I'm quite fond of the soundtrack... it's understated and it blends into the background as just atmosphere often, and though it is not anywhere as epic or memorable as past Metal Gear games. But listening to the full score (not just the OST but a full list of every ambient score) really made me appreciate it more, especially as a haunting infiltration score.
It reminds me a lot of the film Sicario, which may be fitting considering both composers are Scandinavian and could share other style similarities.
Haunting sections such as this one or
this section (both credits), or a lot of the echo, bass, and industrial sounds of enemy combat or the Skulls Parasite boss fights are some of my favorite sounds of Metal Gear series. I mean, it's hard to compare to the single focused epicness of the Snake Eater theme and similarly brilliant Snake Eater song or its absolute GOAT audio visual experience that is its final hour, but I think Phantom Pain has the strongest ambient (and certainly haunting, ominous) night infiltration scores.
It's hard to compare a small haunting melody such as that amidst a large thematic blurred score to a lot of the strong single songs and tracks that would be more obvious examples on this topic, especially amidst its own stand out tracks or songs by other artists, but the ambient score in Phantom Pain is strong in its own right. It reminds me somewhat of the Sicario soundtrack, which interestingly enough, both are composed by Nordic artists, MGS V's Fosell being Swedish and Johannsson, Icelandic, of Sicario.
Its terror tracks with
Skull Face or
Man on Fire remind me a bit of the
score from the film Sicario -- both with that sort of ominous reverberating haunt. Even the sort of private military corporation management tracks
such as this one (Mogren Outro) and
also this one (FOB Menu) remind me a lot of Mass Effect's
Normandy and
Noveria.
Both sort of hauntingly melodic, ominously ambient with industrial echoes, and rare moments that are coldly inspiring -- to attempt to summarize my impression of it while exhausting my thesaurus. The other Metal Gears all have great infiltration tracks, too: the original MGS is subtle and even a little cold, brisk; MGS2 is kinda smooth, paced faster and fits the story well; Snake Eater's is even a bit jazzy, Bond-like, and fits that 60s spy thriller/wilderness setting. But I also appreciate the darker or more industrial tones of Phantom Pain's. It's fitting of a theme of Big Boss but also for my ears the strongest (not strongest as in best, strongest as in forceful and heavy), or at least most tense and fearful, infiltration score of Metal Gear.
