Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

1. Summary

24% of the longer reviews explicitly praise the stealth, gunplay or sandbox design of The Phantom Pain, and some call it the best stealth game they have played. Reviewers also like being able to take an outpost in any way they choose, enemies that adapt to their habits, buddies like D-Dog, and a Fox Engine that still looks good and runs well on modest PCs and handhelds. Long-time fans and newcomers to the series both make these points.

The complaint raised most often is that the game feels unfinished. 20% of longer reviews say so, pointing to a story that stops without a proper ending and a second chapter padded with harder repeats of earlier missions. Smaller groups object to real-time development timers, resources locked behind the online mode, a slow hour-long prologue and a PC version without basic options like volume sliders or keyboard prompts. The unfinished story often appears as a caveat inside a positive review, next to praise for how the game plays. Reviewers say a June 2026 update added a new Denuvo version, and it brought a short wave of complaints about performance and broken mods.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Stealth sandbox play and freedom of approachHigh

24% of longer reviews explicitly praise the stealth, gunplay or sandbox mechanics, and 14% single out the freedom to approach a mission however they like: sneaking in at night, sniping from a ridge, calling in a supply drop on a guard's head or charging the gate. Players with long play histories say they keep finding new ways to clear the same outpost. "After 120 hours, I was still finding new ways to approach objectives," one wrote. Others describe the controls as smooth and responsive.

Some negative reviews agree: they concede that the moment-to-moment play is excellent and then explain why the structure around it let them down. The few dissenters say the stealth is too easy once you have a tranquilizer sniper rifle, or find the enemy detection inconsistent.

Graphics and performance that hold upMedium

How the game looks earns praise in 8% of longer reviews, often with surprise that a game from 2015 (the year reviewers give) still compares well with newer ones. "The Fox Engine still holds up to this day," as one put it. A separate group praises the optimization: smooth play on low-end PCs, Steam Deck and other handhelds. One reviewer said "it runs absolutely beautifully on the Legion Go and I'd be willing to bet it does the same on the Steam Deck." The exceptions are the 60 fps cap and missing ultrawide support (see the PC item below) and the stretch after the June 2026 update.

The 80s soundtrack and cassette tapesMedium

Players like hunting for 80s songs on enemy radios and playing them from the helicopter; the music comes up in 9% of longer reviews, and one said the game "made me appreciate 80s and 90s songs even more." Song references and pasted lyrics also fill many of the short joke reviews. A few negative reviews complain that licensed tracks only play when you pick them yourself.

Buddies and enemies that adaptMedium

D-Dog, D-Horse, Quiet and D-Walker come up in 5% of longer reviews, usually fondly, and D-Dog in particular is remembered with affection. Reviewers also like how the enemy AI reacts to your habits. "The AI adapt to your playstyle. If you always headshot them at night, they start wearing helmets and night-vision goggles," one explained. Weather and day-night cycles get similar credit for changing how missions play. A minority of players find the adaptation annoying because it pushes them off their preferred approach.

Where players are split

The open worldMedium

The open world comes up in 18% of longer reviews, and players are divided. Fans say traversal itself is a pleasure: "Even just exploring the open world is a joy thanks to how responsive and smooth everything feels." Detractors, some of them long-time series fans, say the maps are mostly empty space between interchangeable outposts and miss the tight, hand-built levels of earlier games. One wrote that "95% of the map is just wasteland with a few easily avoidable guard posts scattered around." Even some fans admit the open world adds travel time without adding much to do.

Mother Base and base buildingMedium

Mother Base comes up in 11% of longer reviews. For some it is part of the hook: Fulton-extracting soldiers, expanding platforms and unlocking gear. "The meta-game of building and expanding your Mother Base is incredibly addictive," one wrote. Others see it as menu work that interrupts the stealth, calling it "a sort of chore simulator awkwardly stapled onto an otherwise fantastic stealth playground." The split usually depends on how much the player enjoys the timers and resource collection tied to it (see the grind item below).

FOB and the online layerMedium

The online side, mainly Forward Operating Base (FOB) invasions, comes up in 8% of longer reviews. A group of players with long play histories enjoys FOB raids and Metal Gear Online for the long progression they add. Others resent that single-player resources depend on it: currency and materials earned online can't be used offline. "who decided 90% of all the gmp i earn cant be spent if i'm not constantly online?" one asked. Some report being invaded by stronger or cheating players, and losing points when disconnected mid-raid. "MGSV is a good game until you try to play FOB, where cheaters ruin the experience," one wrote.

The story and how it is toldMedium

Opinions on the story run from moving to incoherent. Supporters call it a tragic, unusual story about revenge and loss and say the cassette tapes reward close attention. 7% of longer reviews call the story weak, confusing or disjointed. Common objections are that most of it sits in audio tapes rather than cutscenes, that the protagonist rarely speaks, and that newcomers cannot follow it without earlier games or outside videos. One reviewer summed up the mixed feeling: "The story is a beautifully tragic mess, but the stealth action gameplay is an absolute, untouchable 10/10 masterclass." Smaller recurring points: some fans miss David Hayter as Snake's voice, and Quiet's outfit and camera framing draw both jokes and complaints about fan service.

The prologueMedium

The opening hospital sequence comes up in 6% of longer reviews, and it is named in 20% of negative reviews from players with under three hours played. Those players describe about an hour of crawling and cutscenes with little control. Players who stuck with it often add a warning instead: "So, allow yourself an hour or so to get through the intro (WTF!!), then a few more hours to get through the first few missions, then have fun!" Some players who restarted the game were annoyed at having to sit through it again.

What frustrates players

An unfinished second halfHigh

20% of longer reviews say the game is unfinished. They describe a story that stops without a proper ending, plot threads that disappear, and a final chapter that never arrived. Plenty of these reviewers still recommend the game and treat the gap as a caveat, as in "It's unfinished but it's still leagues better than most AAA slop." In the negative reviews that raise it, the missing ending is one of the stated reasons for not recommending.

Repeated missions and repetitive side opsMedium

Repetition draws complaints in 11% of longer reviews. Reviewers point out that Chapter 2 asks you to replay earlier missions with Extreme, Subsistence or Total Stealth modifiers to move the story forward, while the side ops recycle the same few objectives across the same outposts. "Most of Act 2 is made up of modified rehashes of Act 1 missions, and the side ops all blur together as copy-and-paste scenarios at different outposts," one reviewer wrote.

Grind, real-time timers and MB coinsMedium

Weapon and base development runs on timers that only count down while the game is running, and the MB coin currency can skip them; 6% of longer reviews complain about this grind. "A 36-minute research timer takes 36 actual minutes of gameplay!" one reviewer noted, and a few admit to leaving the game running idle just to finish development. Others compare it to mobile games, and a few players install mods to remove the timers. "There's a great 30 hour game hidden somewhere between 200+ hours of filler," another summed up.

A PC version missing basic optionsLow

Complaints about the PC port appear in 3.6% of longer reviews and in 18% of negative reviews from players with under three hours. They mention no volume sliders, no key rebinding, controller prompts shown to keyboard users, no ultrawide support and a 60 fps cap. "If you're planning on playing on keyboard, keep in mind you will be a second class citizen," one warned. Another: "THERE IS NO WAY TO CHANGE THE VOLUME AT ALL IN THIS GAME." Several recommend playing with a controller, which reviewers say works well.

Helicopter rides, credits and other time sinksLow

A recurring minor complaint is how much time passes outside play. Players mention unskippable helicopter rides to and from missions, credits naming the director at the start of every mission, and slow menus. "I swear, 1/3 of the game is spent waiting for the helicopter and flying until it gives us a loading screen," one reviewer wrote.

Skulls and boss fightsLow

Players who expect classic Metal Gear boss battles say there are few, and the supernatural Skulls units come in for criticism as bullet sponges that break stealth play. Missions with the Skulls, one reviewer wrote, "completely took me out of the experience."

The June 2026 DRM updateLow

Reviewers say a June 2026 update added a new Denuvo version without notice. Denuvo or DRM comes up in only a small share of reviews overall, but in 11% of negative reviews, and the weeks after the update are the one clear dip in sentiment in this slice (see below). Players report stutter and very low frame rates in places like character creation, broken mods, and trouble on Linux and Steam Deck. "I'm getting massive stuttering in cutscenes," one wrote. Some of these reviews carry later edits saying a follow-up patch restored performance: "It seems like a recent update fixed the performance issues," one added. Those edits still object to the DRM being there at all.

Checkpoints instead of savesLow

A small group dislikes the lack of manual saves. They describe losing long stealth runs to a single mistake or having to restart whole missions after leaving the mission area. "I just can not stand reloading 40 mins of flawless stealth due to enemy RNG," one wrote.

3. The player conversation

Short positive reviews are often lines from the game or lyrics from its songs, along with jokes about cardboard boxes, balloons and "Kept you waiting, huh?". Few players argue about the core play. The disagreement is about everything around it: the open structure, the story, Mother Base and the online layer. A positive review here often carries a mixed opinion, pairing praise for the stealth with regret about the unfinished story.

What players raise depends on how far they got. Early quitters point to the prologue and the PC controls. Players deeper into the campaign talk about the missing ending and the Chapter 2 repeats, and some long-time series fans compare it unfavorably with earlier entries. Players who stayed for the endgame raise FOB cheaters, online-locked resources and development timers. The DRM complaints came mostly from players with long play histories, some of them modders.

Sentiment stayed steady from late 2024 through spring 2026, with reviews written in that period 94% positive. It dipped after the June 2026 update: reviews written in the following four weeks were 80% positive. It recovered to 93% for reviews written from the end of August 2026 onward, after reviewers reported that a later patch fixed the performance problems.

4. What the developers could do

1. Release the missing story content. The unfinished ending is the complaint raised most often, and a couple of reviewers ask for a director's cut that finishes it.
2. Make the Chapter 2 repeat missions optional. Reviewers single out having to replay Extreme, Subsistence and Total Stealth versions of old missions to reach the next story beat.
3. Remove or shorten the real-time development timers. Players describe timers that only run while the game is open and compare the MB coin shortcuts to mobile games, and a few install mods to remove them.
4. Let offline players use everything they earn. Reviewers object to currency and materials staying locked to the online mode and to losing resources during server maintenance or disconnects.
5. Test DRM and other patches against performance, mods and Linux before release, and announce them. The weeks after the June 2026 update are the one clear dip in sentiment, with reports of stutter, broken mods and Proton problems after an update that came without notice.
6. Add standard PC options. Volume sliders, key rebinding, keyboard button prompts, ultrawide support and an uncapped frame rate are what players who quit early ask for, besides a shorter prologue.
7. Let players skip the prologue and helicopter rides once they have seen them. One in five negative reviews from players with under three hours mentions the hour-long opening, and returning players dislike repeating it and the travel sequences.
8. Add anti-cheat and fairer disconnect rules to FOB. Endgame players report cheaters in invasions and lost points or rewards when a raid disconnects.