch Strangelove's ID badge before being restrained.
    • Unless you are dealing with Scouts Big Boss vs Any Mook consists of less than 4 presses of the shoulder button. Taken Up to Eleven during recruitment missions, where you can find yourself chain throwing 7 guys to the ground.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: Subverted. Snake takes on all of the mechanical bosses with an M16. If there was no game between the starting and ending cutscenes, one would have to assume he won using only the M16. Also doubles as a CMOA.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Any enemy in the game, once knocked out, put to sleep, held up or incapacitated, can be attached to a Fulton Recovery System balloon (even when inside an underground base!) and will be lifted into the air to be indoctrinated into your private army. Some elite commandos and commanders take more convincing and need to stay in Mother Base's brig before being convinced to join, though.
    • Doubly so with the volunteer groups, who are effectively asking you to kick their ass as a condition of joining.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: If the player decided to redo the "Head to the Control Tower" mission and use the M47 Dragon on a Hind D, it will be shot down automatically, and Kazuhira Miller will call in saying "Nice shot, Boss."
    • Similarly, if the player fires an M47 at one of the vehicles (specificaly the LAV-typeG at Bananal Fruta de Oro in Main Ops), the escorts will duck and cover and yell "We surrender!" as it is destroyed.
  • Disney Villain Death: After fighting Big Boss on top of Mother Base, Paz gets blown off Metal Gear Zeke into the ocean below. Only time can tell whether this turns into another Disney-related trope. Big Boss himself points out that she was wearing scuba equipment at the time she was thrown out of ZEKE when he comforts Chico in a post-game Briefing File.
  • Discontinuity Nod: Due to Kojima's minimal involvement with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Konami promoted Peace Walker as the true sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, despite the fact that MPO itself was also an MGS3 sequel. While Peace Walker officially continues from where Portable Ops left off, the only time that the events of Portable Ops are even acknowledged is the following line:

Kaz: "Finally, we can leave all that crap in San Hieronymo behind."

    • Then again, while not a direct reference to the events of Portable Ops, Snake mentioned to Strangelove, when she apologized for the torture earlier, that "he's used to shock therapy" which indicates that he had electrocution-based torture more than once prior to Strangelove doing it, which is with Volgin and Cunningham (the latter of whom used a stun baton on Snake twice when interrogating Snake about the other half of the Legacy's location in the beginning of the game.)
    • At the very least, MSF gets started with some of the funds from Gene (Which might explain why their uniforms seemed to have the FOX logo on them despite the unit being disbanded), but aren't fully used until MSF has grown exponentially.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: So, you (Major Zero) try to get your old friend (Big Boss) to rejoin the Patriots (under the alias "Cipher"), and he refuses. What do you intend to do? Kill him? Nope, not just kill. You have an agent hijack your prototype Metal Gear ZEKE unit and attempt to launch a nuke at the East Coast so you could then frame Big Boss and his private military group, the Militaires Sans Frontieres, for being nuclear toting extremists.
    • Also the overall treatment of The Boss revealed in the briefing tapes (especially the EVA tapes). What does the CIA do when Eisenhower told The Boss to aid the CIA in planting sleeper agents in the Soviet Union to sabotage Soviet projects? Refuse to help her in any way, resulting in her being forced to use the Philosophers' spy network. What happened when The Boss, after she discovers the true nature of a mysterious object within leaked documents of one of the later Sputnik models within OKB-1 as well as the fact that the CIA basically pocketed a large amount of her sleeper agent's pay, resulting in him completely defecting to the Soviet Union? The CIA decided to ruin her even further by placing all the blame on The Boss to cover their butts, and even taking advantage of the fact that Kennedy was not a former Philosopher to successfully feed this lie, and arranging for her to be placed within the Lady Mercury project with the chance of her getting killed. How did the Department of Defense and the rest of the US Government "reward" The Boss when, due to the Pentagon's stupidity of trying to rush the Lady Mercury project, she ended up in a six-month coma? They berated her, displayed complete contempt for the fact that they had to write a cover up for The Boss's failure, as well as Yuri Gagarin officially seeing space first, and then forcing her to kill The Sorrow at Tselinoyarsk.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Cocoon, Pupa and Chrysalis hum an eerily-somber tune while slaughtering/capturing innocent civilians or blowing stuff up.
  • Doomed by Canon: Huey is going to commit suicide by drowning because his son, Hal (Otacon) was seduced by his second wife.
    • Not to mention Big Boss is going to be murdered by his own son, then rendered comatose and used as a immortal icon by Zero.
    • Also Miller will help said son, Solid Snake, take down Big Boss in the future and then be killed and impersonated by his other son, Liquid.
    • Using an example from real life It will take the FSLN nearly 5 years after the events of Peace Walker to claim victory, meaning Chico will be a 17 year old who's malnourished to the point his growth has been stunted and spent the last of his formative years on the battlefield before Somoza's Regime was overthrown.
  • Downloadable Content: A few alternate colors of Jungle camouflage, alternate voices for A.I. bosses, and songs for the in-game Walkman have been released via the Playstation Network for free. Also, for those who don't have Playstation Network accounts or simply can't access them for one reason or another, Metal Gear Solid.Org allows one to download the download packs to their computer that can then be transferred to the PSP (Although a slight bit of warning in regards to downloading from Metal Gear Solid.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 content.
    • It was also intended to be subverted, as Kojima was reluctant to use Wi-fi Infrastructure to download missions that couldn't be normally accessed on the PSP. Due to lack of space on the UMD, and because of all the hassles revolving it, there was a shortage of missions.
    • There's supposed to be some actual DLC coming up, but with a lack of announcements and stoppage of DLC, it's unlikely.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: The MSF have their own Drill Sergeant, as evidenced by the tutorial, complete with the sharp tongue and the sarcastic remarks regarding standing around in enemy sight.
  • Dummied Out: The product placement items in the North American version of the game, due to heightened trademark laws outside of Japan, are renamed as generic items, like "Good Curry," "Tortilla Chips," "Zero-Calorie Soda," etc., which makes their appearance somewhat puzzling for those unaware of their original purpose.
  • Electric Torture: Staple of the games, used by Strangelove to try and get the truth of the Boss's death out of Big Boss, who won't give it up.. It's one of the hardest bits in the game. Censored in the Japanese version to be laughing rods instead of electric rods.
  • Enemy-Detecting Radar: A version of the Soliton Radar featured in the first two Metal Gear Solid games can be used, but the battery runs down very quickly, so until you get it to the highest rank, it's mostly just useful for tight areas full of blind corners. Other enemy detectors include the Surround Indicator (much like Portable Ops) and the Sonic Eye (basically a downgraded Solid Eye from Metal Gear Solid 4).
  • Enemy Scan: You also have an "analyzer" device which is very important for several reasons. Besides coming in handy for boss fights when fully developed, it lets you see if a soldier you're looking at has good enough skills to be worth recovering and adding to your own army. Once the population of Mother Base hits it limit, this is vital.
    • Although it's use is not completely mandatory. All you have to do is capture whoever you want in the mission, put the best soldiers in whatever teams you have and then throw away the worst of each team. That way you'll always be sure you got the best soldiers.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Probably belongs on a (future) trivia page, but David Hayter said that he actually vomited in the sound booth in order to produce some of Snake's choking sound effects for the game (Kojima Productions Report Session 117).
  • Escape Pod: The AI Pods double as these for the giant robots. After smashing up their bodies and stealing as many memory cards as you can, the AI Pod blasts off on a rocket to parts unknown.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The CIA Kicked Upstairs/exiled Hot Coldman, due to both this trope and Pragmatic Villainy in regards to his being behind both the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater, and thus The Boss's death. Also, Zadornov, despite trying to have Peace Walker launch a nuke at Cuba to frame the US, shouted "I should have killed you when I had the chance!" when Coldman activated Peace Walker, and seemed legitimately horrified when learning that Coldman also programmed Peace Walker to leak the false data to NORAD, indicating that even he felt what Coldman was doing right then and there was terrible.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Coldman activated Peace Walker and programmed it to leak the Peace Walker data to NORAD so the military brass would be forced to decide whether or not to hit the button for nuclear retaliation, firmly believing that they would not have the will to push the button. The military posthumously proved him wrong, although Coldman hinted in his final words that he never actually cared if they did fire or not, or at least no longer cared. In addition, he certainly didn't predict the possiblity that Peace Walker would actually attempt to drown itself than go through with it.
  • Executive Meddling: The Japanese version of the game had to edit its torture scene to utilizing "Laughing Rods" instead of shock rods because of the censors demanding they do so to maintain their "T" rating (or the Japanese equivalent).
    • In America, some items had to be changed due to the fact that they were real-world products (even though one of the products, Pepsi NEX, was not actually available outside Japan anyhow.).
    • A rare in-game and rather literal example, as during The Boss's participation of the Mercury Project, things were going smoothly in terms of researching, but then the Department of Defense asked for a window to be installed on the spacepod that The Boss was to go into space in upon discovering that the Soviets were going to send Gregarian into Space with a window as well, and wanted to beat the Russians. Ultimately, the last-minute decision did not end well.
  • Extended Gameplay: In fact, it's the only thing to do while you wait for your lazy R&D members to finish working on your guns and get weapon schematics.
  • Expy: Huey is nearly identical to Otacon in every way that matters, from story role to personality to facial appearance to voice actor. About the only thing different is that he's confined to a high-tech wheelchair, he smokes, and he isn't an Otaku. His voice actor, Christopher Randolph, had some trouble getting his performance down pat for Huey, because many line readings wound up being "too Otacon".
    • Liquid is canonically able to feasibly pose as Miller, so both characters resemble each other. Notable because Miller manages to resemble a clone of Big Boss but not the man himself.
    • Metal Gear Zeke's default form is extremely similar to a thin Metal Gear Rex; the main difference is that unlike Rex, Zeke's railgun doesn't launch nukes, using it in a more traditional way to shoot you.
    • The "Pupa" is effectively an upgraded, miniaturized Shagohod. Snake asks Huey about this and he admits that he saw some of Sokolov's designs for the Shagohod, which inspired him to create the Pupa.
    • Gear Rex is basically a dinosaur version of Metal Gear REX.
    • At least in the English version, Paz Ortega Andrade/Pacifica Ocean and Ramon Galvez Mena/Vladimir Alexandrovich Zadornov are essentially expies of Elisa/Ursula and Gene, respectively, from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, with them even sharing their English VAs.
  • Evil Laugh: Hot Coldman, plus Paz, but her's is more creepy evil than evil evil.
  • Eye Beams: In a bit of a literal Mythology Gag, Peace Walker (often called "El Basilisko") is able to freeze you in place with its "Poison Beam" it shoots from its giant eye. In other words, Huey just threw in a basilisk's petrifying gaze.
  • Faceless Goons: A wide variety of them! There's actually a large number of enemy types, each with their own form of facelessness. Snake's own MSF troops also wear balaclavas that make them all look the same, unless they're wearing shades, which actually manage to obscure any identifying facial features. Surprisingly, there's one enemy type that doesn't wear face-covering gear, the white shirt-wearing soldiers inside certain base interiors, but they too wear shades.
  • Fake Longevity: Did you think those first few boss fights against armored vehicles, tanks, and choppers were fun? You won't after doing them fifty goddamned times.
    • Enemy placement is never randomized, unlike Portable Ops and its expansion, which at least had the wonder of randomizing pre-set search patterns.
    • You also need to repeat the same missions over and over while you wait for your R&D team to stop lounging around and work on your freaking weapon upgrades. Ditto if you're getting weapon details from Outer Ops.
    • Also, trying to even get certain Monster Hunter related items to even have the chance to develop certain weapons is going to be, at the very least, an annoyance, and at worst a complete, nightmarishly long, irritating swearfest (to wit: even with fully upgraded explosive weapons, fighting the three monsters is an exercise in tolerance for grinding). Ditto in regards to certain weapons related codenames.
    • You thought fighting the AI weapons plus Peace Walker were fun? You won't after fighting them about a thousand times just to get their parts or all of their AI chips (which gets progressively more annoying to get when you have most of them and end up having to gain repeats).
  • Fake Nationality: British-born Robin Atkin Downes voices the Japanese Kazuhira Miller.
    • Canadian Tara Strong voiced the Costa Rican Paz Ortega Andrade.
    • American Vanessa Marshall voiced British woman Strangelove.
  • Fallen Hero / Horrible Judge of Character: In the cutscene where Big Boss meets Huey, shortly after Pupa was destroyed/decommissioned, He mentioned that Coldman, at the height of the Cold War, was regarded as a hero, indicating that Coldman was either of the Fallen Hero trope, or the masses and the government really had a horrible judgment of character in regards to him.
  • Fan Service: Two cutscenes allow you to see Paz in her underwear, though the first is mostly so we can examine her injuries. Cecile was stripped to her undergarments to try to prevent her escaping (of course, this does have Truth in Television - going into the jungle without an appropriate amount of clothing and without survival skills is suicide). After getting the bikini or S-ranking the Date with Paz, you can see Paz, Cecile, Strangelove or Amanda in bikinis. As a bonus, screwing with the camera a little can make their breasts jiggle (Jiggle Physics in Metal Gear!?), but it's not always visible.
    • Fan Disservice: Paz constantly taunting you and chortling about killing you quickly turns it into Erection Rejection. Shut up already, Paz.
    • Kaz is both, depending on your gender or sexual orientation. Kojima forces you to play his level before you can see Paz (or, heck, the rest of the important Females on Mother Base) in her/their bikini(s).
    • In addition, the swimsuits are a LOT more revealing for the males than the females.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: In order to receive a lower rating in Japan, a certain scene had to be censored. Instead of lightning rods to torture, laughing rods are used.
    • Big Boss has traded in his knife for a stun rod since the last game; no more throat-slitting for him! That didn't stop the Peace Sentinels or KGB soldiers from using knives in close quarters when Big Boss or an MSF soldier is caught/raised an alert, however...
  • Femme Fatale: Strangelove (pre-Chapter 4) was evidentially of this trope. However, Paz/Pacifica Ocean qualifies for the entire game, in a way that would shock a lot of players when this is found out.
  • Flash Back: Multiple ones to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
  • Flashback Echo: The Boss's horse must be euthanised by the player in a manner similar to that of The Boss.
  • Flash Step: The flying "Chrysalis" weapon is able to dodge missiles while in attack mode. If you don't have something that can lock on, you're not going to hit it very much.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Mother Base eventually turns into Outer Heaven.
    • Well, it would be twenty-one years early if it did...
    • Not to mention in the Carribean Sea instead of in Africa...
    • If the Grenada briefing is any indication, apparently the Invasion of Grenada stemmed from photos of Chrysalis being leaked to Sir Eric Gairy, the prime minister at the time, by Chico, and unintentionally Big Boss.
  • Foreshadowing: Well, okay, it's more like "back-shadowing", but if Snake calls Huey on the Codec while near the river, Huey will remark that he has always dreaded being near the water. Two guesses as to what happened to him by the time of Metal Gear Solid 2.
    • Also, notice how despite the fact that Paz didn't do any evil by the end of Chapter 4, her introduction had her name highlighted in red as if she were a villain? Let's just say that there's a very good reason for why such is the case.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: 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. 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...)
    • Paz strips down to her undies when she pilots ZEKE during the True Final Boss fight. This is either because she's gone a little crazy or because ZEKE's pilot pod fills with water when it goes into battle mode.
    • She takes off the clothing because it's technically symbolic of her shedding her skin, and revealing her true identity, which is not a school girl, but a 21 year old woman. And Fan Service, ofcourse.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even after a certain Paz aka Paz Ortega Andrade aka Pacifica Ocean betrays the team and is "killed" via Never Found the Body, the character is still in the roster; with their skills positively affecting the team (and occasionally offering advice via radio). Oddly enough, Ramon/Zadornov doesn't come back in a subversion. Also, in the final cutscene of the first ending, Snake takes off his bandanna to symbolize that he is now Big Boss, but the bandanna is still on his character model, even in later story missions.
    • Actually, that last part isn't gameplay and story segregation at all, since both the CGI and Graphic Novel cutscenes for the scenes directly relating to Big Boss's fight against Paz/ZEKE had him wearing the bandana as well.
  • Gaussian Girl: Amanda sees Naked Snake as this when learning his true identity. Like in Snake Eater with Ocelot, this is justified, as she was losing consciousness at the time.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: 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 Nicaragua.
    • Kaz 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.
  • Genre Shift: The gameplay model in Peace Walker is a derivative of Monster Hunter and Metal Gear Solid 3, 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. Unfortunately this change has lead to a complete absence of the boss fights the Metal Gear Series is perhaps best known for: Solo combat against creative and bizarre human-sized adversaries. Thankfully, the new gameplay elements seem to have won over the fanbase.
  • Get Back Here Boss: The Chrysalis, a flying Unmanned Weapon that shifts between a hovering Attack Mode and a Flight Mode that lets it zoom around the landscape. In its Attack Mode, you can't land good shots with missiles because it will Flash Step out of the way, and it likes to hide beneath the horizon (or in the fog) while in Flight Mode. Bottom line: Get something powerful, preferably one with anti-air homing capabilities, or you're in for a long, hard fight.
  • Glass Cannon: Your soldiers in Outer Ops, once you develop the Kampfpistol. With it, they can destroy even custom vehicles in a few shots, but of course, they can't take much facing missile launchers or vehicle fire.
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors: As a rule of thumb, yellow denotes good and red denotes evil.
    • Which heavily implies interesting things near the end of the final ending-screen-slash-exposition, plus your saved game preview image color changed from yellow to red (which happened in other games in the series, but still)...
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Played straight with the Peace Sentinels, in typical Metal Gear fashion.
    • Averted in the case of your own group, the Militaires Sans Frontieres. They actually proved themselves to be quite capable soldiers, and when Zadornov escaped custody the first time and was recaptured the first time, they immediately removed his prosthetic hand in order to ensure that he doesn't try to use it to escape again. It didn't quite work, but then again, that's mainly because of Paz's actions, a person who not even Big Boss suspected as being a spy.
  • Guide Dang It: 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 railgun) 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.
    • Trying to get the Neo Moss camo (with the best Camo rate!) alone. To start with, you need to be in a specific ghost mission. S Ranking that mission only gets you a missile design spec. Guess how to get it. You use your codec near a ghost until you contact The End. Yes, HIM.
    • 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).
  • Hand Cannon: The M19, which knocks enemies down enemies. Bonus points for the second and third levels of it, adding a longer barrel and a massive laser sight. Also, the Kampfpistol, a converted Nazi flare gun that shoots grenades.
  • Heroic BSOD: Although Big Boss was shown to be feeling remorse at The Boss's death in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, it is implied in this game from various intrusive flashbacks to Tselinoyarsk and reacting with shock at someone referring to "Jack" and learning about The Boss AI's existence that the Heroic BSOD he earned in the ending of Snake Eater had worsened significantly by this game.
  • Heroic Sacrifice / Redemption Equals Death: The Peace Walker's Mammal Pod, after fighting Big Boss twice, decided to not carry out Coldman's final will in regards to leaking the NORAD data (especially when it was going to cause a nuclear war), and allowed Big Boss in so he could remove all the uplink drives in the Mammal Pod, and when that didn't work, decided instead to drown itself in order to short-circuit the transmission of the false data, and it is also implied that because of these actions, The Boss was cleared of all charges of treason.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!:
    • In the Japanese dub, Paz is voiced by Nana Mizuki, and she had the honor of singing the first image song for Metal Gear.
      • In the English dub, Paz is voiced by... Tara Strong, who also voiced Rikku from Final Fantasy X (whom coincidentially Paz shares a similar face model with).
    • Kazuhira Miller sounded like Gintoki, and so Cecile sounded a bit like Sacchan.
      • In English, Miller's voiced by... no, not Cam Clarke, but Robin Atkin Downes, aka Travis Touchdown. His delivery is pretty darn similar to Cam Clarke's Miller, though. There's also some Fridge Brilliance in not casting Cam Clarke: Cam Clarke never voiced Miller himself, but an imposter posing as Miller.
    • Chico is voiced by Kikuko Inoue, who voiced Jaime Seed in Snatcher, Karen Hojo in Policenauts, The Boss in Snake Eater and Rosemary in Sons of Liberty. And since Cute Shotaro Boys are not her usual forte, this counts as playing against type.
    • Strangelove is voiced the same voice actress and model of Raging Raven, Yumi Kikuchi, in Guns of Patriots.
      • On a related note, Strangelove is also voiced by Vanessa Marshall, who voiced Olga Gurlukovich in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (who she bears a slight resemblance to), and EVA in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
    • Hot Coldman is voiced by the same voice actor as Sigma from the Mega Man X series in the Japanese Version. In America, he is voiced by H. Richard Greene (AKA, Congressman Robert Royce from The West Wing)
    • And Amanda sounding like Temari or Nana Osaki.
    • Donna Burke, the singer who sings "Heaven's Divide" is the voice of Raising Heart.
    • Ramon Galvez Mena/Vladimir Alexandrovich Zadornov is voiced in the Japanese version by Agent Smith.
  • Historical In-Joke: Probably not that surprising given one of the things MGS is rather infamous for, but in one of the briefing tapes, specifically the rather infamous one involving Big Boss mentioning that he believes in Santa Claus, the conversation had him mentioning that he thought NORAD tracked Santa Claus, referring to a real life event in the early fifties where, due to a mistake in printing phone numbers, a tracking Santa phone number intended for a Sears Department Store was mixed up with the phone number for NORAD, which spawned a tradition called "NORAD tracks Santa."
    • The Football War was briefly referenced by Paz/Pacifica Ocean in one of her briefing tapes.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Hinted to be one of Coldman's beliefs due to the tattoo on the back on his head depicting a wolfman holding a peace symbol also including the phrase "Homo Homini Lupus", which is a latin phrase that translates to "Man is a wolf to [his fellow] man", although this also may be a form of Lampshading on his part about his characterization as an unrepentent Complete Monster. In addition, Paz hints that humans are naturally inclined to battle each other and thus be absolute jerks towards one another, both in her Peace-loving act and in her true self.
  • Humongous Mecha: Even by Metal Gear standards this game is saturated. "Huey" Emmerich has developed four prototypes for the Peace Walker deterrent system, each designed with a significantly different motor-control systems and armaments. He also develops a fifth for Big Boss, bringing the total to five.
  • Identical Son-slash-Grandson: Not only do we get to meet Otacon's father "Huey" for the first time (after seeing him in a photograph with Granin in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater), we also see a photograph of Huey's father and what do you know? He looks just like Otacon too!
  • Idiot Ball: Big Boss finds himself holding it when first meeting Dr. Strangelove, who emotionally gets a rise out of him. He even admits it later that "she played [him] like a piano."
  • Instrument of Murder: The AI Weapons are primitive Vocaloids put into big, heavily-armed tanks.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Listen to some of the tapes with Paz. You can definitely tell there's some of this between Snake and her.
  • It Got Worse: The entire climax of Chapter 4.
  • I Knew It!: In-universe, comes from Strangelove when she's trying to interrogate Snake into revealing the one piece of data that will allow her to complete her recreation of the Boss's mind: why she apparently nuked Russia when she was (a) defecting to them and (b) supposed to be ultimately loyal to America in the first place. The only possible solution is that the Boss was a Fake Defector; Snake's silence under torture proves the theory. Big Boss also immediately deduces that Ramon Galvez Mena/Vladimir Zadornov is actually a KGB agent and not a Professor of Peace, because of his prosthetic hand.
  • Irony: A KGB agent named Vladimir Zadornov, AKA Ramon Galvez Mena, as well as his entire KGB unit, were taken down by FSLN Members who were originally organized by them behind the scenes, similar to how Zadornov betrayed Coldman and his Peace Sentinel unit.
    • Also, you build your own final boss, ZEKE. How powerful it is is directly influenced by how well you've built it.
    • Paz is forced to shoot Hot Coldman. Oh noes, the poor pacifist! ...oh wait, true ending; she's been manipulating the entire thing.
    • As noted by IGN in their review, it is quite ironic that Peace Walker, easily the biggest Metal Gear game in terms of content, is on the PSP, Sony's smallest device.
    • Pacifica/Paz's dedication to the mission is extremely similar to The Boss's dedication to the mission. Though, Paz was scared out of her mind of what would happen if she betrayed Zero, compared to The Boss's total dedication to the US despite knowing what would happen to her, and kept denying she hated the MSF, and eventually gets her ass kicked with little fanfare (besides Chico's grieving and what-ifs and Miller's grumbling about her betrayal - which he caused).
  • Just Between You and Me: Shockingly reversed at the beginning of the game, then hugely played straight multiple times later on. Before the first mission proper, Galvez 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 (Although to be fair, he also conveniently leaves out the fact that he also intended to use an experimental mech to essentially frame the United States for nuking Cuba, and makes it seem as though the primary reason he wants to hire them was to investigate the CIA's activities besides driving out the Soviet presence). As Big Boss is a mercenary (and Galvez 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).
  • Kick the Dog: Coldman pushes Huey, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, backwards down a flight of stairs.
  • Last Day to Live: Subverted: 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.)
  • Lethal Chef: There are a few quotes that indicate this, such as one soldier who states that they shouldn't worry, as his/her cooking's 100% safe for human consumption. Likewise, the player during certain missions can also invoke the trope on themselves by either taking the ration off the BBQ spit too early or too late, making the Rare Ration and the Burnt Ration, respectively (and if the player does the former, Miller will call in and say "Don't quit your day job.")
  • Level Grinding: 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 insignia for leveling all categories of weapons to the maximum for each rank.
    • The Codenames, if not sought after earlygame, can become this, too. One of the WORST to grind for by far is the "FOXHOUND" codename.
  • Lighter and Softer: Since kids and adolescents are the largest audience for PSP users in Japan, Kojima had to tone down the language and the violence in this installment. Examples include completely removing blood, replacing Big Boss' knife with a stun rod, and reducing the amount of sexual innuendos. Moreover, in the Japanese release, Konami heavily edited the torture scene by instead featuring the use of laughing rods, and disregarding any other story references to the torture.
  • Lightning Bruiser: All of the AI Weapons (with the exception of the Cocoon) qualify in one way or another; some of them are capable of jumping around, and they are some of the most agile ones seen in the Metal Gear franchise. Unless you've got a homing missile launcher, which makes things a lot easier.
    • With enough grinding of AI boards and the right custom AI parts you can make Zeke become a VERY deadly unit in Outer Ops. And the better you build it, the faster and deadlier it is during its own boss fight.
  • The Magnificent Seven Samurai: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is about Costa Rica recruiting a heroic mercenary group to defend it from mysterious invaders, since it legally can't keep its own defence force.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Zadornov manipulated the Militaires Sans Frontieres into taking the mission and training the Sandinistas so he could essentially hijack Peace Walker without needing to dirty his hands as an intelligence operative for the KGB. Likewise, Coldman was heavily implied to have manipulated most of the factors of the mission for him to have the perfect excuse to use Peace Walker and nearly cause a nuclear holocaust. Paz, or rather, Pacifica Ocean actually tops them all (and that's even assuming Zadornov's plan on MSF was separate of Paz's), as she, under orders from Cipher/Zero/The Patriots, manipulated everything in the mission so that they could either recruit Big Boss back into the fold or eliminate him/frame MSF.
  • Meaningful Name: It's a Metal Gear Solid game, so it's expected.
    • Paz's name means 'peace' in Spanish. Her (alleged) real name, "Pacifica," means "peaceful" and the full name is blatant pun on the Pacific Ocean.
    • Kazuhira's name is an inversion of 'heiwa', meaning 'peace' in Japanese.
    • Huey's name is actually a nickname given him by Strangelove, which she claims to be taken from the drone in Silent Running.
    • "Dr. Strangelove" refers to the film of the same name; which was about nuclear deterrence gone horribly wrong involving an automatic doomsday device (guess what this game's about!). However, she says that the other reason she's nicknamed this is because her colleagues derided her for her "strange love." She liked it though, because "being strange means you have a unique perspective."
    • Amanda's last name, Libre, means 'free' in Spanish.
    • Chico means 'young man' or 'boy' in Spanish.
    • Cecile's middle and last name is pronounced Kojima Kaminandesu in Japanese, which is a play on the phrase Kojima, kami nan desu ("Kojima, he's definitely a god").
    • The AI Weapons, Pupa, Chrysalis and Cocoon, (and the codenames for the Reptile Pod, Aurelia, and (arguably) the Mammal Pod, Imago) are all stages of a butterfly's life cycle.
    • Hot Coldman's name most likely refers to his paradoxical belief that to achieve world peace, he must blow up the OCEAN. It's also a pun off the Cold War thing.
    • Numerous references call Peace Walker itself a "basilisk." Partly because basilisk lizards are so agile they can run on water, partly because the basilisk of legend was the "king of snakes" and partly because of its intended use as a deterrence weapon: when struck, the basilisk's poison killed the knight who struck it down.
      • Peace Walker is also unflatteringly analogued to an infamous historical figure, William Walker, a 19th century American mercenary who became President of Nicaragua.
    • Zadornov mentions that his first name, "Vladimir," translates to "ruler of peace." He appreciates the irony.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal / Not What I Signed on For: Huey only worked with Coldman with the intention of effectively applying nuclear deterrence so a nuke won't be launched even once. Unfortunately, after learning that Coldman's just an omnicidal wacko whose idea of deterrence is "nuke everyone so no one can nuke anyone", he understandably refuses to cooperate with Coldman, and after Coldman shoves Huey (a paraplegic) off the stairs, he ends up aiding Big Boss in destroying the Pupa, and also later joining the Militaires Sans Frontieres. Strangelove herself is also implied to have undergone a similar help face turn, since she was originally quite hateful of Big Boss for killing The Boss, but when she was torturing him, it was implied that she covertly let him escape (presumably due to learning of Coldman's involvement in The Boss's death as well as his satisfaction in planning that event), and later thanked Big Boss for stopping the Peace Sentinels, and after the events of the fourth chapter, joined the Militaires Sans Frontieres.
    • 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 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 nuclear strike would jeporadize any chances of MSF expanding.
    • It is heavily implied that most of the American operatives of the Peace Sentinels (and possibly some members of the FSLN) had joined the Peace Sentinels / FSLN and the Militaires Sans Frontieres later on because they had nowhere else to go, because the American government apparently abandoned them shortly after they returned from Vietnam.
    • In one of EVA's tapes regarding The Boss's secret mission that resulted in her abandoning Snake (which, prior to the release of Peace Walker, had not been elaborated on), she mentioned that one of her moles for America that was within the Soviet Union ended up falsifying documents for NASA which The Boss noticed. It's later revealed he defected to the Soviet Union, although what shocked The Boss more was why he defected: The CIA pocketed a majority of his paycheck and giving him a tiny percent despite risking his life trying to get the intel, and so defected completely to the Soviet Union.
  • More Dakka: The "Cocoon" AI Weapon is made of this trope. It's slow, lumbering, and covered on all sides and surfaces with gun ports, gun turrets, mini-guns and missile launchers. Its main cannon is powerful enough that it can blow you away in one hit on higher difficulties, and one of its moves is spinning in place while firing every machine gun it's got. Snake himself can go for a "More Dakka" by equipping an oversized gatling gun straight out of Team Fortress 2.
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: Source of the "controversial" "Vic Boss" "joke".
  • Mythology Gag: Around the time of the main villain's death, the doomsday weapon ends up being activated and is going to fire a nuke at its programmed targets, thus forcing the main character to fight it within a time limit? Now where have we seen this before?
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero / Gone Horribly Right: Big Boss fires some rounds at Peace Walker's direction to prevent it from going through the Nicaraguan border. It worked, as it aborted the previous command temporarily. Unfortunately, it also replaced its command with entering small-scale threat suppression threat mode, meaning that Big Boss, as a result of his actions, just got himself into a fight with Peace Walker.
  • No Body Left Behind: Subverted and played straight; dying, unconscious or stunned guard soldiers remain on the ground so the player can use the Fulton Surface-To-Air Recovery System on them, while dead soldiers disappear after a few seconds, presumably so the player doesn't accidentally use a balloon on them. On alert or elimination missions, stunned or sleeping enemies disappear after a few moments with a non-lethal blue version of the "near death" skull.
  • No Fourth Wall: It wouldn't be a Metal Gear Solid game otherwise. This one gets down to business immediately; we start off with a drill instructor angrily shouting at the troops (and the player, since Big Boss is joining the training exercise) that we need to press the X button to change stances, tap the X button to crouch, and keep it held to lie down. "DON'T FORGET IT!"
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Although many of the English voice cast (Such as Tara Strong and Steve Blum) attempt to deliver an appropriate accent, none of the regular Mooks you run into or employ have any inflection other than a standard American brogue. This is obviously intended to avert the reputation for bad accents the series has had since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
    • However it does undermine the Running Gag of MSF soldiers referring to Big Boss as "Vic Boss", as some interpret this joke infers that they are mispronouncing the first "B" in his name due to their having South American accents. Which they don't have. Whether this joke is inferred to be due to translation convention, a joke on the part of BB's men or something else entirely is quite contested among fans.
    • Many think it's short for "Victory Boss". He still doesn't like being called Big Boss at this point, and prefers that if they insist on calling him something besides Snake it be this. Think about the dialogue at the beginning, it makes it pretty obvious:

Soldier: "Thank you, Big Boss."
Big Boss: "Call me Snake."
Soldier: "Oh sorry, Vic Boss!"
Snake(BB): "Listen up, for us there is no victory..."

      • Snake directly acknowledges what it's supposed to stand for.
    • The Japanese version tends to support the 'Victory Boss' argument, as the soldier calls him 'Shōri no Boss' meaning Boss of Victory or Victory Boss.
    • Also, with Paz, for unknown reasons, despite her diary tapes explaining that she was actually raised in America (and also implied that she is of Latino descent), she seems to speak with a distinctly Russian accent when unveiling her true colors to him.
  • Not So Different: Inverted in one of the Briefing Tapes: Big Boss expresses concern about Huey allowing him to place a nuclear warhead on ZEKE, as he thought this was no different than what the CIA Peace Sentinels did with Peace Walker. Huey then explains the fundamental difference between the CIA and Big Boss: The CIA charms people into helping them, yet as soon as things get hairy, they stab them in the back, whereas Big Boss is honest about his intentions, hence why Huey was willing to do so in the present.
  • Nuke'Em: Coldman's favourite policy. How do you assure world peace? Prove you are insane enough to irradiate Central America and the Caribbean Sea! How do you deal with a poorly organized mercenary force with barely over a hundred soliders based in an easily-destroyed sea plant? Drop an IRBM on their faces!
  • Oh Crap: Big Boss' Start of Darkness. Not only does he denounce the Boss as a fraud because she put down her gun and wanted to embrace peace, Peace Walker also sees the rise of Outer Heaven, thanks in part to Zero trying to screw around with him yet again.

Big Boss: "We will forsake our countries. We will leave our motherlands behind us and become one with this earth. We have no nation, no philosophy, no ideology. We go where we're needed, fighting not for country, not for government, but for ourselves. We need no reason to fight. We fight because we are needed. We will be the deterrent for those with no other recourse. We are soldiers without borders, our purpose defined by the era we live in. We will sometimes have to sell ourselves and services. If the times demand it, we'll be revolutionaries, criminals, terrorists. And yes, we may all be headed straight to Hell. But what better place for us than this? It is our only home. Our Heaven and Our Hell. This is Outer Heaven."

      • This speech has torn some people, due to the changes Big Boss underwent. It helps that David Hayter puts more of a gruff and bitter voice on Snake during this speech.

Peace Walker: Initiating Nuclear Launch Sequence. Launch Angle Set. Thirty Seconds To Launch.
The Player: Oh crap oh crap oh crap!!

      • Hope you're fast enough to do enough damage to Peace Walker in time. If you're not, and the nuke launches, Snake will have this exact expression on his face.
  • Oh, No, Not Again: When Snake expresses confusion about the fulton hook being equipped to helicopters (thus forcing Kazuhira Miller to explain the reasons behind it), Kaz's reaction is an irritated and exhasperated "Not this again..."
  • Omniglot: Big Boss, aside from knowing Russian and English, is shown to be fluent in French (he says a phrase in French to attempt to calm Cecile Cosima Caminandes down when meeting her), and both Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller are implied to be, if not fluent, at least knowledgeable in Spanish (Big Boss uses various spanish phrases when communicating with the Nicaraguans, he also mentioned that Miller was gifted in Spanish in a briefing tape regarding how they met, and the motto for Militaires Sans Frontieres during their operations in Colombia was "Liberte O Muerte", which is Spanish for "[Give me] liberty, or [give me] death"), and the latter of the two is good at speaking both Japanese and English (the former being his native tongue). Big Boss, in a briefing tape with Chico regarding Trenya, also implies that he subconsciously learned how to speak cat. Aside from knowing Russian and presumably English, Vladimir Zadornov is also implied to know Spanish, as well (he uses various spanish words when talking, and it is implied that he was the one who directly recruited the FSLN), as is Paz/Pacifica, who spoke with various spanish phrases and English, and it is implied that she is capable of speaking Russian as well (when unveiling her true colors, Paz is speaking in a distinctly Russian accent).
  • On Site Procurement: Surprisingly averted in regards to the weapons and most of your equipment, considering the fact that the Metal Gear series was the Trope Namer. You actually have to gain design specs and create weapons and most of your equipment from scratch after gaining the design specs (some of which are also extremely annoying to get). Rations and ammo (sometimes ammo that belongs to weapons you have yet to develop [IE, Railgun Ammo]) are played straight, however.
  • One-Winged Angel: Not a human character, but Peace Walker transforms from a biped to a quadruped after beating it at the mine base. It should be noted that this is the closest Metal Gear has ever canonically gone to invoking the trope. The series overall, however, had Big Boss going One-Winged Angel in the non-canonical Snake's Revenge.
  • One-Woman Wail: The AI Weapons in Peace Walker all sing an eerie, haunting song even as they attack you. Cecile also implies that the AI Weapons (barring Peace Walker) used Strangelove's voice.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Dr. Strangelove is named after the movie and never reveals her real name. "Huey" Emmerich never says his real name either.
  • Pacifist Run: A heck of a lot easier to attempt than in previous MGS games, simply because the game is broken up into bite-sized missions. So you can S-Rank one or two missions here or there, and get back to the ones where you were forced to take lethal action later, aided by non-lethal weapons you've collected and developed since the last time.
  • Playing with Fire: Chico explains while being rescued that his "camping out" after getting into fights with his sister were actually attempts to burn down the various portions of the drug plant.
  • Power Floats: Sort of. Chrysalis was designed to be a VTOL, but it rarely, if ever, lands (although Negishi revealed that it was originally intended to land in-game), making the only way for it to meet ground is to forcibly introduce Chrysalis to it.
  • Press X to Not Die: Some of the cutscenes include quick-time events; however, this will not result in a Game Over and will simply replay that part of the cutscene over again.
    • Although, some cutscenes DO push on if you botch it, and your rank will be reduced for it.
  • Product Placement: The Japanese version has Mountain Dew, Doritos, Pepsi NEX, Bon Curry, AXE Bodyspray, and Uniquo T-shirts. Most of the products were changed to generic names in the American release, however...
  • Private Military Contractors: How Outer Heaven came to be from Militaires Sans Frontières.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: While there isn't a cohesive unit to provide the MGS-staple of batshit insane bosses, the nearest thing would be the unmanned AI weapons. They come bristling with More Dakka and chirp out their attacks in either an increasingly calm female computer voice ( which takes on an angry tone when facing the Custom models) or an eerie tune.
  • Randomly Drops: The Monster Hunter bosses may drop stuff which allows you to view their bios (and them) safely from Mother Base. It's also a disguise, since the drops let you design more weapons. Gear Rex drops three ranks of the same weapon in three increasingly harder missions.
  • Rape as Drama: Heavily implied to be what happened to Paz while captured by the Peace Sentinels (specifically by Hot Coldman).
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Invoked with a DLC uniform called the Pink Uniform. Invoked twice in the Japanese version, with the Maria t-shirt.
  • Real Time with Pause: The first Metal Gear game to somewhat avert this trope. Time keeps on slipping while you're in the weapon and item screens, and the only way to outright pause the action without turning the game off is to put your PSP into sleep mode, or play single-player. Pausing only really stops game time, but not alerts or comms.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: A flaregun that fires miniature grenades as its primary ammo couldn't possibly be real...wait, such a weapon existed in World War II?
  • Refuge in Vulgarity: 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 Kazuhira 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 Kazuhira Miller, causing them to laugh quite a bit.
  • Revive Kills Zombie: One of the side-missions uses this trope literally. There are ruins haunted by ghosts, and the only way to get rid of the ghosts is to perform CPR on their nearby bodies, sucking the ghosts back into their bodies.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Villified: Sort of. The Sandinistas are portrayed pretty sympathetically. When one of them reveals their recent source of funds is due to them working coca fields so they can pay for their food and ammunition, Amanda is clearly ashamed of it, and Chico's furious at her.
    • Indirectly starts a plot point. Chico saw Peace Walker after getting into another fight with her over the drug shipments and running off.
    • This applies to the many shout-outs to Che Guevara, too. The man was far from perfect, but his legend lives on in the hearts of the revolutionaries and is bigger than the man was. Naturally, when the Sandinistas encounter Big Boss, another man whose reputation precedes him, they gravitate to him too. One of them temporarily thinks he's Che when he steps into the boathouse, where they're tied up.
  • Rocket Punch: Vladamir/Galvez tries this in the endgame. It's not very effective, but it does give Big Boss a free cigarette lighter, which he's been looking for the whole game.
  • Rubber Band AI: A form of it: The better you've built Metal Gear ZEKE, the more formidable it is as an opponent.
  • She's Just Hiding: Invoked In-Universe: A briefing tape unlocked after getting all of Paz's diary tapes that takes place after Paz was defeated by Big Boss has Big Boss hinting at the possibility that Paz survived the fight due to her both landing in the water as well as wearing scuba gear.
  • Serial Escalation: The sheer scale of The Boss's trials and tribulations, as revealed by EVA and Strangelove. Hideo might have taken it too far.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: Heavily averted. Even the sawn-off shotguns have pretty good range once you take the time to focus your aim, and there's also the mentioned sniper shotgun that does Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Shout-Out: As should be expected for a Hideo Kojima game, there's lots.
    • "2001: A Space Oddysey" is referenced numerous times, both by Huey and Dr. Strangelove. In fact, how you defeat the AI weapons is a direct reference to how HAL was dismantled in that movie; you climb into the weapon's brain, a cramped red room, and start yanking out circuit boards. In the final battle, both start spewing gibberish as the boards are yanked out.
    • Multiple ones to Che Guevara, considering this game takes place in the 1970's in Latin America. Snake's camera is the same kind Che used, they make mention of his drinking mate tea, and his final words, "Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!" are uttered by Snake himself. When it looks like Snake's number is up, the villain remarks, "Dead at 39. Just like El Che."
    • Snake and his soldiers can perform the Leap of Faith from Assassin's Creed, with purposefully inaccurate history lessons over the radio telling of how piles of straw were used by assassins of the Third Crusade.
    • Going back to the original inspiration for Solid Snake, the movie Escape from New York, our hero starts off trying to get people to just "Call me Snake." And like in that movie, he inverts it at the end. "Call me... Big Boss."
    • Gear Rex's origin story is a blatant reference to how Godzilla was created. Minus the necromancy bit.
    • Coldman basically forcing the US Government/Military to decide whether to retaliate or not with the intention of proving that Humanity is too weak willed to go through with retaliation even when nukes are launched, only for them to prove his theory wrong, is very similar to The Joker's "social experiment" in the climax of The Dark Knight.
    • Dr. Strangelove herself is the obvious Shout-Out to the film of the same name, but Peace Walker itself functions in much the same manner as the Doomsday Weapon from Dr. Strangelove.
    • What do some of the MSF soldiers want to do with the money they made in MSF for after leaving? become a Shrimper and have him and his friends buy themselves a big boat.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Oh, yes. Wouldn't be a Metal Gear game without it. However, this is the second time you don't actually get to use cigarettes or a cigar in gameplay, the first being Portable Ops, where there was only one mention of a Cigar in the whole game.
    • Subverted with Chico. He always wants to smoke, but is denied it by Amanda. Big Boss gives him a cigar... for him to light and snatch away.
  • Smug Snake: Gálvez/Zadornov. Paz, too, in her diary entries, at least until toward the end.
    • She was obviously enjoying herself more than she cared to admit at Mother Base, and her petty "GRRR Stupid cat! Stupid soldiers! Bwahahaha!" kinda makes her endearing in oh god what a mustache twirling villain kinda way.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Sing" by The Carpenters, a song originally created for Sesame Street, plays in the background as Strangelove prepares to interrogate Snake.
    • During the final mission 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, "Heaven's Divide" is heard. It is a melancholic song of loss, futility and love destroyed by conflict.
  • Start My Own: The point of the game and capturing enemy mercenaries. Mother Base starts off as little more than an offshore birdhouse-slash-ocean-thermal-energy-conversion plant crewed by five guys, but it eventually becomes a massive complex.
  • The Stinger: It's revealed in a briefing file you get after clearing all the missions that Kaz was at least briefly in cahoots with Zero as a business partner and partially responsible for the mess, something that was also mentioned in the true ending. It's technically not a true stinger, though, as some comments, namely Paz's mention of another agent leaking her final modifications to ZEKE, as well as the lack of mention of ZEKE's destruction (or even a reference to ZEKE besides the "AI being validated") in the call itself, implies that the call was made before Big Boss fought ZEKE.
    • It might provide sort of a sequel hook to the next MGS game, as PSM 3 speculates that the "Next" MGS might take place in Angola, citing the tape in question, although it still doesn't change the fact that it takes place before the ZEKE battle.
  • The Stool Pigeon: Chico and presumably some other FSLN members were of the Lacerated Larry type (They end up squealing their allies whereabouts to the Peace Sentinels via torture, and it is heavily implied that they don't even live to see the day afterwards as the Peace Sentinels murder them after squealing).
    • Inverted with Big Boss: Strangelove manages to deduce why The Boss seemingly betrayed her country because Big Boss refused to talk.
  • Story to Gameplay Ratio: Vastly improved over most previous Metal Gear Solid games. Cutscenes usually only last five minutes and the plot, while smart, isn't overly complicated. There's about three times as many Extra Ops missions as there are story missions, too.
    • And for those who like it when Kojima waxes poetic about every subject in the universe, the Briefing Tapes provide hours of audio recordings as such, and they are not only completely optional but indexed succinctly as well. It combines the best parts of the series's infamous radio conversations and the Briefing section in Metal Gear Solid to great effect.
  • Sword of Damocles: Peace Walker, built on the idea that since humans don't have the will to wipe out humanity themselves, will launch nuclear retaliation automatically. The "perfect deterrent".
  • Take That: Big Boss gives a subtle one towards the student movements in Japan and the Hippie movement in America when talking with Cecile about the success of France's student movement.
  • Taking You with Me: 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.
    • Kazuhira 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.
  • Talking to Himself: In the English version, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Deputy Secretary of Defense are both voiced by Grant Albrecht.
  • Teasing Creator: The only possible explanation for the two "date" missions. Hideo Kojima is laughing at all of us. Fortunately, we can laugh along with him.
  • Theme Naming: Much like the game itself, several characters are named after the concept of peace in other languages, including Paz (Spanish), Miller (Kazuhira, which is Japanese), and even Gálvez and Paz' true names, Galvez' real name being Vladimir, meaning "Ruler of Peace" in Russian, and Paz' being Pacifica, which is derived from Pax, the latin word for Peace.
  • Theres No Kill Like Overkill: Played with: The weapons that the Peace Sentinels 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.
  • Title Drop: Peace Walker is used as one of the mechs of the game, and the game's (first) final boss.
  • Trojan Prisoner: Both played straight and inverted: Zadornov, when arrested, frequently escapes. His being arrested in itself wasn't a large factor in Cipher's plot. Rather, the escapes were one of, if not the most important part of their plot, as Paz released him from the brig seven times so MSF can be distracted long enough for her to finish making the necessary modifications to Metal Gear ZEKE.
  • True Final Boss: Paz piloting Metal Gear ZEKE.
  • Truth in Television: 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 Che 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 Sentinels. 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.
  • Two-Timer Date: Kazuhira Miller, according to one of Paz's briefing tapes, intentionally went on a date with two female members of MSF at the exact same time. Paz implies that this wasn't the first time, or, well, not even the fifth time, Miller has done this. Naturally, it doesn't end too well, as the girls report to Big Boss about it, causing Big Boss to go and beat up Kaz in the showers.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Kaz, just like Roy in MPO, is a blond-haired womanizing combat buddy of Naked Snake who becomes his second-in-command throughout the course of the game.
  • The Mutiny: What ended up happening when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, under Naked Snake's advice, decided to call off the retaliatory strike due to the realization that the nukes are fake.
  • Unstable Equilibrium: In true form for a Metal Gear game, going for 100% Completion after the end of the game gets you many, many Game Breaker items along the way.
  • Updated Rerelease: The console release as part of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection in the United States, as well as the Japanese-only Peace Walker HD, both of which feature redone controls with extremely minor graphics changes.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Big Boss. While most games had the player being manipulated by at least one organization, this one takes the cake with Big Boss, and several of the characters in some way or another, being manipulated by three organizations.
  • Weapon of Peace: Peace Walker herself, with "peace" being the nuclear deterrence definition.
  • Welcome to Hell: Big Boss tells Amanda this word for word when he tells her that she'll have to treat Chico like a soldier and not simply her brother.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: A rare protagonistic example: Amanda, the leader of the Sandinistas, is willing to kill others, and as she stated, is willing to go to hell for her actions, as long as it at least allowed her native country, Nicaragua, to be free from a stranglehold over a very terrible government who frequently neglects its own people.
    • Strangelove herself may qualify. Her intention was to find out The Boss's true intentions and then clear her name of treason if it wasn't treason she committed. However, to do this, she agreed to partake in a project headed by a monster, and also torture Big Boss for information.
    • Miller wanted MSF to expand, so he worked as a neutral business associate with Cipher to ensure it expanded. Of course, when it became apparent that Cipher was willing to actually ruin MSF by having one of their agents frame it with a nuclear strike against the USA, he went against them.
    • Huey Emmerich wanted nothing more than to allow true deterrence for peaceful applications, so that a nuke will not be fired even once, hence why he agreed to work with Coldman and his Peace Sentinels (initially).
    • Big Boss himself.
  • What Could Have Been: Apparently, the train that Snake was supposed to stop the shipment of nukes by the Peace Sentinels was originally intended to be a playable level. If the storyboards are of any indication, that train would have ended up being shot off the tracks and plummeting.
    • Also, Peace Walker was originally supposed to heavily resemble Metal Gear REX, down to the railgun and even the design of its hangar was supposed to mirror REX's hangar on Shadow Moses. In addition, Paz and Zadornov would also have been discovered earlier to not be trustworthy (especially Paz), where Paz and Zadornov are overseeing its construction, and Big Boss discovers their affiliation to the Peace Sentinels by eavesdropping from a window in a manner very similar to how Solid Snake eavesdropped on Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot's conversation in Metal Gear Solid before Coldman finds and surrounds him. Also, Coldman was intended to be killed by Zadornov alone with a gun to the head, and at some point later, Paz would actually do the very same to Zadornov before hijacking ZEKE. If some of the storyboard sketches were anything to go by, Big Boss was apparently going to actually lead his troops on a sneaking mission rather than going in alone. An entire character model, the AI lab workers, who were implied to be of German origin, was also cut.
    • Also an In-Universe example: according to Strangelove, Had Hot Coldman not died, and had the Peace Walker project finished with a success. He was going to kill off his own unit, and Strangelove also intended to commit suicide after the project was finished. The Boss's sacrifice obviously changed her decision in regards to the last part.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: The Metal Gear Solid games of the past averted this, but this one 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...
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Cecile disappears from the main story after her rescue, except for optional CODEC calls. Granted, there's not much for her to do other than to offer information on local birds, since she's a civilian and has no real reason to leave the safety of Mother Base after this.
    • It's implied in Paz's diary tapes that she was working on Mother Base as a chef. In addition, she also had a somewhat strained relationship with Kazuhira Miller, apparently reaching its breaking point when Miller, trying to emulate French customs in what is evidentially a method to impress Cecile, obliviously picked the absolute worst year of French wine to stock Mother Base with. Also, one of Cecile's briefing files (specifically the one relating to her role on Mother Base) heavily implied that Big Boss assigned her to be a scout due to her experience as a birdwatcher being very similar to the standard operating procedure of scouts.
    • What Happened To The Fox?: The rest of the soldiers that joined up with Snake at the end of Portable Ops - and Campbell, and Null, and everyone else that made it out - are... gone.
      • Justified in that they became members of FOXHOUND at the end of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. It's possible that some of them went with him when he left (thus, forming the MSF), but many others stayed, including Campbell, Null et al.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: Mammal Pod is full of butterflies! Which become the pale petals of Rokovoj Bereg! The final butterfly becomes a peace symbol upon contact with water! Hideo Kojima is a genius stop looking confused!
  • With This Herring: Some Extra Ops missions require you to hold up and immobilize entire patrols armed only with a banana.
  • Wild Teen Party: Every month, the Militaires Sans Frontieres throw birthday parties for soldiers whose birthdays fall on that month, and Paz implies that the parties are nothing more than an excuse to cut loose and drink alcohol. Similar to the Wild Teen Parties, it primarily consists of heavy smoking, heavy drinking, eat meat, tell tasteless jokes (at least one of which is mooning) and crude insults. It's subverted slightly in that it rarely gets serious.
  • You're Insane!: Miller's reaction to Coldman when the latter managed to activate Peace Walker and nearly drove the world into an all-out nuclear war in his attempt to make retaliation inevitable.
    • Amanda also has this reaction when she realizes that the Peace Sentinels are actually continuing the drug trafficking route they originally used and were turning their own country, America, into junkies.
  • "V" Sign: The V-sign. Also used in a Stealth Insult by Zadornov towards Snake, twice - palm-inwards is the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger in Britain and Australia.
  • Vocaloid: Used to voice all the first-stage Cypher bosses. Players could, with a lot of effort, make their own songs and sayings for the Cyphers to say during battles.
  • You Killed My Father: It is heavily implied that Amanda and Chico's father, the former leader of the Sandinistas, ended up killed by the Peace Sentinels when the latter infiltrated Costa Rica.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Dr. Strangelove implies in her Memories tapes that Hot Coldman will most likely have everyone in the Peace Sentinels executed after the Peace Walker tests are completed. Zadornov almost does this to Big Boss, had the MSF and the FSLN group not saved him.
  • You Said You Would Let Them Go: Invoked: Big Boss promised Cecile when meeting her that she could return to Paris, France if she got tired of Mother Base. She later demands in a briefing tape that she be returned to Paris after Kaz ordered the wrong year of French wine to stock Mother Base with, only to be implied to be met with refusal from Big Boss. Given that Cecile was not thinking straight when demanding to leave (She was drunk), Big Boss was most likely justified in keeping her at Mother Base, as he implies that the reason why he refused is specifically because she was drunk and not thinking straight.
  • Zero Effort Boss: The third battle with Peace Walker, as by now it's crippled and can't move or attack. All you need to do is shoot it with rockets or bullets until you trigger a cutscene.
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