Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Category: PlayStation 3 Game
Console: PlayStation 3 (Download Emulator)
Developer: Kojima Production
Publisher: Konami
Series: Metal Gear
Mode: Single-player / Multiplayer
Region: US
Views: 8,997,375
Downloads: 6,502,783
Released: September 1, 2015
File Size: 11.9 GB
Rating: 4.9/5 (1,258 votes)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a 2015 action adventure stealth game developed and published by Konami. Directed, written, and produced by Hideo Kojima (as his final work at Konami), it is the ninth installment in the Metal Gear franchise, following Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a stand-alone prologue released the previous year.
Set in 1984, nine years after the events of Ground Zeroes, the story follows mercenary leader Punished "Venom" Snake as he ventures into Soviet occupied Afghanistan and the Angola–Zaire border region to exact revenge on those who destroyed his forces and almost killed him during the climax of Ground Zeroes.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 1, 2015. It received critical acclaim, with praise for its gameplay, open world, graphics, themes, and performances.
Its narrative and certain changes to the series formula divided critics, while the appearance of the character Quiet drew criticism. The game's repeated missions, ending, and evidence of removed content led some to label it unfinished.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shipped 6 million units by December 2015. It received several awards and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience, a bundle that includes both The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes, along with all additional content for both games, was released in October 2016.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a stealth game in which players take the role of Punished "Venom" Snake from a third-person perspective in an open world. Gameplay elements are largely unchanged from Ground Zeroes, meaning that players must stealthily traverse several areas in the game world, avoiding enemy guards and remaining undetected.
Included in Snake's repertoire are binoculars, a variety of weapons, explosives, and stealth-based items such as cardboard boxes and decoys. 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.
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, players may opt to go rock climbing as a shortcut. They may call for helicopter support against enemy soldiers or request airstrikes that can bombard the target area or change the weather.
As in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, The Phantom Pain features a base-building system that allows players to develop weapons and items from their headquarters, Mother Base. Recruitment of enemy soldiers and prisoners has 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. Unlike in Peace Walker, where players can only view Mother Base from the air, The Phantom Pain allows players to control Snake as he explores the complex on foot.
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". The game has a dynamic weather system and day-night cycle that runs in real time. 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.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain received "universal acclaim" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Reviewers considered it to be one of the best Metal Gear games. It has also been cited as one of the greatest stealth games, and one of the greatest video games of all time.
IGN's Vince Ingenito felt they had never expected a game to exist "where every minute gameplay detail has true purpose", and Spencer Campbell of EGM described The Phantom Pain as "changing the idea of what can be accomplished with an open world game, both narratively and mechanically".
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain shipped 3 million physical copies within its first five days of release, across all platforms. On its release date, the game grossed US$179 million, higher than the combined opening day box office of the films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World. 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.
Metal Gear Solid V: 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. 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. By the end of September 2015, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had shipped over five million copies worldwide, which had raised to over six million by December 2015.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was awarded Game of the Year from several publications, including PC Gamer, GameRevolution, GamesRadar+, and Entertainment Weekly. Won The Game Awards 2015 category Best Action/Adventure and Best Score/Soundtrack, won 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards category Adventure Game of the Year and won Japan Game Awards 2016 category Award for Excellence.
