The Good And Bad Of The MGS V: The Phantom Pain Strategy Guide

I like to wring every last bit of entertainment out of games, which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading strategy guides. The Metal Gear series is notoriously deep, full of Easter eggs and alternate options; even after finishing The Phantom Pain, I was excited to get my hands on the strategy guide to see what I had missed along the way. The book is produced by Piggyback Interactive (the same company behind the excellent guide for Metal Gear Solid 4), and after reading through it, I singled out some highlights and lowlights from this in-depth look at Metal Gear Solid V.

Good: Made With Caution
Some players avoid strategy guides altogether because of the potential for spoilers. Considering the many twists and turns in Metal Gear games, you don’t want to risk ruining a revelation for yourself. This guide seems to be made carefully with that in mind, keeping most spoilers sequestered to specific sections, and others well-marked so you don’t accidentally read certain info prematurely.

Bad: Sparse Optimization Info
The Phantom Pain has a lot to do, but building your base and developing your equipment are some of the major highlights. However, these systems are complex, and gathering the necessary money and materials can be a long and tedious process. I want to know the best ways to get resources quickly, the advantages of different build orders at Mother Base, and the best way to obtain specialists to build powerful items as early as possible. This is the kind of info that Piggyback usually includes in its guides as a supplement to the walkthrough (one of the reasons I usually like the company’s guides so much), but I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more direction for players who prefer highly optimized playthroughs.

Good: Explaining The Unexplained
Because The Phantom Pain has so many facets, the game isn’t able to give in-depth tutorials on every aspect of the action. Beyond that, some systems are deliberately left mysterious to encourage player experimentation and discovery. The guide does a great job breaking down the specifics of elements like the difficulty system, your “demon score,” and optional cutscenes. If you want to see everything The Phantom Pain offers and understand how it works under the hood, the guide offers you a comprehensive look – with a few notable exceptions, which brings us to my next point…

Bad: Mission Incomplete
Questions like “How do I unlock the true ending?” are exactly why people buy strategy guides in the first place. Unfortunately, that answer is not included in this publication. The guide acknowledges the existence of a final mission, but also explains that Konami dictated that no details about it can be revealed – including how to unlock it or what it contains. I really can’t blame Piggyback for this; as someone who played through Metal Gear Solid V prior to its release, I can say that Konami was particularly concerned about spoilers leaking (especially about the ending). The guide promises future updates on the Piggyback website as info becomes available, but if I wanted to look these things up online, I wouldn’t buy a physical strategy guide in the first place.

The standard edition of the guide. The collector's edition is pictured at top

Good: Not-Quite-Walkthrough
For a game with so many potential approaches and dynamic elements, the guide does a great job giving you the lay of the land for each mission. Not only that, it presents a few different strategies, plus some guidelines for S-rank runs that you can attempt on subsequent playthroughs. Part of the fun of playing MGS V is developing your own playstyle, but these alternate suggestions are great for when you replay certain missions (which you should) and want to experiment with new weapons and items.

Bad: Lingering Questions
I loved how Piggyback’s Metal Gear Solid 4 guide gave a thorough story analysis and cleared up confusion regarding events and characters’ motivations. However, as a result of the need to avoid spoilers about The Phantom Pain’s finale, some of the content in this guide about the characters and story is vague or incomplete. This means that many of the questions that naturally follow from the game’s conclusion are left hanging. You can always toss theories around with other people who have finished the game, but the people at Piggyback had the rare opportunity to get definitive answers straight from Kojima Productions – so it’s a pity those answers aren’t here.

Good: Other Story Beats
Yes, it’s missing some information from The Phantom Pain’s conclusion, but the other story-focused sections of the guide are well written. This isn’t just a rehash of the series history; it incorporates most of The Phantom Pain’s key developments and highlights their impact on events later in the series’ timeline. Even if the story stuff isn’t 100% complete, it’s close enough to be useful and informative.

Verdict: Worth It
This guide is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to dive deep into The Phantom Pain. My biggest disappointment stems from the fact that Piggyback’s guides usually go above-and-beyond with their information and analysis, while this one is a bit more standard in what it provides. It still has a lot of rock-solid basic info, but for the first time in a Piggyback guide, I had some questions I couldn’t find answers to. On the other hand, the nature of The Phantom Pain means that the game adapts to different strategies and behaves in unpredictable ways, and the guide helps with great info and general tips (since a step-by-step walkthrough isn’t possible). The lack of information about the unlocking final mission may seem like a huge problem, but when I played the game, I got that “secret” mission naturally without jumping through any complex steps, so it isn’t really that hidden after all. The bottom line is that you can’t find more complete or authoritative guidance through The Phantom Pain, and that makes this worth exploring for fans.

For more coverage of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, check out our spoiler-free beginner's guide and watch our Test Chamber showing the game in action.