When you’re the creator of a multi-million selling franchise that spans more than 20 years and almost a dozen games’ worth of canon, you tend to lose track of how the saga fits together. That rings especially true if your games involve nanomachines, arms taking over people’s personalities, and a monkey in diapers.

Hideo Kojima’s created one of the most revered gaming franchises in the industry with the Metal Gear series, but let’s face it, it’s a convoluted mess. And even the man himself gets confused trying to piece it all together. In an interview with Eurogamer, he talks about his confusing creation, “…I personally get confused too about the whole timeline and saga of Metal Gear Solid. This is especially tricky when you create the future first and then go back in time to create something new. There are a lot of small aspects where sometimes it doesn’t match completely.” This really isn’t all that surprising. Did anybody actually understand anything that was going on in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty? If Kojima can’t figure it all out, we’re all doomed to a perpetual state of WTF when it comes to all things Metal Gear.