How the hell would it have connected to MGS and not just Metal Gear? 🤨

The ending shows that the whole game exists to explain a “plot hole” that literally nobody cared about (how Big Boss survived his “death” in Metal Gear). The scrapped final mission, Mission 51, would have come before that and finished Eli’s plotline, setting him on the path to becoming Liquid Snake by the time of Metal Gear Solid.

And Ground Zeroes was always planned as a separate game to MGS5. They were supposed to release at the same time, but 5’s development got delayed.

I’m going off of what people said around Kojima’s exit, which is that Konami were unhappy with how long V was taking and forced Kojima to release Ground Zeroes as a standalone. It seems I misinterpreted what that meant!