Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: The Complete Official Guide
All missions, all side quests, all secrets, all collectibles, all Achievements and Trophies – at your fingertips!
TURNKEY WALKTHROUGH: An at-a-glance, map-based walkthrough steers you through the entire adventure supported by annotated hi-res screenshots.
ALL GAME SYSTEMS DECODED: Statistics, diagrams and analysis from our experts provide a comprehensive understanding of all game systems and features, including the Mother Base management metagame.
A WEALTH OF EXTRAS: Includes an extensive story recap, a poster covering the immense game area and much more!
DEVELOPMENT: Developed directly with Kojima Productions in Tokyo.
MAINTAINING TRADITION: From the same team that brought you the highly acclaimed guides to Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
QUALITY CONTROL: Carefully designed to avoid unnecessary story spoilers.
Reviews (179)
Vital to Your Survival.
Metal Gear Solid V is a huge game. It's a very huge game. It's also a game that introduces a lot of new elements for series fans. A strategy guide can come in handy. Piggyback Interactive has made tons of Metal Gear Solid guides and they've all been very helpful. But Metal Gear Solid V is a totally different beast. With how unique it is the focus of a guide might also need a unique focus as well. This is what that guide does. It provides the tools for you. In short, Piggyback Interactive is more about helping you understand Metal Gear Solid V just as much as it is about helping you get through it. This is the most exhaustive and unique Metal Gear Guide I've ever seen. The guide begins with a fairly touching foreward from Hideo Kojima. Seeing as how this may very well be his last Metal Gear game, Kojima lets us know that he gave Metal Gear Solid V his all and that he also wants you to enjoy this particular strategy guide. Once we've gone from this we jump into learning about the basics of the game itself. Even veterans of the Metal Gear Solid saga might want to make a stop here. Things are incredibly different in Metal Gear Solid V and you'd do well to make sure you know how all of its systems work before really diving in. This is all the stuff for beginners, though. Once you learn the basics of the system, the guide has more information you may want to utilize later. We'll get to that. First, the part that most of you are wondering about: The Walkthrough. Is the walkthrough good? Yes, but it also has to take a different approach than most previous guides by Piggyback. In previous games, Metal Gear was particularly... predictable. Not so in this. Thus Piggyback can always tell you what to do and where to go, but it can't always offer up strategies for how to do everything. It can't tell you much about patrol routes or even how many patrols are in an area because Metal Gear Solid V is changing this stuff up constantly. It doesn't mean you can't get help. You can. The guide provides a few basic tips before it actually dives in. It's going to let you know how the guards can change and show you a few "points of interest." Each mission always begins with a few "notes" and addresses your first play through. Each section also has very detailed top down maps. It then utilizes a waypoint system. It'll show point 1 on a map and then you need to find the "1" in the walkthrough and read it. But for those who just want a quick reference, you can just look at certain call outs on the map itself. It also takes some time to map out how you should go about your mission. As I said, though, it can't really show you guard routes or account for certain things like environmental changes or what happens during the night. It can always point out objectives and intel, though. And it's a good thing the guide comes with a huge map of both Afghanistan and Africa. This layout means that each mission it can detail quickly. But whenever new enemies are introduced or there are new boss fights, the guide goes into a lot more depth. It might seem like the walkthrough is flying by, but you'll get quite a bit out of it. You won't always learn patrol routes, but the guide will actually help you out in other ways regarding that. The guide also covers side ops, but not with the same amount of depth. Since the side ops are typically not as long or as important you mostly get a screen shot and the details. The guide and walkthrough are organized the way they are so that it can avoid as many spoilers as possible and so that it can be used more so for a quick reference rather than being used in an in depth way. The guide also has a section dedicated to Mother Base. You'll get a lot of details here. There are maps and information on your entire arsenal here. You can also learn about development and how to manage it too. This section of the guide is valuable because you'll get the most out of development and recruitment this way. Players new to the concept of the mother base should spend time in this section. Probably even more so than the walkthrough at times. In most strategy guides, the walkthrough is the meat and bones. It's the section you buy a guide for. I would argue that in the case of Piggyback Interactive's Metal Gear Solid V guide the reason you should buy it is the analysis and references chapter. The guide cautions against using this section until you've completed 31 missions, but the first couple bits of advice are valuable to beginners and experts alike. In particular, if you want to learn more about how your enemies function and work... this is where you want to go. And believe me, you want to know how your enemies function and work. But you'll get more than that. Here I was able to learn about Metal Gear Solid V's dynamic difficulty and learn more about the response system and how the game changes based on your style of play. All of these things were important to the core experience. How your enemies work is invaluable, though. How far can you enemies see? This section tells you. How about their health levels and various body parts? It's all here. Yeah, the walkthrough can't tell you about patrol routes or anything, but the enemies section can help you understand everything about them to aid you in how you go about it. The guide also details the entire score system to help you get the best rankings on every mission. There are some spoilers in the references and analysis chapters, however. In particular, a certain recruit is detailed in full that might be a spoiler. The guide, of course, has already warned you that there would be some spoilers in this section. You'll also get information on a lot of bosses here as well. This section is here primarily for advanced players of Metal Gear Solid V. In reading this section you already need to understand the basic systems of the game to begin with. The Extras chapter can help you learn some secrets about the game. This is nice, but the real treat in the extras chapter is actually the entire story recap. Piggyback has always done this with their Metal Gear Solid guides going all the way back to Metal Gear Solid 2. And in each new guide they release they always recap the entire story and give an interpretation of the events that have happened. This particular guide opts to cover every last detail you need to know in the story. It'll also do so in chronological order. Meaning it details the events of Snake Eater, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid V before it goes into the plots of Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2 and finally Metal Gear Solid 4. The guide also provides profiles for other characters throughout the saga. If you've gone through the entire saga, this guide will help you begin to make sense of it. The paperback guide ends after you've read the whole synopsis. The collector's edition, guide, however, has an art gallery with commentary by Kojima himself. This alone makes the collector's edition worth a buy. Here you'll get to learn about some of he development of the game and learn about some of the symbolism found in the game itself--directly from Kojima. And it's brilliant looking artwork as well. Most strategy guides tend to be about making sure you get through the game. They have a walkthrough and some secrets but that's about it. Piggyback's Metal Gear Solid V guide, however, is trying to enhance your experience of the game. It provides advanced data on enemies, environments, mother base etc., but give us more by providing a story analysis and some artwork with commentary. For a collector, the guide is worth the purchase because you're getting far more than just a strategy guide. You are getting an analytical tome. This guide will really help you understand this complex game. The most helpful bits aren't even in the walkthrough but rather in all the data which surrounds it. The guide is more about helping players understand the game and its unique systems more so than just getting you through it. This makes the guide helpful to beginners and experts alike. If you want to understand Metal Gear Solid V and still find enjoyment in the game's surprises then this is pretty much the perfect guide.
Something this awesome should cost 5X more than what its sold for.
Awesome. More than a ubiquitous walk through guide, it's a true collectors piece. Hideo participated in the guide's development, including final approval ; plus he wrote the 'forward,' as well as many short texts specific to what "phantom pain" represents conceptually. Includes an abridged version of the entire MGS story w/ timeline Impossible to do an exact walk through with this game - since the missions depend on personal subjectivity - so in lieu there are great tips for every mission to help ensure "S" rank. Overall amazing attention to detail...snake's weapons/tools section is amazing ! Get it!
Absolutely worth it for collectors and casual players alike.
If you've kept up a little bit with the series or you want a history lesson as well as stunning artwork and a TON of help from a book that's thicker than an encyclopedia, buy this book. The lithograph is amazing (complements to Yoji Shinkawa), the 40+ pages if artwork and backstory at the end of the book really display how much love and appreciation was put in to the series from the beginning until now. It's a perfect end to a fantastic series that has left people in awe for years now. I would suggest this book to a collector trying to finish their Metal Gear collection (As am I) or a player that wants the ultimate MGS:V experience with art and detail paid to a phenomenal game series. 10/10
A wonderful guide
These days most gamers use the Internet to get help with a game when they need it. In part, this is due to most video game guide books being nothing more than a straight walk through and written with the least amount of effort required. Not here! This guide is awesome. It has the obviously walk through parts, but it is so much more. It has detailed sections on game mechanics, secrets, weapons, stat charts and base management. I was impressed by the scope and depth contained here. This is the "gold standard" for how to make a game guide. I cannot really add anything new that has not been covered in other reviews of this book. The "most helpful" reviews here are right on the money. This book is well worth what I paid for it. I only wish I had gotten it sooner.
Great guide. Probably the best game guide I've ever ...
Great guide. Probably the best game guide I've ever purchased honestly. Not only are there detailed run throughs of every mission and side-op, but background on the game and its characters not only concerning Metal Gear Solid 5, but the whole series. These sections are extremely well written and will catch anyone unfamiliar with the story of the other games up and spark the appreciation of certain easter eggs and plot unveals in 5 subsequently that could have been confusing otherwise...also helps you understand characters in the game better. I mean this was so cool to me as a Metal Gear fan to have all the games summarized and characters realized just in one section of the guide. It has been a go to for me and is a great summary of all the games and the collective story. Every weapon, trophy, animal and location is recognized in the guide as well. A must own for any Metal Gear fan and anyone that wants to truly conquer this game!
Great guide that really helps with the missions
Spoiler-free review: This is one of the best guides I've seen. I think it stems from the fact that they worked very closely with the KojiPro and it really shows. The maps are marked to make targets easily recognizable, and there are great tips and tricks to accomplish each mission. There book is printed on high-quality paper and contains lots of beautiful renders from the game. There is a ton of information about each character from this game and the series as a whole. Lots of background info and game summaries to make you appreciate the story. This edition comes with a nice print of Big Boss drawn by Yoji Shinkawa and it's just beautiful. The only thing I would change about this guide is the actual cover. Although it looks really nice, I would still prefer an artwork by Shinkawa rather than a 3D render. They have this great artist working on this game that none of the other games do, so you might as well utilize his talent.
Great for a collector and series follower.
With the advent of the internet, no one needs a physical strategy guide anymore, really, but since I "grew up" with the series and knowing this was most likely going to be the final (true) Metal Gear Solid, I felt it was necessary to have. Inside the book, there was a nice Yoji Shinkawa picture of Big Boss, and a detailed map of the Afghanistan, Africa, and MotherBase, a nice item to have. The book is very well done, it looks good, and thumbing through you see the artwork from the series, a nice hard cover with a sort of matte finish with the colors a glossy sheen for contrast. If you're a collector like I am, then this is ideal, otherwise, if you are not remotely hardcore about the series, give it a pass, and use youtube.
Metal Gear Solid 5 collectors strategy guide
I would've liked more original artwork but then again MGS2 and specially MGS4 don't include much as well. The character description, game history is great. I was afraid that it would be identical as the info in MGS4 but it's not. It obviously overlaps but it is not 100% copy paste. The guide itself is detailed due to the games massiveness. What through me off was that there is a "special mission" that was omitted in purpose for the guide. You have to do certain things to unlock it. People buy this guides to get 100% of the game. You don't buy them to later go online and search for classified info. But then again if I hadn't bought the guide I wouldn't know of the existence of the special mission.
For the hard core Metal Gear fan
I maybe be bias as I am a Metal Gear fanboy. That being said if you are a casual fan of the series or just need help getting past certain missions I would suggest the regular guide or looking up an online FAQ. However if you are a Metal Gear fan boy like me this is a must for your collection. The size of this guide alone is impressive. The book is broken up into sections from main mission, side ops, and extras with clear spoilers marked in bright red lettering for those who want to know when to stop reading. One issue to note is the guide does not tell you how to unlock the final secret mission directly but it does provide links and QR codes to scan to find that information later. The hard cover is still semi soft in that the corners can still be bent as mine were crumpled upon shipping but the actual pages and main body of the book were just fine. Highly recommended for hard core Metal Gear fans
A good read for those who wish for more
This guide is so much better collectors edition than the one that I bought when this game was released back in September. This edition offers more tips than the standard guide. I enjoyed getting the signed Lithograph that came with it and even the maps. Even though I had maps that came with the game case these were printed on white background compared to black. However there isn't much difference other than glossy or regular paper. I liked reading the history of Metal Gear. From the beginning and up to the last installment was very interesting I liked how they broke down every gun, item and technique on how to fulton extract someone. But above all else I liked how they would push you to do the mission for yourself then read how to get that ever popular S rank. Even includes Bios of Big Boss, Eva, Sigint, Miller, Ocelot to name a few. Not to mention it includes all major players in this franchise that is worth a read. Like the tips it gives you in regards to motherbase and how to properly keep it running smoothly. Recommend this guide not only to owners of Metal Gear Solid V game but also those who wish to know a little bit more of this very nice and stealthy game.
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