METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN - Parade Tack

I'll be straight with you: the Parade Tack is a cosmetic saddle set for D-Horse, the trusty companion you ride across the open deserts of Afghanistan and the savannas of Angola in METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN. It does not make D-Horse faster. It does not improve stealth. It does not unlock new abilities. It dresses your horse up for ceremonies and parades, none of which exist in the game's actual missions. If you came here expecting a mechanics-changing addition to one of the best stealth-action sandboxes on PC, you will be disappointed. To give you the full picture on what you're buying into: the base game this DLC lives inside is genuinely excellent. The open-world tactical freedom, the Mother Base management loop, the sheer variety of approaches across its sprawling Afghanistan and Africa maps, the crisp movement and cover mechanics, the Fulton extraction system for lifting soldiers and vehicles out of hot zones, the S-Rank challenge runs that reward replaying missions with different loadouts. That core is tight and remarkably well-designed. The Fox Engine still holds up visually, and the enemy AI reads your positioning, reacts to sound, and adapts to your tactics in ways that keep infiltration feeling fresh across dozens of hours. The Parade Tack, however, sits entirely outside that loop. It is locked behind a story progression gate and specific Mother Base development requirements, meaning you cannot even equip it immediately on a fresh save. Once you do unlock it, it replaces D-Horse's standard gear with formal ceremony tack, purely for visual flair. It is not usable in Metal Gear Online. Its entire value proposition is aesthetic, and even then, the aesthetic is barely visible during the frantic action the game actually encourages. Who is this for? Completionists who want every Steam item registered to their account. Dedicated fans who want to deck out D-Horse for screenshots or simply check every box in the game's DLC roster. Casual players who find the base game's cosmetic depth meaningful and want to extend it. If none of those descriptions match you, this particular add-on offers nothing that changes how the game plays, feels, or tells its story. The Phantom Pain already has enough going on with its weapons research trees, companion upgrades for Quiet, D-Dog, and D-Walker, and its FOB multiplayer component to keep you occupied without cosmetic horse gear entering the equation. The base game earns its 91 Metacritic score and its very positive Steam reception honestly. This DLC is a footnote to that achievement, not an extension of it. Judge accordingly.

Alex · Scout Team

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