Metal Gear Solid 5 The Phantom Pain Retail Disc Contains Only Steam Installer

Konami has revealed that Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will officially launch on Steam at 12 AM EST/9 PM PST on September 1st. However, a more troubling revelation has come to light for PC gamers.

A user who received the physical PC disc early revealed on Twitter that it contains the game’s Steam installer and nothing else. Many Steam-supported games do feature this but game data also ships on the disc, thus allowing Steam to act as an authentication of sorts. In the case of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’s retail disc, this means PC players will have to download the game online.

What’s the point of shipping a physical disc when everyone will just be getting the game online anyway? Why not just have a digital-only Steam release? Honestly, this isn’t the most mind-boggling decision Konami has come up with lately and we doubt it’ll be the last.

We’ll wait and see what’s Konami’s official response to this though – perhaps it was an honest mistake? Stay tuned for more information in the coming days.