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 (as his final work at Konami), 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.