Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Reviews

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is ranked in the 100th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
9 / 10
Aug 24, 2015

A fitting swansong.

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90 / 100
Sep 14, 2015

As a game, The Phantom Pain excels. The stealth and action work beautifully in the open-world setting, and maintaining your Mother Base gives you plenty of rewards. It’s long, fun, and gives players tons of variety.

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Unscored
Sep 7, 2015

Such player-driven drama, comedy, and action eclipses anything in the disappointing scripted narrative. The Phantom Pain is one of the worst Metal Gear stories ever told. It functions neither as a standalone narrative nor as worthwhile insight into the series overall. And yet, The Phantom Pain is the best stealth-action game ever made, one where playing flawlessly is just as thrilling as outright failure. And boy – what a thrill.

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9.5 / 10.0
Sep 15, 2015

Ultimately, the story isn't the thing in MGSV, or at least not the one that Kojima wrote like a funhouse for you to weave your way through. No, the real story is the one you make yourself as you play through each mission, making new decisions each time and writing an action thriller of your own making. That's what makes Metal Gear Solid V brilliant, and that's why people will still be talking about it years from now.

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9 / 10.0
Sep 6, 2015

That I can be so critical of it, that it can have damn microtransactions in it, and still get one of my highest recommendations, speaks volumes about what Kojima's done. Because this is a game in which I made a tank fly away on balloons and then rode a horse that pooped whenever I told it to. Yes folks… this truly is a Hideo Kojima game.

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GamingTrend
Top Critic
95 / 100
Sep 12, 2015

The Phantom Pain strays from the formula to perfect a new one, offering the best in open-world emergent gameplay we've seen this generation. While the story sometimes falters under expectations, the characters, aesthetic, and polish of this game set it apart as one of the year's best. Thank you Kojima, for one last Metal Gear Masterpiece.

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Sep 7, 2015

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain successfully translates the iconic stealth action gameplay that has defined the series into a massive open world adventure.

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9 / 10
Sep 20, 2015
Metal Gear Solid V: TPP Angry Review video thumbnail
Aug 24, 2015

Perhaps MGSV's best quality is how in pulling gameplay to the foreground and letting much of the exposition remain optional, it opens it up to be enjoyed by people who have in the past been put off by its weirdness, serving as both the perfect entry point and a satisfying conclusion. MGSV takes the best of a great series and creates a series' best in the process.

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Sep 3, 2015

The latest Metal Gear instalment somehow lives up to the hype and expectations, providing a luxurious cinematic gaming experience without equal

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Oct 21, 2015

It’s a vast game that, some backtracking aside, could engross you with fresh ideas for dozens upon dozens of hours.

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JVL
L_sK
Top Critic
20 / 20
Aug 24, 2015

With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Hideo Kojima did not just create a final masterpiece but he wanted to leave a much stronger mark by renewing the series and literally reinventing the genre of infiltration.

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Sep 8, 2015

Which is what makes Metal Gear Solid so relevant today: its unwavering capacity to adapt and evolve. It's a game that understands everything about itself and how it works. It's the best stealth game ever made and feels like a game-changer for the medium as a whole - through its scope, the freedom it offers its players, and its deft structure.

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Push Square
Top Critic
9 / 10
Sep 27, 2017

Overall, the release proves to be a fitting, brutally brilliant finale to Hideo Kojima's beloved saga.

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Buy
Sep 10, 2015

If you didn't get the idea, I love this game. It is a marvelous addition to the open-world genre and another one I can add onto the short list that I love. I think I need to use my left hand now if we are counting. It's also a great addition to the Metal Gear Solid franchise, portraying it in ways I didn't believe possible until now.

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Sep 9, 2015

The Phantom Pain is the kind of game that actually feels as if every seemingly insignificant gameplay detail actually has a real purpose. Every mission, side-op and minute spent assigning staff back at Mother Base makes a real difference to what can or cannot be achieved out on the field. At its core, it is still a stealth-action game, but it never ties you down to just being stealthy. Every mission can be approached in a multitude of different ways and it's left up to the player how to progress. The more manageable approach to storytelling may not seem true to the Metal Gear Solid series to date, but it fits in well with the game's more flexible approach, which lets people attack the game head on or play in smaller bites without needing to worry that at any moment they may have to set aside an hour purely to watch a surprise cut-scene.

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9.2 / 10.0
Oct 11, 2015

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a gameplay triumph, that's for sure. Kojima managed to marry the stealth/action elements of MGS with the open world setting in a way that no one could have predicted. While not perfect, this is a masterpiece that everyone should enjoy; let's just hope it's not the last we'll see of Snake.

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95 / 100
Sep 11, 2015

Phantom Pain is hands down one of the best game's I have played in a long time. The open world environment offers you an endless amount of ways to play. Phantom Pain is a game you can sink over 100 hours into and still come back for more. Even if you haven't played past Metal Gear games, Phantom Pain is a great place to start.

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Ken McKown
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
Sep 11, 2015

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the most divisive game in the series for me. On one hand I love the game play. Building up Mother Base, the missions, the stealth and gunplay all feel so refined. The open-world sandbox is endless fun. The Metal Gear portion though sadly disappoints. The boss fights are lackluster, the cut scenes are not as wacky and outlandish as I expected, and the story never really grabbed me. The Phantom Pain is the best "game" in the series by far, but also the worst Metal Gear. Still, it will be hard to top it when it comes time to choose my game of the year.

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9.5 / 10.0
Aug 24, 2015

The Phantom Pain combines an open-world setting with the best Metal Gear Solid gameplay the series has to offer and a killer narrative to boot.

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