metal gear solid 5 when does it take place

Set in 1984, nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes and a decade before the events of the original Metal Gear, the story follows mercenary leader Punished "Venom" Snake as he ventures into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the Angolaâ€“Zaire border region to exact revenge on the people who destroyed his forces and came close to killing him during the climax of Ground Zeroes. It carries over the tagline of Tactical Espionage Operations first used in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain[b] is an action-adventure stealth game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on September 1, 2015. It is the ninth installment in the series that was directed, written and designed by Hideo Kojima following Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a stand-alone prologue released the previous year, as well as his final work at Konami.

The Phantom Pain was critically acclaimed upon release, with its gameplay drawing praise for featuring a variety of mechanics and interconnected systems which allow a high degree of player freedom in approaching objectives. While the story was acknowledged for its emotional power and exploration of mature themes, it drew criticism from some critics for its lack of focus, with further scrutiny over its second half and ending that left several plot points unresolved; this was linked to conclusive evidence of removed content, which led some to suggest that the game was released unfinished. Despite this, The Phantom Pain received perfect review scores from several publications and was described by many critics to be the greatest stealth game of all time. A complete edition that bundles The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes together, titled Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience, was released in October 2016.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is an action-adventure, stealth game in which players take the role of Punished "Venom" Snake from a third-person perspective in an open world environment.[1] The gameplay elements were largely unchanged from Ground Zeroes, meaning that players will have to sneak from several points in the game world, avoiding enemy guards, and remaining undetected.[2] Included in Snake's repertoire are binoculars, maps, a variety of weapons, explosives, and stealth-based items such as cardboard boxes and decoys.[2][3] Following one of the series traditions, The Phantom Pain encourages players to progress through the game without killing, using non-lethal weapons such as tranquilizer darts to subdue enemies.[4] Players may traverse the game world with vehicles such as jeeps and tanks, in addition to traveling on foot or on horseback, and as certain locations are mountainous,[5] occasionally, players can opt to go rock climbing as a shortcut.[6] They may call for helicopter support against enemy soldiers or request airstrikes that can bomb the target area or change the current weather.[7] Snake can call on AI companionsâ€”including Quiet, a silent female sniper with supernatural abilities; D-Horse, a horse with a customizable saddle for carrying more equipment in the field; D-Walker, a manned, highly agile mobile weapons platform that can provide heavy weapons support; and D-Dog, a wolf pup raised and trained on the new Mother Base to assist him in the field.[8] The companions' abilities and their effectiveness will depend on the player's relationship with them.[7] There is a large emphasis based on tactics in The Phantom Pain.[9]

As in Peace Walker, The Phantom Pain features a base-building system that allows players to develop weapons and items from their home base.[10] Recruitment of enemy soldiers and prisoners has also returned for this purpose, allowing the base to grow through organization. The player is given the option to access their base from their real-life smartphones and other devices via a companion app.[11] Unlike in Peace Walker where players can only see Mother Base from the air, they can control Snake as he explores the complex on foot. The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system, an item introduced into gameplay in Peace Walker, returns as well, with players able to transport captured soldiers and other objects such as animals and vehicles back to Mother Base.[12] Money for upgrading Mother Base's defenses and technology can be collected from objects found all over the map, such as diamonds, shipping containers, and special blueprint boxes,[13] as well as sending recruited soldiers on combat missions around the world. The income is invested in upgrades to the appearance and abilities, weapons and equipment of Snake, his AI companions, and vehicles. For example, Snake's prosthetic arm can be modified with a taser, echolocation function, or remote controls that allow it to fly as a drone.[14][15]

The enemy AI has improved in terms of situational awareness. If players frequently use particular weapons or tactics to subdue enemy soldiers, repeats of the mission will see the enemy increase in numbers and be outfitted with better equipment; for example, the frequent use of headshots will see enemy soldiers don metal helmets to make targeting the head harder.[16]

The game has a dynamic weather system and day-night cycle that runs in real-time.[17] The cycle is able to be fast-forwarded when Snake lights a "Phantom Cigar", a type of electronic cigar; a digital silver Seiko watch panel appears on screen to denote time.[18] The passage of time enables players to analyze the movement of marked enemy forces in the area, such as shifts in sentry patrols and individual patrol routes. Weather effects, such as sandstorms and rain, affects the gameplay environment by reducing visibility or masking the sound of footsteps.[19]

A game design direction allows the player to choose in what order the story events take place by selecting missions in any order they like, and yet still "understand the encompassing message by the end".[20][21]

Kojima spoke about the restrictive nature of previous Metal Gear Solid titles, saying that they "set [the player] on one rail to get from point A to point B, with a certain amount of freedom between". In stark contrast, The Phantom Pain offers players new ways of traversal and sneaking methods, such as taking a motorcycle, plane or helicopter to the mission area (however, usage of the former two vehicles was later dropped during development). Players are able to traverse the game world or deploy directly to landing zones that allow for different approaches. A video published after the E3 2015 convention showcased this, with the same mission played four times in a number of different ways: with the player opting for stealth, launching a direct assault via helicopter gunship, attempting to assassinate a target with a sniper rifle, and smuggling an explosive device into an enemy base by way of an unsuspecting patrol vehicle crew.[22] The player's actions affect the wider game world; for example, sabotaging a radar installation will open up new entry points, which was in order for Kojima to accomplish a "true open world experience".[23] According to Famitsu, Konami confirmed that the playable world in The Phantom Pain is two hundred times larger than that of Ground Zeroes, featuring a variety of climate conditions and environments.[24] This allows the players to freely roam the map while proceeding to either story missions or sidequests, as in other games with nonlinear gameplay. In addition, players who have previously played Ground Zeroes are able to import save data into The Phantom Pain and gain special perks.[24]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain includes two multiplayer modes: first, the new Metal Gear Online, developed by Kojima Productions' newly formed Los Angeles division (now known as Konami Los Angeles Studio).[25] The first footage for multiplayer was revealed in December 2014.[26][27] While originally set for launch alongside the release of The Phantom Pain, Metal Gear Online was postponed to October 6 for consoles and January 2016 for Microsoft Windows.[28]

The second multiplayer mode is an extension of the Mother Base base-building feature. Players are able to expand their operations to include "Forward Operating Bases" which can be used to generate resources and income for the single-player campaign.[29] These facilities can be attacked by other players, making a player-versus-player mode available whereby the attacking team attempts to steal resources and/or soldiers and the defending team tries to protect the Forward Operating Base from the intruder. Defenders will be able to call on their friends to aid in the defense, especially if their Forward Operating Base is attacked during a story mission.[30] Players are able to customize the security, staffing, and layout of their Forward Operating Bases, allowing for a large number of compound configurations. Following the success or failure of the intrusion, the location of the attacking player's Forward Operating Base is revealed to the defending player;[31] however, defending players can only launch a retaliatory strike if the attacker was discovered during their infiltration. The Forward Operating Base feature is intended to be an entirely separate multiplayer experience to Metal Gear Online[29] and is also needed to increase the number of combat units the player can deploy.

During development, Kojima Productions and Konami attracted criticism for their decision to include microtransactions; a system that allows players to pay for access to content in the game. However, a spokesperson for Kojima Productions confirmed that the system was included to benefit players who may not have the time to complete the game, given its scale, and that no content would be available exclusively through microtransactions.[32] Further controversy emerged following the publication of an early review claiming that the Forward Operating Base mode was behind a paywall,[33] which Konami refuted saying that microtransactions acted as an accelerator rather than a paywall.[34]

In the aftermath of the events of Ground Zeroes and the destruction of Militaires Sans Frontières (commonly abbreviated as MSF), Big Boss (Kiefer Sutherland/Akio Ōtsuka) falls into a coma.[35] Nine years later, he awakens and helps lead a new mercenary group, Diamond Dogs.[36] Adopting the codename "Venom Snake", he ventures into Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War and the Angola—Zaire border region during the Angolan Civil War to track down the men responsible for MSF's destruction. Along the way, he becomes reacquainted with his former rival Ocelot (Troy Baker/Satoshi Mikami) and encounters Quiet (Stefanie Joosten), an assassin and sniper with supernatural abilities. While he and Kazuhira Miller (Robin Atkin Downes/Tomokazu Sugita) are initially driven to exact revenge, Snake soon unearths a plot by the Patriots organization to develop a new model of the Metal Gear system known as the ST-84 "Sahelanthropus".[37]

In contrast to previous Metal Gear installments, Kojima Productions conducted the voice acting and motion capture with English-speaking actors and stuntmen first. While facial capturing was used before for Metal Gear Solid 4, it was done separately from the actual voice acting. The Japanese voice acting was dubbed over the English cast's performance afterward, in contrast to previous releases in the series since Metal Gear Solid 2, which had the characters' vocal and facial expressions lip-synched specifically to both, Japanese and English voice acting.

At E3 2013, Konami confirmed that actor Kiefer Sutherland would provide Snake's voice and motion capture work for the game,[39][40][41] taking a role over voice actor David Hayter.[42] Kojima's reason for replacing Hayter was to "have a more subdued performance expressed through subtle facial movements and tone of voice rather than words", and that he "needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s". Hollywood producer and director Avi Arad suggested to Kojima that Sutherland could fulfill his requirements.[43][44][45] Akio Ōtsuka was unaffected by this casting change and continued to voice Snake in the Japanese version.[46] On March 4, 2015, Kojima revealed that Snake would have less dialogue in The Phantom Pain than previous installments. The reasoning behind it was to make Snake come across as an extension to the player and that he "will act based on [player's actions] rather than doing things like making spontaneous comments or flirting with women."[38]

Other members of the voice cast include Troy Baker as Ocelot,[47] Jay Tavare as Code Talker,[48] James Horan as Skull Face, Robin Atkin Downes as Kazuhira Miller, Christopher Randolph as Dr. Emmerich[49] and Piers Stubbs as Eli. The Japanese dub features Tomokazu Sugita as Miller, Hideyuki Tanaka as Emmerich, Takaya Hashi as Skull Face, Satoshi Mikami as Ocelot, Osamu Saka (whose previous roles include Sergei Gurlukovich in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and The End in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater) as Code Talker,[50][51] and Yūtarō Honjō as Eli.[52] Dutch-born model Stefanie Joosten provides the likeness, voice and motion capture for the new heroine Quiet,[50] a mute sniper with supernatural abilities who may assist Snake on missions depending on the player's actions during a certain mission.[53] She also provides the vocals for "Quiet's Theme".

In 1984, nine years after the events of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Big Boss awakens from a coma in a hospital in Cyprus. Quiet, a Cipher assassin, tries to kill him, but Big Boss is rescued by a heavily bandaged man called Ishmael. The pair escapes the hospital while evading pursuit from Cipher's soldiers and two superhumans, Tretij Rebenok, the "Third Child" and the "Man on Fire". Although Big Boss loses sight of Ishmael, he is recovered by his ally Revolver Ocelot and brought aboard Diamond Dogs, a new mercenary group founded by Kazuhira Miller on an offshore platform near Seychelles.

Big Boss adopts the code name "Venom Snake" and begins searching for Cipher. During his journey, Snake becomes involved in the Soviet-Afghan and the Angolan Civil Wars, and he recruits Quiet, who no longer speaks and has gained superhuman abilities; scientist Dr. Huey Emmerich; Eli, a British child believed to be a clone of Snake, who leads a band of child soldiers; and Code Talker, a Navajo expert on parasites forced to work for Cipher.

Snake learns that Cipher's leader Major Zero was usurped and XOF, a rogue faction of Cipher, was responsible for destroying MSF. XOF's leader Skull Face considers Cipher's plan to unite the world for peace as the same as making it culturally American, obliterating other cultures. To avoid this, he intends to release a unique parasite that kills anyone who speaks English. A modified parasite was used to give Quiet and Skull Face's elite soldiers, the Skulls, their unusual abilities. After releasing the English strain parasite, Skull Face plans to make nuclear weapons available to as many groups as he can, believing that nuclear deterrence will stop the weapons actually being used, attaining world peace while still protecting the integrity of each culture. However, he will secretly retain remote control of the weapons. Skull Face intends to use the threat of the latest Metal Gear system, known as ST-84 "Sahelanthropus", to make nuclear weapons desirable again, but as he cannot get it to function, he is dependent on the Third Child's psychic abilities to manipulate it.

During a test, the Third Child turns against Skull Face, having Sahelanthropus seriously wound him and crush the Man on Fire. Although Snake defeats the Metal Gear, he is only able to recover one of Skull Face's three parasite vials; one goes missing and the other is taken by the Third Child and given to Eli. Skull Face is left to die by Snake and Miller but Huey executes him. The Diamond Dogs return to their base with Sahelanthropus. Following their return, Eli, the Third Child, and the child soldiers steal Sahelanthropus and flee the base. It transpires that the Third Child was not consciously working for Skull Face, but his psychic powers enthralled him to the will of the most vengeful person nearby, meaning Sahelanthropus's attack was instigated by Eli.

An epidemic of parasites occurs on base forcing Snake to personally kill many of his own men to contain it. To honor them, he has their cremated remains turned into diamonds to carry into battle. Huey is accused of causing the epidemic while attempting to mutate the parasites to sell as weapons. Alongside suspicion of his role in MSF's destruction, and evidence that he murdered his wife Dr. Strangelove while arguing over using their son in experiments, Snake exiles him from Diamond Dogs. Following this event, Quiet disappears in Afghanistan. Code Talker reveals that Quiet was infected with the English strain parasite with the intention of joining Diamond Dogs in order to spread it, but her allegiance shifted to Snake and so she remained silent to prevent an outbreak. Huey's mutation of the parasite convinced Quiet that she could not guarantee the safety of Diamond Dogs. Snake finds her and helps her fight an onslaught of vehicles. They defeat the wave but as another one approaches they are forced to hide in a sandstorm. Quiet is then forced to speak to summon help when Snake is bitten by a venomous snake. She flees to avoid causing another epidemic.

It is later revealed that Venom Snake is not actually Big Boss but a loyal MSF medic caught in the same explosion that injured the real Big Boss, Ishmael. During his coma, the medic was transformed into a second Big Boss via plastic surgery and hypnotherapy to serve as a decoy for the actual Big Boss while he wages a covert war against Cipher. Snake goes on to set the events of the Outer Heaven uprising in motion and dies at the hands of Solid Snake. The original Big Boss resurfaces during the Zanzibar Land disturbance. Miller and Ocelot discuss Big Boss' plans to create Outer Heaven. While Ocelot remains supportive, Miller is disgusted at his former ally's deception but agrees to continue assisting Venom Snake and Big Boss's sons in hopes of contributing to the real Big Boss's downfall.

In February 2012, a site owned by Konami, "Development Without Borders", promoted development for a new Metal Gear title, for "The "next" MGS". The site was recruiting staff for the 2012 GDC pavilion in March, and requested applications for several positions for the latest Metal Gear Solid targeted for "high-end consoles" and "next-gen Fox engine".[54][55] As the year went on, screenshots and videos of the newly announced Fox Engine were unveiled by the team.[56] This media demonstrated many random settings and characters, although none related to the Metal Gear series. Certain screenshots, however, were noted to feature a character who resembled the Big Boss character of Metal Gear, walking up to a Stryker AFV previously seen in Metal Gear Solid 4.[57]

Konami unveiled Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes at a private function celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Metal Gear series on August 30, 2012. The game later made its public debut two days later at the 2012 Penny Arcade Expo.[58] Kojima revealed very little detail about the project at the time other than it was a prologue to Metal Gear Solid V,[59] and that it would be the first game to use the Fox Engine, a game engine developed by Kojima Productions.[60] In January 2013, Kojima revealed that Ground Zeroes would be the first title in the series to be subtitled in Arabic, a feature the team had planned for previous games.[61] He also confirmed that the length of the cutscenes was reduced, as he believed that long cutscenes had become outdated.[20][62]

In an interview with VG247, Kojima expressed concerns over whether or not Ground Zeroes would be released. He claimed that his aim was to target taboos and mature themes, which he considered to be "quite risky", adding that his roles as creator and producer were in conflict with one another; as creator, Kojima wanted to take the risk of exploring themes that might alienate audiences, but as producer, he had to be able to tone down the content in order to sell as many copies of the game as possible. Ultimately, the role of creator won out, and Kojima described his approach as "prioritizing creativity over sales".[63][64][65]

At the Spike Video Game Awards in December 2012, a teaser trailer for a game known as The Phantom Pain was shown, credited to a new Swedish developer known as Moby Dick Studio, and was described as being "100% gameplay". Allegedly led by Joakim Mogren, the studio's mission statement read that it aimed to "deliver an uncompromising, exciting, and touching game experience to people all around the globe."[66] After the presentation, commentators speculated that The Phantom Pain was actually a Metal Gear game, noting the protagonist's resemblance to Big Boss, graphics similar to those produced by the Fox Engine, the quote "V has come to" at the end of the trailer, and that the title Metal Gear Solid V fits in the negative space and indentations of the game's logo when using the same font.[67][68] The name "Joakim" was an anagram of "Kojima", the domain name for the studio's website had only been registered about two weeks prior to the announcement, and that several people wearing Moby Dick Studio shirts were sitting in a VIP area intended for Konami staff.[67][69] Hideo Kojima stated he was impressed by the trailer and how Mogren was inspired by Metal Gear.[70]

An actor playing a heavily bandaged Mogren appeared in an interview on the March 14, 2013 episode of GameTrailers TV; while stating that he could not reveal many details, he confirmed that more details about The Phantom Pain would be revealed at the upcoming Game Developers Conference, and showed a series of screenshots on an iPad to the show's host Geoff Keighley. After Keighley pointed out the Fox Engine logo in the screenshots, Mogren appeared nervous and the segment abruptly ended.[71]

On March 27, 2013, at GDC 2013, Kojima confirmed that his studio was behind the trailer, and announced that Metal Gear Solid V would be two separate games; Ground Zeroes would now serve as a prologue for the main game, which was officially announced as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.[72][73] He subsequently presented a trailer for the game and showcased the Fox Engine.[74] The trailer featured the song "Not Your Kind of People" from Garbage's 2012 album of the same name.[75][76]

While the official trailer announcing the game was running on a PC, the game was released for the seventh and eighth generations of video game consoles. In an interview during E3 2013, when asked about a PC release Kojima stated "We are making it, and it will be on par with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions."[77] However, he made it clear that the PC port was not their priority.[78] Kojima confirmed that the visuals seen in the trailer would look close to those in the final game. He also stated that he would like Metal Gear Solid V to be his final Metal Gear game, noting that unlike previous titles where he had announced that he had finished making games in the series, only to return for subsequent games, his involvement with the franchise would be over this time around. Although the trailer had Snake suffering from hallucinations in the form of a flaming whale, Kojima assured that there would be a balance in realism.[79] Kojima later revealed that The Phantom Pain was initially presented as an independent game so as to assess the public and industry response to the Fox Engine, as he felt that announcing the game as part of Metal Gear Solid V would bias reactions to the engine.

On June 10, 2013, at E3 2013, a fourth trailer was shown at the Microsoft press conference, demonstrating the new play mechanics, as well as the cast of characters. The development of an Xbox One version was also announced at the conference.[80]  The PlayStation 4 version was announced the following day when Konami uploaded the red band version of the trailer on their YouTube channel in addition to the standard green band version.[81][82]

The trailers for Metal Gear Solid V showed the game running on a PC hardware, but according to Kojima with textures and character models somewhat based on seventh generation hardware. The developers aimed to improve the technical quality for the versions released for the eighth generation of consoles.[83]

Kojima alluded to the game possibly being "too big to clear", adding that the game is "200 [times larger] than Ground Zeroes".[84] Kojima wanted the player to connect with Snake in The Phantom Pain. To accomplish this, the loss of Mother Base, which the player developed throughout Peace Walker, would serve as motivation for revenge for both Snake and the player. Kojima also tried making Snake relatable to newcomers of the series by making him unaware of what happened in the nine years during which he was in a coma.[85] Weapons, vehicles and other armaments are unlicensed and fictional in The Phantom Pain, just as they were in Ground Zeroes, unlike previous Metal Gear Solid games that included mostly real-world based weaponry.

On June 9, 2014, at E3 2014, a fifth cinematic trailer featuring Mike Oldfield's song "Nuclear" was shown at the Sony press conference, unveiling more plot details surrounding the Diamond Dogs and Snake's antagonistic descent. It was leaked a day earlier, due to an accidental post from Konami's official YouTube channel.[86] Alongside the new trailer, the official site for Metal Gear Solid V was updated and included new information and images such as the developmental progress of the in-game map and the evolution of Snake's design across all games in the series.[87] On August 25, 2015, Kojima released a launch trailer showing "Metal Gear's Evolution and Harmony" with clips from the previous games along with the reveal of the new "Metal Gear Sahelanthropus".

Over $80 million was spent on the development of the game.[88]

The music of The Phantom Pain was produced by Harry Gregson-Williams, making it his fourth Metal Gear title. It was released on September 2, 2015. In July 2015, Rika Muranaka told Fragged Nation in an interview that over 30 commissioned songs were never used, thus playing part in Konami's budget concerns over the Metal Gear Solid V project.[89] In the game, players can acquire cassette tapes in the field, which can then be played in free-roam, during a mission, the Airborne Command Center, or when the helicopter inserts or extracts Snake. The tapes include a variety of pop songs, instrumentals, and theme music from previous games in the Metal Gear series.

The game's soundtrack later won the award for Best Score/Soundtrack at The Game Awards 2015.[90] The event also had Stefanie Joosten, Quiet's voice actress, on stage performing "Quiet's Theme".

In March 2015, Konami announced plans for a corporate restructuring that saw them part ways with Hideo Kojima and his development studio Kojima Productions. As part of the separation, Kojima's name was removed from the game cover, all of its associated paraphernalia and future releases of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection.[91][c] A Konami spokesperson stated that Kojima would still be involved with Konami and the Metal Gear franchise,[27] and despite the dispute, the company expressed confidence that the game would be declared Game of the Year.[92]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released in different editions. Special Day One editions of the game for each platform featured downloadable content (DLC) vouchers for special weapons and Metal Gear Online experience points. The North American Collector's Edition (which was available for PS4 and Xbox One) comes with a steelbook and a small-size replica of Snake's bionic arm; the Premium Package for the Japanese release (which was available for PS4, PS3, and Xbox One) features a full-size replica, which was also sold separately in May 2016.[93] Sony released a PlayStation 4 bundle with the unit painted in the colors of the arm.

The physical PC release of The Phantom Pain only includes a CD key and a disc with a Steam installer contained within. Game files are not included on-disc and must be downloaded.[94][95]

Tie-in products were also released for the game. Sony Mobile Communications released special edition Walkman, Xperia Z4, Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, and Xperia J Compact devices, each featuring Outer Heaven emblems, soundtrack audio, and wallpapers.[96] Watch manufacturer Seiko released a digital watch, resembling Venom Snake's watch from the game. Eyeglasses maker JF Rey produced themed eyewear patterned after what Kaz and Ocelot are wearing in the game. Japanese toy company Sentinel, which previously made an iDroid casing for the iPhone 5 and 5S, produced a transformable figure of the Sahelanthropus,[97] while Kotobukiya readied a 1/100 scale kit of the unit. Sports apparel company Puma joined the project through a line of sports jackets, T-shirts, and footwear, including Snake's sneaking boots.[98][99]

Square Enix's PlayArts Kai figure line featured several of the game's characters, while Kaiyodo produced Venom Snake and a Soviet Army soldier for the RevoMini figure category. An art book, titled The Art of Metal Gear Solid V, was published by Dark Horse Comics on November 2, 2016.[100]

A complete edition of the game, titled Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience,[d] was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam on October 11 in North America, October 13 in Europe, and November 10 in Japan. The bundle includes the Ground Zeroes prologue and The Phantom Pain in one package, along with all previously released downloadable content for both games.[101]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[102][103][104]

Vince Ingenito of IGN awarded the game a score of 10/10, complimenting the way the gameplay mechanics worked together and the organic nature of the open-ended missions that allowed players to create their own memorable experiences, without being punished for deviating from stealth. The review concluded that The Phantom Pain is "a gameplay marvel, rewarding intelligence and creativity in a way few games do."[115] GameSpot also gave the game a 10/10, similarly praising its "near impeccable" gameplay, commenting that, alongside main and side missions, "emergent scenarios serve as the third pillar of The Phantom Pain's open-world gameplay experience". The review also highlighted the meaningful development of the characters despite being beholden to the original Metal Gear as the conclusion of Venom Snake's character arc.[33] The Phantom Pain was the twenty-third game—and the third in the Metal Gear series—to ever receive a perfect 40/40 review rating from Japanese magazine Famitsu.[110]

EGM awarded the game 9.5/10, praising the story's emotional power and thematic concerns exploring the futility of war in a much more compelling and cohesive way than other franchises such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, as well as the way in which the game world responded to the player's actions. However, the review was critical of the reliance on resource management, particularly in the way assaults on Forward Operating Bases could interrupt and distract from key missions.[106] Destructoid awarded it a score of 9/10, saying that the game is "equal parts tough and flashy, and it's fitting that if this is Kojima's last Metal Gear, he goes on a high note."[105]

Game Informer's Joe Juba awarded the game 9.25/10, praising the mission design for its flexibility and offering players multiple pathways to completion without restricting their choice of weapons or equipment. However, despite seeing the value in restructuring the narrative to compliment the open world platform and the episodic mission structure given the series' complex mythology, Juba felt that this went too far with the result being that the player could stumble into crucial story elements without context.[113] Polygon's Michael McWhertor also awarded the game 9/10, similarly praising the game mechanics, but directing criticism at the convoluted storyline which it felt hinged on a detailed knowledge of the series' mythos to the point where it would be inaccessible to newcomers to the franchise.[118]

The Phantom Pain was also positively received outside the traditional gaming media. In a five-star review, The Telegraph's Kirk McKeand stated that the game "takes the best of a great series and creates a series' best in the process". The review complimented the seamless integration of the gameplay modes and noted the way the game's Mother Base mode offered satisfactory and meaningful progress,[124] a sentiment echoed by Time's Matt Peckham,[125] who also complimented the game's longevity, pacing and artificial intelligence.[126]

While much of The Phantom Pain received plaudits, the game was criticized by some reviewers who felt it was lacking in terms of a focused and compelling narrative with interesting characters, especially when compared to prior Metal Gear titles. Ingenito opined that its story would be divisive for long-term fans, calling it "insubstantial and underdeveloped", with plot-related questions generally being answered in a "rushed and unsatisfying" way and a tendency for the game to gloss over its subject matter. He wrote how much of the characterization and memorable moments seen in previous installments had been replaced with individuals doing little more than appearing in scenes, giving information and then standing around. In addition, he called out the frequent lack of communication from Kiefer Sutherland as Venom Snake throughout important plot sections as "positively jarring".[115] Kotaku's Jason Schreier argued that the story was "damn unfulfilling", having "terrible" pacing, "incoherent" dialogue, and "incomprehensible" character motivations. He echoed Ingenito's view of Snake, calling him in cutscenes "nearly silent to the point of awkwardness... where his response to emotional events will often just be to look at people."[127] David Roberts, writing for GamesRadar, described the story as "unconventional" and full of "loosely connected scenes", saying "a whole lot of nothing happens in between quick bursts of exposition". He praised Kiefer Sutherland as Snake, but criticized Skullface as being greatly undeveloped as a villain and being met with "one of the most anti-climactic showdowns in video game history". Roberts also wrote how the story "drifts along aimlessly" in the second half and which ultimately felt "hollow" from not giving closure to the end reveal that the player is not controlling Big Boss.[128] The Phantom Pain was also criticized for forcing players to replay missions on higher difficulty settings to unlock the final missions,[33][105][115] with Schreier saying that it added unnecessary padding to a section of plot conveying the game's most emotional events.[127]

Before the release of the game, the presentation of the female character Quiet became a topic of controversy concerning her appearance. Halo designer David Ellis criticized her for being oversexualized and a negative affirmation of the stereotype of the game industry as "full of man babies".[129][130][131] Kojima and Konami released Quiet figurines in May 2015 as part of the game's promotion. The figure's soft, pliable breasts were criticized in social media and in the press.[132][133][134]

The finished game drew more criticism of Quiet's portrayal in both reviews and opinion pieces.[135][136] GamesRadar's David Roberts described Quiet as "one of the most complex and conflicted characters in MGS5", but that her depiction was an example of a "juvenile approach to sexuality" that typifies Kojima's work and the Metal Gear series as a whole.[137] Michael McWhertor of Polygon described the justification for Quiet's lack of clothing as "inextricably tied to the game's convoluted story", and criticized how the game presented other female characters by "zeroing in on their jiggling breasts and panning across their asses in a silly, oversexualized way."[118]

Following the release of the game, those who had bought the Collector's Edition discovered that the bonus disc included cutscenes and concept art of an in-game mission, "Episode 51: Kingdom of the Flies", that continued on from the end of the campaign, having not been playable in the game. The story ending was criticised for feeling abrupt and leaving several plot points unresolved, and critics found that the removed mission tied up one such important plot thread whilst also providing closure to the relationship between two of the characters. Consequently, many agreed that the inclusion of Episode 51 would have given the game a more satisfactory conclusion.[138][139][140][128]

Another large criticism of the story was the decision to force players to replay past missions to progress through its second half,[33][105][115][127][128] with one theory being that original content had been envisioned but which had not been incorporated into the finished game due to time constraints, resulting in the re-used sections.[141][142] This assumption was supported by further evidence of removed content: not long after the discovery of Chapter 51, users of the Facepunch forums who had been extracting data from the PC version of the game's files found evidence of a third story chapter, titled "Chapter 3: Peace", that was not included in the final version of the game.[143][144] Konami later neither confirmed nor denied that Chapter 3 had been fully cut from the main game.[145] Metal Gear Solid community manager Robert Allen Peeler was asked via Twitter if any upcoming downloadable content would be released for The Phantom Pain, in the hope that the story content would be included, but this was refuted.[146] Many fans also believed that, due to the chapter's title, it was somehow linked to Konami's "Nuclear Disarmament Event" which was opened shortly after launch with the goal of revealing a secret in the game, and which would close once all in-game nuclear weapons that had been manufactured by players were disposed of.[147] Data miners had uncovered a related cutscene within the game's files that would be released once the event had finished,[148] however speculation still spread that Chapter 3 was connected in some way. Robert Allen Peeler discussed player's suspicions via Twitter and Reddit and did not deny that further events may occur once the disarmament had concluded.[149][150] On February 2, 2018, the Nuclear Disarmament Event ending was triggered prematurely on the Steam version of the game, despite there still being over 9000 player nukes in existence at the time, resulting in the release of the previously-uncovered cutscene.[151][152] After investigation, Konami announced that this was the result of a technical error owing to the game's servers being sent incorrect values.[153]

Critics attributed the missing content to the disclosed tensions between Konami and Kojima during development, the general consensus being that Konami had given strict deadlines for the game's release, having been dissatisfied with how much money Kojima had spent on development.[141][154][127][155][156] Data miners also uncovered numerous other examples of lesser content that had not been included in the game, ranging from gameplay features to cutscenes, but what precisely had been removed as a result of the Konami-Kojima conflict, and what had simply been abandoned earlier in development out of choice, was open to discussion.[157][158][159] Regardless, due to the removed story content and subsequent narrative flaws, the game was labeled by some critics as being unfinished.[141][127][160][161][162] Conversely, GamesRadar argued that the game's incomplete state was deliberate on Kojima's part.[163] Speaking to IGN, Kojima himself seemingly alluded to the fact that he considered the game unfinished when stating that the new intellectual property he was developing since leaving Konami (later revealed as Death Stranding) would be "a complete game".[164]

After the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience, which would include all previously released downloadable content, several fans took this as an opportunity to voice their concerns via Twitter about the missing content that had been uncovered, particularly with regards to Episode 51. Konami responded that Episode 51 had been removed in the early development stages of the game as it had not been intended to be a pivotal ending to the story, and that there were no future plans to have the mission available to play.[165]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shipped 3 million physical copies within its first five days of release, across all platforms.[166] On its release date, the game grossed US$179 million.[167] The Phantom Pain debuted at number one on the United Kingdom charts. It became the third biggest video game launch of 2015 in the UK, behind Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.[168] The Phantom Pain was the most successful launch for the series in the UK, beating the previous record holder, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, by 37 percent.[168] The game sold 411,199 physical retail copies on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 within the first week of release in Japan, topping the Japanese software sales charts that week.[169]

The game sold noticeably more on the PlayStation family of consoles than the competing Xbox in the UK. Excluding computer sales, The Phantom Pain moved approximately 72 percent of copies on PlayStation 4, roughly three times the amount sold on the Xbox One, which accounted for 22 percent of sales. 3 percent of sales were on PlayStation 3, and 2 percent on Xbox 360.[170] By the end of September 2015, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had shipped 5 million copies,[171] and reached 6 million by the end of December 2015.[172]


where was the five points in new york city

Five Points (or The Five Points) was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row to the south. Through the twentieth century, the former Five Points area was gradually redeveloped, with streets changed or closed. The area is now occupied by the Civic Center to the west and south, which includes major federal, state, and city facilities, and the African Burial Ground National Monument. To the east and north, former Five Points area is located within Chinatown.

Five Points, Manhattan

Centre Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row (former)

The Five Points gained international notoriety as a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.[1]

The name "Five Points" was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter Street) and Cross Street (now Mosco Street); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth Street) began and ran in a northwest direction, dividing one of the four corners into two triangular blocks; thus the fifth "point." To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as "Paradise Square," after the buildings standing in the triangle were torn down in 1832.

Poor scientific knowledge and inadequate human understanding of the environmental conditions and appreciation of interconnections followed by substandard development of housing on the reclaimed fill land, resulted in unusually rapid deterioration and partial settling and collapse of the middle class housing and sites. When they left, owners subdivided the rundown sagging houses to absorb the increasing number of urban and immigrant poor. Maintenance and services were minimal, and Five Points developed as a notorious, disease-ridden slum, one of the worst then in the Western World.

The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) before being excavated and filled in 1811 was a body of spring-fed fresh water, as deep as 60 feet (18 metres) and occupying about 48 acres (194,000 m²). The pond was located in a U-shaped valley with a northwest spur to the Hudson River. The valley was split by a hill the Dutch called Kalk Hoek (Dutch for Chalk Corner), named for the numerous oyster-shell middens left by the indigenous Indian inhabitants. In historic times, this area was occupied by bands of Lenape (also known as the Delaware). The elevation of the site rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south-southwestern shore.

The pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, east of Kalck Hoek and southwest of Bayard's Mount - at 110 feet (34 metres), the tallest hill in Lower Manhattan. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest to the Hudson River through a salt marsh (which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows"). Another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil, flowed southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp), called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch, to the East River.[3] Werpoes village was located on the southwestern shore of the pond. It had been occupied by a small band of Canarsie, who were Munsee-dialect peopleâ€”the northernmost division of the Lenape (Delaware) Indians. Gradually they were pushed out by the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam.[4]

The pond was the main source of drinking water and freshwater fish for the early Town of New York in the 18th century.[5]

Beginning in the early 18th century, various commercial enterprises were built along the pond's shores in order to use the water. The contaminated wastewater from these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution problem and environmental health hazard. Later Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French born designer of the District of Columbia (later Washington, D.C.) proposed cleaning the pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could develop. But his proposal was rejected, and town authorities cheaply decided to fill in the pond, using earth partially obtained from leveling Bayard's Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811, and middle-class townhomes were soon built on the reclaimed land in a tangle of closely packed warren of streets.[6]

The landfill was poorly engineered because of lack of scientific knowledge in that era. The buried vegetation began to release methane gas (a byproduct of decomposition), and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm water drains and sewage sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted, settled, sagged and partially collapsed on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud after heavy rains mixed with human and animal excrement, and mosquitos bred in the stagnant pools created by the poor drainage and lack of sanitation, causing malaria and yellow fever diseases to fester as in the Tropics of lower latitudes.

Most middle- and upper-class inhabitants later fled the area in following decades, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants who began arriving in the early 1820s. Landlords divided the housing, greatly increasing the density in the neighborhood. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish Catholic immigrants fleeing the Irish Potato Famine.[7]

At the height of occupation of Five Points, only certain areas of London's East End vied with it in the western world for population density, disease, infant and child mortality, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. It is sometimes considered the original American melting pot, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated blacks (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and ethnic Irish, who had a small minority presence in the area since the 1600s.[8] The local politics of "the Old Sixth ward" (The Points' primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of Catholics to key political offices. Before that time, New York, and America at large, had been governed by the Anglo-Protestant founders. Although there were many tensions between the Africans and the Irish, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history.[9] Gradually this African-American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to undeveloped lands on the north end of the island in the famous Harlem by the early 20th century and across the Harlem River into the South Bronx, as the city developed northward.[10]

Five Points is alleged to have had the highest murder rate of any slum at that time in the world. According to an old New York urban legend, the Old Brewery, formerly Coulthard's Brewery from the 1790s, now an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years, until its demolition in 1852.[11][12]

"Almack's" (also known as "Pete Williams's Place"), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange Street in Mulberry Bend (today Baxter Street), just south of its intersection with Bayard Street, was home to a fusion of Irish reels and jigs with the African shuffle.[13][14] Though different ethnic groups interacted in other parts of the United States as well, creating new dance and music forms, in New York this music and dance had spontaneously resulted on the street from competition between African-American and Irish musicians and dancers. It spilled into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance (see Master Juba) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to jazz and rock and roll. This ground is now Columbus Park.

This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over....

â€”Charles Dickens in American Notes, p. 61

Infectious diseases, such as cholera, tuberculosis, typhus, and malaria and yellow fever, had plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The lack of scientific knowledge, sanitation systems, the numerous overcrowded dwellings, and absence of even rudimentary health care made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and spread of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. Others were introduced by passengers disembarking from ships from overseas, including immigrants. In June 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City.[15] With no understanding of disease vectors or transmission, some observers believed that these epidemics were due to the immorality of residents of the slum:

Every day's experience gives us assurance of the safety of the temperate and prudent, who are in circumstances of comfort.... The disease is now, more than before rioting in the haunts of infamy and pollution. A prostitute at 62 Mott Street, who was decking herself before the glass at 1 o'clock yesterday, was carried away in a hearse at half past three o'clock. The broken down constitutions of these miserable creatures, perish almost instantly on the attack.... But the business part of our population, in general, appear to be in perfect health and security.

Yellow fever epidemics spread with river and ocean-going ships and passengers throughout the southern United States, also affecting as far north as Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834, also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins[16] lay in the combination of nativism and abolitionism among Protestants, who had controlled the city since the American Revolution, and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish immigrants, who competed with them for jobs and housing.

In 1827, Great Britain repealed legislation controlling and restricting emigration from Ireland, and 20,000 Irish emigrated. By 1835, more than 30,000 Irish had arrived in New York annually. Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church, the first black Episcopal church in the city, then located at 122 Centre Street. It was sacked and looted by the mostly ethnic Irish mob.

The New-York Daily Times, July 6, 1857

The media designated a branch of the "Roach Guards", a violent Irish gang, "Dead Rabbits". The Dead Rabbits Riot began when one faction destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys at 26 Bowery, on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated, which led to a large-scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street, between Bowery and Mulberry Street. Rioting resumed on July 5. The Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2017), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry) at Anthony and Centre Street. Historian Tyler Anbinder says the "dead rabbits" name "so captured the imagination of New Yorkers that the press continued to use it despite the abundant evidence that no such club or gang existed". Anbinder notes that, "for more than a decade, 'Dead Rabbit' became the standard phrase by which city residents described any scandalously riotous individual or group." [17]

As residents took advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police, gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city began to engage in widespread looting and the destruction of property. It is estimated[by whom?] that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot in 1849. Order was restored by the New York State Militia (under Major-General Charles W. Sandford), supported by detachments of city police. Eight people were reported killed, and more than 100 people received serious injuries.[citation needed]

Various efforts by different charitable organizations and individuals, most Christian themed, attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix Varela, a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish—The Church of the Immigrants—in Five Points in 1827, to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. Later renamed the Church of the Transfiguration (Roman Catholic), the parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross streets in 1853, when they purchased the building of the Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from its congregation, which moved uptown.

The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob Riis, author of How the Other Half Lives, published 1890), succeeded in razing part of Mulberry Bend off Mulberry Street, one of the worst sections of the Five Points neighborhood. It was redeveloped as a park designed by noted landscape architect Calvert Vaux and named Mulberry Bend Park at its opening in 1897; it is now known as Columbus Park.[18]

A major effort was made to clear the Old Brewery on Cross Street, described as "a vast dark cave, a black hole into which every urban nightmare and unspeakable fear could be projected."[8]:67–70 The Old Brewery had formerly been Coulthard's Brewery, which was located on the outskirts of the town less than thirty years earlier in the 1790s. later enveloped by the growing city, it was located on Cross Street just south of the Five Points intersection. The brewery became known as the "Old Brewery" after being converted to a tenement / boarding house in 1837. Its lower, high-ceilinged floor and the above two floors were converted into four floors of rundown apartments. The rent was cheap and attracted many low-income tenants, many of them immigrants. The only census record taken in 1850 reported 221 people living in 35 apartments, averaging 6.3 persons per apartment.[8]:67–70 Accounts conflict as to the total number of people living in the Brewery flats, but all agreed that it was filled to overcapacity.

The poverty seen throughout the Five Points was also displayed at the Old Brewery, and the women of the Home Mission took action. This Methodist charity group was determined to clean up Five Points. The Christian Advocate and Journal reported on the ongoing project in October 1853:

In a meeting held in Metropolitan Hall, in December 1851, such convincing proof was given of the public interest in this project, that the resolution was passed by the Executive Committee to purchase the Old Brewery. Other appeals were made to the public, and nobly met. That celebrated haunt was purchased, in a few months utterly demolished, and already a noble missionary building occupies its site.[19]

The New Mission House replaced the Old Brewery, under the direction of the Five Points Mission. It provided housing, clothes, food, and education as part of the charitable endeavor. The new building had 58 rooms available for living space, twenty-three more than the Old Brewery.

[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy....

â€”Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (October 24, 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York.[note 3]

The area formerly occupied by Five Points was gradually redeveloped through the twentieth century. In the west and south, it is occupied by major federal, state, and city administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, Manhattan. In addition Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park, Foley Square, and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections are clustered around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past: the infamous The Tombs jail/prison, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White Street. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now within the sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.

The location of the former "Five Points" intersection and Paradise Square is currently the intersection of Worth (formerly Anthony) and Baxter (formerly Orange) Streets. Mosco (formerly Cross) Street no longer extends to that intersection, having been cut off at Columbus Park. The section of Baxter Street south of Worth Street is no longer a street; it is now the location of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse. This site also includes the African Burial Ground National Monument, recently established to commemorate the discovery and investigation of the former historic cemetery revealed here by archeological digs after building construction excavations revealed human remains, and the early history of Africans and African Americans in New York Town. Little Water Street was also closed for redevelopment.

The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.

1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh and the tanneries on the eastern shore

1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond

1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward

1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward

1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names

The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1863. The two principal issues of the era in New York were greatly increased Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's conduct of the ongoing Civil War, and its issuing a draft call in 1863.

The story follows gang leader William "the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), a character primarily based on William Poole, in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob, on one side, and the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his immigrant allies, on the other, which the film portrays as coinciding with the New York City draft riots of 1863.

African-American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect; 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine Street[22][23]

Edward Mooney House built between 1785 and 1789 by wealthy butcher Edward Mooney on the corner of The Bowery and Pell Street on land seized from James Delancey, a British loyalist during the American Revolutionary War

The Bulls Head Tavern (c. 1755), located approximately at The Bowery and Canal Street, served the thriving slaughterhouse and tannery industry. The area was surrounded by holding pens with slaughterhouses along Mulberry Street[24]

Satirical painting of the Five Points, ca 1827 : "highlighting the district’s renowned chaos and vulgarity, the figures in the painting fight, flirt, and generally misbehave amid dilapidated buildings"[25]

A corner building that served as a grocery store and liquor store on Orange and Anthony streets at the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points (c. 1852)

Five Points brick tenements began replacing older wooden buildings; the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points with Orange Street running north

Bottle Alley located in Mulberry Bend just south of Bandit's Roost. A crime scene photograph used in a murder trial. The X marks site where victim was found.

Five Points House of Industry at 155 Worth Street in 1893 opposite Paradise Square

Baxter Street Alley, Rag-Picker's Row" at 59 Baxter Street (c. 1898 Jacob Riis)

Barney Flynn's Old Tree House a bar in the Edward Mooney House in 1899 showing Chuck Connors[26]

Chinese Theatre 5-7 Doyers Street, scene of multiple murders[27]

Mulberry Street (c.1900) taken from west side of Mulberry north of Bayard Street looking toward Canal Street

New York Halls of Justice known as "The Tombs"

Chinese Tuxedo restaurant at 2 Doyers Street

Church of the Transfiguration (built 1801 as Zion Protestant Episcopal Church bought 1853 by Catholic Archdiocese of New York) on the corner of Mott and Mosco Streets. The parish was founded by Padre Félix Varela y Morales in 1827[28]

The Black Horse Tavern on the corner of Mulberry and Park Street (now Mosco Street), the Church of the Transfiguration is in the background; picture is c.1895-1899

Mugshot of Al Capone-nicknamed "Scarface", was member of the Five Points Gang along with Lucky Luciano


where was aguirre the wrath of god filmed

Aguirre was the first of five collaborations between Herzog and the volatile Kinski. The director and the actor had differing views as to how the role should be played, and they clashed throughout filming; Kinski's tantrums terrorized both the crew and the local natives who were assisting the production. Shooting was entirely on location, and was fraught with difficulties. Filming took place in the Peruvian rainforest on the Amazon River during an arduous five-week period, shooting on tributaries of the Ucayali region. The cast and crew climbed mountains, cut through heavy vines to open routes to the various jungle locations, and rode treacherous river rapids on rafts built by natives.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (German: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes), known in the UK as Aguirre, Wrath of God, is a 1972 West German epic historical drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role. The soundtrack was composed and performed by West German progressive/Krautrock band Popol Vuh. The story follows the travels of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Orinoco and Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.

Using a minimalist approach to the story and dialogue, the film creates a vision of madness and folly, counterpointed by the lush but unforgiving Amazonian jungle. Although based loosely on what is known of the historical figure of Aguirre, the film's storyline is, as Herzog acknowledged years after the film's release, a work of fiction. Some of the people and situations may have been inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal's account of an earlier Amazonian expedition, although Carvajal's was not on the historical voyage represented in the film. Other accounts state that the expedition went into the jungles but never returned to civilization.

Aguirre opened to widespread critical acclaim, and quickly developed a large international cult film following. It was given an extensive arthouse theatrical release in the United States in 1977, and remains one of the director's best-known films. Several critics have declared the film a masterpiece, and it has appeared on Time magazine's list of "All Time 100 Best Films". Aguirreâ€™s visual style and narrative elements had a strong influence on Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now.[4]

In 1560, several score of Spanish conquistadors, and a hundred Indian slaves, march down from the newly conquered Inca Empire in the Andes mountains into the jungles to the east, in search of the fabled country of El Dorado. Under the command of Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés), the men, clad in half armor, pull cannons down narrow mountainous paths and through dense, muddy jungle. On New Year's Eve, reaching the end of his supplies and unable to go on without more information, Pizarro orders a group of forty men to scout ahead by raft down river. If they do not return to the main party within one week with news of what lies beyond, they will be considered lost. Pizarro chooses Don Pedro de Ursúa (Ruy Guerra) as the commander of the expedition, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) as his second-in-command, fat nobleman Don Fernando de Guzmán (Peter Berling) representing The Royal House of Spain and Brother Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro) to bring the word of God. Also accompanying the expedition, against Pizarro's better judgment, are Ursúa's mistress, Doña Inés (Helena Rojo) and Aguirre's teenage daughter, Florés (Cecilia Rivera, in her only film role).

Traveling through rapids, one of the four rafts gets caught in an eddy, and the others are unable to help free it. That night, gunfire erupts on the trapped raft; in the morning the men on board are found dead, with two missing. UrsÃºa wants the bodies to be brought back to camp for proper burial. Knowing this would slow down the expedition, Aguirre hints to Perucho (Daniel Ades) to "keep the rust off of the cannon". Perucho proceeds to fire the cannon at the raft, destroying it and throwing the bodies into the river.

During the night, the remaining rafts are swept away by the rising river. Time has run out for the scouting mission, and Ursúa decides to return to Pizarro's group. Aguirre leads a mutiny against Ursúa, telling the men that untold riches await them ahead, and reminding them that Hernan Cortez won an empire in Mexico by disobeying orders. Ursúa attempts to put Aguirre in chains, but he and a soldier loyal to him are shot. Inés cares for Ursúa. Aguirre coerces the soldiers to elect the fat, lazy Don de Guzmán as the new leader of the expedition. Aguirre proclaims de Guzmán Emperor of the new country, and declares Philip II dethroned. A farcical trial of Ursúa results in his being sentenced to death, but de Guzmán surprises Aguirre by granting Ursúa clemency.

Aguirre proves to be an oppressive leader, so terrifying that few protest his leadership. Only Inés has the courage to speak out against him. Knowing that some of the soldiers are still loyal to Ursúa, Aguirre simply ignores her.

The expedition continues on a single, newly built, large raft. An Indian couple approaching peacefully by canoe is captured by the explorers, and when the man expresses confusion when presented with a Bible, Brother Carvajal kills them for blasphemy. De Guzmán dines on the low food supplies while the men starve, and has the expedition's only remaining horse pushed off the raft because it annoys him. Soon afterwards he is found strangled near the raft's outhouse. After de Guzmán's death, Aguirre proclaims himself leader. Ursúa is then taken ashore and hanged in the jungle. The group attacks an Indian village, where several soldiers are killed by spears and arrows. The distraught Inés walks into the jungle and disappears.

On the raft again, the group of slowly starving, feverish men begin disbelieving everything they see, even when shot with arrows. The group stares in disbelief at a wooden ship perched in the highest branches of a tall tree, which Aguirre orders be brought down and refurbished, but Brother Carvajal refuses. In a series of final attacks by unseen assailants, the remaining survivors including Aguirreâ€™s daughter are killed by arrows. Aguirre alone remains alive on the slowly drifting raft. The raft becomes overrun by monkeys. The crazed Aguirre tells them: "I, the Wrath of God, will marry my own daughter, and with her I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen. Together, we shall rule this entire continent. We shall endure. I am the Wrath of God... who else is with me?"

The idea for the film began when Herzog borrowed a book on historical adventurers from a friend. After reading a half-page devoted to Lope de Aguirre, the filmmaker became inspired and immediately devised the story. He fabricated most of the plot details and characters, although he did use some historical figures in purely fictitious ways.[5]

Herzog wrote the screenplay "in a frenzy", and completed it in two-and-a-half days. Much of the script was written during a 200-mile (320Â km) bus trip with Herzog's football team. His teammates got drunk after winning a game and one of them vomited on several pages of Herzog's manuscript, which he immediately threw out the window. Herzog claims he cannot remember all of the things that he wrote on these pages.[5]

The screenplay was shot as written, with some minor differences. In an early scene in which Pizarro instructs Ursúa to lead the scouting team down the river, in the script Pizarro mentions that in the course of the expedition Ursúa could possibly discover what happened to Francisco de Orellana's expedition, which had vanished without a trace years before (see "Historical Accuracy" section). Later in the screenplay, Aguirre and his men find a boat and the long-dead remains of Orellana's soldiers. Further down the river, they discover another ship lodged in some tree tops. In the screenplay, Aguirre and others explore the boat but find no sign of Orellana or his men. Herzog ultimately eliminated any such references to Orellana's expedition from the film. The sequence with the boat caught in the upper branches of a tree remains, but as filmed it seems to be simply a hallucinatory vision.[6]

The finale is significantly different from Herzog's original script. The director recalled, "I only remember that the end of the film was totally different. The end was actually the raft going out into the open ocean and being swept back inland, because for many miles you have a counter-current, the Amazon actually goes backwards. And it was tossed to and fro. And a parrot would scream: "El Dorado, El Dorado"..."[7]

Herzog's first choice for the role of Aguirre was actor Klaus Kinski. The two had met many years earlier when the then-struggling young actor rented a room in Herzog’s family apartment, and Kinski’s often terrifying and deranged antics during the three months he lived there left a lasting impression on the director. Years later, Herzog remembered the volatile actor and knew that he was the only possible man who could play the mad Aguirre, and he sent Kinski a copy of the screenplay. "Between three and four in the morning, the phone rang," Herzog recalled. "It took me at least a couple of minutes before I realized that it was Kinski who was the source of this inarticulate screaming. And after an hour of this, it dawned on me that he found it the most fascinating screenplay and wanted to be Aguirre."[8]

From the beginning of the production, Herzog and Kinski argued about the proper manner to portray Aguirre. Kinski wanted to play a "wild, ranting madman", but Herzog wanted something "quieter, more menacing". In order to get the performance he desired, before each shot Herzog would deliberately infuriate Kinski. After waiting for the hot-tempered actor's inevitable tantrum to "burn itself out", Herzog would then roll the camera.[9]

On one occasion, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, the explosive Kinski fired three gunshots at it, blowing the tip off one extra's finger.[5] Subsequently, Kinski started leaving the jungle location (over Herzog's refusal to fire a sound assistant), only changing his mind after Herzog threatened to shoot first Kinski and then himself. The latter incident has given rise to the legend that Herzog made Kinski act for him at gunpoint. However Herzog has repeatedly denied the claim during interviews, explaining he only verbally threatened Kinski in the heat of the moment, in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving the set.[10] The famous incident is parodied in Incident at Loch Ness, which Herzog co-wrote.[11]

The film was made for US$370,000, with one-third of the budget paying for Kinski's salary.[12] It was filmed on location in the Peruvian rainforest, Machu Picchu (the stone steps of Huayna Picchu),[12] and on the Amazon River tributaries of the Ucayali region. Aguirre was shot in five weeks, following nine months' worth of pre-production planning.[5] The film was shot in chronological order, because Herzog believed the film crew's progress on the river directly mirrored that of the explorers' journey in the story. The director and his cast and crew floated in rafts down the Huallaga and Nanay rivers through the Urubamba Valley in Peru.[12]

All of the actors spoke their dialogue in English. The members of the cast and crew came from sixteen different countries, and English was the only common language among them. In addition, Herzog felt that shooting Aguirre in English would improve the film's chances for international distribution. However, the small amount of money that had been set aside for post-synchronization "left Peru with the man in charge of the process; both absconded en route." The English-language track was ultimately replaced by a higher-quality German language version, which was post-synched after production was completed.[2] Herzog claims that Kinski requested too much money for the dubbing session, and so his lines were performed by another actor.[13]

The low budget precluded the use of stunt men or elaborate special effects. The cast and crew climbed up mountains, hacked through thick jungle, and rode ferocious Amazonian river rapids on rafts built by natives. At one point, a storm caused a river to flood, covering the film sets in several feet of water and destroying all the rafts built for the film. This flooding was immediately incorporated into the story, as a sequence including a flood and subsequent rebuilding of rafts was shot.[5]

The camera used to shoot the film was stolen by Herzog from the Munich Film School.[14] Years later, Herzog recalled:

To obtain the monkeys used in the climactic sequence, Herzog paid several locals to trap 400 monkeys; he paid them half in advance and was to pay the other half upon receipt. The trappers sold the monkeys to someone in Los Angeles or Miami, and Herzog came to the airport just as the monkeys were being loaded to be shipped out of the country. He pretended to be a veterinarian and claimed that the monkeys needed vaccinations before leaving the country. Abashed, the handlers unloaded the monkeys, and Herzog loaded them into his jeep and drove away, used them in the shot they were required for, and released them afterwards into the jungle.[5]

Aguirre's musical score was performed by Popol Vuh, a West German progressive/Krautrock band. The band was formed in 1970 by keyboardist Florian Fricke, who had known Herzog for several years prior to the formation of the band.[15] He had appeared as an actor in the directorâ€™s first full-length film, Signs of Life (1968), playing a pianist. Aguirre was only the first of many collaborations between the band and the director.

Popol Vuh’s “hypnotic music”[16] for Aguirre met with considerable acclaim. Roger Ebert wrote, “The music sets the tone. It is haunting, ecclesiastical, human and yet something else... [T]he music is crucial to Aguirre, the Wrath of God..."[17] AllMusic noted, “The film's central motif blends pulsing Moog and spectral voices conjured from Florian Fricke's Mellotron-related "choir organ" to achieve something sublime, in the truest sense of the word: it's hard not to find the music's awe-inspiring, overwhelming beauty simultaneously unsettling. The power of the legendary opening sequence of Herzog's film...owes as much to Popol Vuh's music as it does to the director's mise-en-scène.”[18]

Herzog explained how the choir-like sound was created, "We used a strange instrument, which we called a 'choir-organ.' It has inside it three dozen different tapes running parallel to each other in loops.... All these tapes are running at the same time, and there is a keyboard on which you can play them like an organ so that [it will] sound just like a human choir but yet, at the same time, very artificial and really quite eerie."[17]

In 1975 Popol Vuh released an album entitled Aguirre. Although ostensibly a soundtrack album to Herzog's film, the six-track LP included only two songs ("Aguirre I (L'Acrime Di Rei)" and "Aguirre II") taken from Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The four remaining tracks were derived from various recordings made by the group between about 1972 and 1974. At the time of Aguirre the band members were Fricke (piano, Mellotron), Fichelscher (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Djong Yun (vocals), and Robert Eliscu (oboe, pan pipe).

The film was produced in part by West German television station Hessischer Rundfunk, which televised the film on the same day it opened in theatres. Herzog has blamed this for the relatively poor commercial reception of the film in Germany.[12] However, outside Germany the film became an "enormous cult favorite" in "such places as Mexico, Venezuela, and Algiers."[19] The film had a theatrical run of fifteen months in Paris.[20] Aguirre received a theatrical release in the United States in 1977 by New Yorker Films. It immediately became a cult film, and New Yorker Films reported four years after its initial release that it was the only film in its catalog that never went out of circulation.[19]

In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung described the film as "a colour-drenched, violently physical moving painting".[21] The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Kinski's acting as "too theatrical" to embody God's wrath.[21]

In the US and the UK the film received mostly positive critical notices upon release. Vincent Canby, writing in The New York Times, called it "[A]bsolutely stunningÂ ... Mr. Herzog views all the proceedings with fixed detachment. He remains cool. He takes no sides. He may even be slightly amused. Mainly he is a poet who constantly surprises us with unexpected juxtapositions... This is a splendid and haunting work."[22] In Time, Richard Schickel opined that "[Herzog] does the audience the honor of allowing it to discover the blindnesses and obsessions, the sober lunacies he quietly lays out on the screen. Well acted, most notably by Klaus Kinski in the title role, gloriously photographed by Thomas Mauch, Aguirre is, not to put too fine a point on it, a movie that makes a convincing claim to greatness."[23] Time Out's Tony Rayns noted, "...each scene and each detail is honed down to its salient features. On this level, the film effectively pre-empts analysis by analysing itself as it proceeds, admitting no ambiguity. Yet at the same time, Herzog's flair for charged explosive imagery has never had freer rein, and the film is rich in oneiric moments."[24]

The film's reputation through the years has continued to grow. J. Hoberman has written that Aguirre "is not just a great movie but an essential one... Herzog's third feature... is both a landmark film and a magnificent social metaphor."[25] Danny Peary wrote, "To see Aguirre for the first time is to discover a genuine masterpiece. It is overwhelming, spellbinding; at first dreamlike, and then hallucinatory."[19] Roger Ebert has added it to his list of The Great Movies,[26] and in a 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics and filmmakers on the best films ever made, Ebert listed it in his top ten.[27] In the same poll, critic Nigel Andrews and director Santosh Sivan also placed it in their top ten list.[28] In 1999, Rolling Stone included the film on the magazine's "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" list.[29] Aguirre was included in Time Magazine's "All Time 100 Best Films", compiled by Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss.[30] Entertainment Weekly named it the 46th greatest cult film ever made.[31] The film was ranked #19 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[32]

Aguirre has won several prestigious film awards. In 1973 it won the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Award) for "Outstanding Individual Achievement: Cinematography".[33] In 1976 it was voted the "Best Foreign Film" by the French Syndicate of Film Critics.[34][35] In 1977 the National Society of Film Critics US gave it their "Best Cinematography" Award.[36] It won the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association in 1976 and was nominated for a "Best Film" César Award.[37]

Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now, a film based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, was influenced also by Aguirre, as it contains seemingly deliberate visual "quotations" of Herzog's film.[38][39][40] Coppola himself has noted, "Aguirre, with its incredible imagery, was a very strong influence. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it."[41]

Several critics have noted that Aguirre appears to have had a direct influence on several other films. Martin Rubin has written that "[a]mong the films strongly influenced by Aguirre are Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Terrence Malick's The New World (2005)".[38] J. Hoberman agreed, noting that Herzog’s "sui generis Amazon fever dream” was “the influence Malick's over-inflated New World can't shake."[25] Channel 4 opined "This is an astonishing, deceptively simple, pocket-sized epic whose influence, in terms of both style and narrative, is seen in films as diverse as Apocalypse Now, The Mission, Predator, and The Blair Witch Project (1999)."[42]

Although plot details and many of the characters in Aguirre come directly from Herzog’s own imagination, historians have pointed out that the film fairly accurately incorporates some 16th-century events and historical personages into a fictional narrative. The film’s major characters, Aguirre, Ursúa, Don Fernando, Inez and Florés, were indeed involved in a 1560 expedition that left Peru to find the city of El Dorado. Commissioned by Peru’s governor, Ursúa organized an expeditionary group of 300 men to travel by way of the Amazon River. He was accompanied by his mixed-race mistress, Doña Inez. At one point during the journey, Aguirre, a professional soldier, decided that he could use the 300 men to overthrow the Spanish rule of Peru. Aguirre had Ursúa murdered and proclaimed Fernando as “The Prince of Peru”. Fernando himself was eventually murdered when he questioned Aguirre’s scheme of sailing to the Atlantic, conquering Panama, crossing the isthmus and invading Peru. Many others who attempted to rebel against Aguirre were also killed. The surviving soldiers conquered Isla Margarita off the coast of Venezuela and made preparations to attack the mainland. However, by that time Spanish authorities had learned of Aguirre’s plans, and when the rebels arrived in Venezuela, government agents offered full pardons to Aguirre’s men. All of them accepted the deal. Immediately prior to his arrest, Aguirre murdered his daughter Florés, who had remained by his side during the entire journey. He was then captured and dismembered.[43]

Herzog’s screenplay merged the 1560 expedition with the events of an earlier Amazonian journey in 1541 and 1542. Like Ursúa, Gonzalo Pizarro and his men entered the Amazon basin in search of El Dorado. Various troubles afflicted the expedition and, sure that El Dorado was very close, Pizarro set up a smaller group led by Francisco de Orellana to break off from the main force and forge ahead, then return with news of what they had found. This group utilized a brigantine to journey down the river. Accompanying Orellana was Gaspar de Carvajal, who kept a journal of the group’s experiences. The historic Gaspar de Carvajal (1500–1584) was a Spanish Dominican friar who had settled in Peru and dedicated himself to the conversion of the Indians. His general attitude towards the Indians was consistent with the benevolence of his better-known brother Dominican friar, Bartolomé de las Casas.[citation needed] This personality is at odds with the description in the film where Carvajal is portrayed as a cowardly priest who claimed that "the church was always on the side of the strong."[citation needed] After failing to find the legendary city, Orellana was unable to return because of the current, and he and his men continued to follow the river until he reached the estuary of the Amazon in 1542.[6] Other Spanish expeditions outside the Amazon influenced the story; the conversation in which the Indians refuse a Bible comes from events before the Battle of Cajamarca, in which Inca emperor Atahualpa allegedly rejected the Requerimiento. The chronicle of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, La Relación ("The Account"), mentions the appearance of a boat in a treetop after a fierce tropical storm in Hispaniola:

Monday morning we went down to the port and did not find the ships. We saw their buoys in the water, from which we realized that they had been lost, and we went along the coast to see if we could find signs of them. Since we found nothing, we went into the woods, and a quarter of a league into them we found one of the ship's boats in some trees.

Kinski’s crazed performance bore similarities to the real Aguirre, a “true homicidal megalomaniac”. Many of his fellow soldiers considered his actions to be that of a madman.[6] Kinski’s use of a limp reflected one that Aguirre had, the result of a battle injury. Aguirre’s frequent short but impassioned speeches to his men in the film were accurately based on the man’s noted “simple but effective rhetorical ability.”[43]


has there ever been a female thunderbird pilot

Nicole Margaret Ellingwood Malachowski[1] (born September 26, 1974) is a retired [2] United States Air Force officer and the first female pilot selected to fly as part of the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron, better known as the Thunderbirds. Her aviator call sign is "FiFi".[3]  Her first public performance was in March 2006 and she spent the 2006 and 2007 air show seasons flying the Number 3 (Right Wing) aircraft in the diamond formation.  Prior to attending the U.S. Air Force Academy and joining the USAF, Colonel Malachowski was a Civil Air Patrol Cadet.

Nicole Malachowski

Between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009, Malachowski was on special assignment, participating in the White House Fellows Program for the Class of 2008â€“2009, assigned to the General Services Administration.[4] In September 2015 Malachowski returned to the White House as executive director of its Joining Forces initiative for supporting veterans, service members, and military families, succeeding U. S. Army Colonel Steve Parker.[5]

Nicole Malachowski was born Nicole Ellingwood in Santa Maria, California, to Cathy and Robert Ellingwood.[6]  In high school, she was a cadet member of the Nevada Wing of the Civil Air Patrol[7] and participated in AFJROTC, where she was rated cadet colonel, the highest rank a cadet could achieve.  She started working on her pilot's license before graduating from high school.[6] She graduated from Western High School in Las Vegas in 1992.

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Management, with a minor in French,[8] from the United States Air Force Academy, graduating 124th of 922 in the Class of 1996.[4]  While at the academy she was both a pilot and cadet instructor pilot in the academy's TG-4 glider program. She also earned a Master of Arts degree from American Military University in National Security Policy,[8] and a second in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval War College, where she graduated with highest distinction.[9]

Malachowski is married to Lieutenant Colonel Paul G. Malachowski (USAF, retired), a former F-15E Weapons System Operator. The couple met while both were serving as aircrew in the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom.[6] In April 2010 she was admitted to the Mother and Infant Care Center (MICC) of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in expectation of the birth of twins. After a confinement of nine weeks, she gave birth to daughter Norah and son Garrick on June 6, 2010.[10]

Malachowski attended undergraduate pilot training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. She finished fourth in her class and selected the only F-15E Strike Eagle slot allotted to her class. After meeting height requirements for fighter pilots,[11] she trained at Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, with the 4th Fighter Wing.

She served two operational tours at RAF Lakenheath, England, with the 48th Fighter Wing; assignment to the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB; and as an Air Liaison Officer supporting the 2nd Infantry Division at Camp Red Cloud, South Korea. During her second tour at RAF Lakenheath, Malachowski deployed for four months in early 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, flying 26 combat missions. She applied and was accepted as a Thunderbird pilot in June 2005. She completed transition training to the F-16 Fighting Falcon with the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona and flew with the Thunderbird Team based at Nellis AFB, Nevada in November 2005 until November 2007.

After successfully completing her tour with the USAF Thunderbirds in November 2007, including approximately 140 performances, Malachowski served on staff of the Commander, United States Air Force Warfare Center, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, to June 2008.

Malachowski was selected to participate as a White House Fellow in Washington, D.C., from September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009, working in the General Services Administration with the Presidential Transition Support Team and as deputy chief of staff.[4][8][12] Malachowski has been an advocate of recognition as veterans of women pilots who served during World War II. On July 1, 2009, she participated in a White House ceremony at which legislation (S.614) awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to former pilots of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was signed into law by President Barack Obama. Although she had to use a wheelchair due to a broken left leg, Lt Col Malachowski delivered remarks during the ceremony held March 10, 2010, in the United States Capitol awarding Deanie Bishop Parrish the medal on behalf of all 1,102 WASP pilots.[13][14][15]

Malachowski served as deputy commander of the 4th Operations Support Squadron, 4th Operations Group, until November 18, 2011, when she took command of the 333d Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina.[16]

She completed her assignment with the 333d in May, 2013 and reported to the Naval War College in Newport, RI as a student.[17]

Col. Malachowski medically retired after serving 21 years because she contracted a tick-borne illness.  [2]

Nicole Malachowski's ribbons as of August 1, 2009:[4]