Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a 2015 action-adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami. Directed, written, and produced by Hideo Kojima, it is the ninth installment in the Metal Gear franchise, following Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a stand-alone prologue released the previous year. Set in 1984, nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes, the story follows mercenary leader Punished "Venom" Snake as he ventures into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the Angola–Zaire border region to exact revenge on those who destroyed his forces and almost killed him during the climax of Ground Zeroes.