When you’re stuck in a video game, sometimes the only way through is to get creative.
Most people who’ve been following Metal Gear Solid V probably know about Quiet. Even if you have no interest in playing the game, it’s been hard to miss the boobed-out bikini warrior with the sniper rifle who’s been featured so prominently in the game’s promotion.
Minor spoilers from the first part of MGSV follow!
Quiet is a sniper you can recruit to join you as a “buddy” in the field. She’s very useful in some situations, particularly if you’re taking on tough enemies that you can’t fight directly. There’s a snag, though, because of course there is: To recruit Quiet, first you’ll have to defeat her in battle. It’s the coolest encounter I’ve come across in the game so far.
After you finish a few early side ops, you’ll start to hear Kaz or Ocelot talking about an elusive lady sniper who’s been spotted around Afghanistan killing Russian officers. Once you take a side op that leads you toward the power plant in the northern part of the map (for me it was the stun arm blueprint), you’ll run into Quiet at the ruins en route to the plant. One minute you were heading for a routine side op, the next minute a cutscene is playing and you’re squaring off against Quiet. Neat.
The fight is cool, but it can be tricky. I knew I wanted to take Quiet alive, but didn’t have a nonlethal sniper rifle. Every time I managed to get a bead on her, I then had to close the distance with my tranquilliser pistol and try to get near enough to get off a shot or two before she ran away. It was fun! But hard.
I could pretty easily have taken her out with my sniper rifle, but I was worried that if I did that, I’d kill her and wouldn’t be able to recruit her. (I’ve since learned that’s not the case — you can “kill” her with a regular gun and you’ll still get a choice as to whether to spare her life and recruit her.)
For about 40 minutes, Quiet and I squared off. I got very good at tracking her, watching the dust she kicked up as she ran and listening for her telltale hum. It was a good tutorial for dealing with snipers more generally — I learned how to manage her field of vision and how to predict her shots so that even if she spotted me, she’d miss. But I just couldn’t close with her, no matter how careful I was.
I was running low on ammo, so I called in a supply drop. I set the drop to fall on my position and went into my iDroid to check in on Mother Base. Suddenly… BOOM! My supply drop landed directly on my head, knocking me over.
Like Newton sitting under the apple tree, I had an idea. An idea… that could change the course of human history.
OK, or maybe it was just an idea on how to beat a boss in a video game. Anyway. I waited until Quiet set up on a new vantage point. I tagged her with my binoculars so that she’d turn up on my map. And then I called in a supply drop directly on her.
AND IT TOTALLY WORKED. I couldn’t fucking believe it. The box dropped right on her head. Half of her grey stamina bar was gone in an instant. I waited until she got set again and called in another airdrop. It worked again! Her stamina dropped to zero. Game over. I couldn’t stop laughing.
After the fight, I looked around online and found that the supply-drop tactic is already a semi-known way to defeat Quiet. I also learned that you can just shoot her with regular bullets and still recruit her — if I’d known that, it would have saved me some time!
I’m not sure I’d recommend that people use the supply drop trick to defeat Quiet straight away. The protracted standoff against her is extremely cool. But I love it when a game’s simulation is strong enough to let me pull off a trick like this.
I was faced with a problem. I had a weird idea. I tried it, and it worked perfectly. There may be no more satisfying feeling in video games.
Comments
20 responses to “Here Is A Good Way To Get Quiet In Metal Gear Solid V”
Yeah, but if you shoot her you fail the challenge of using non-lethal weapons on her. Also failing the challenge of not using any type of firearm on her (so supply drop might work).
What I was annoyed about is that I managed to sneak up to her and I couldn’t hold her up. I wanted her to shake her camo box off for me to collect.
That’s bullshit. You could sneak up on The End in MGS3 and hold him up (from memory).
That’s why I did it, I thought either I would capture her, or get an item. Snake doesn’t even try to hold her up. If he said it, then she faked him out and kicked him I would have been happy. But it’s like the one thing Kojima didn’t program in?
Instead I was forced to shoot her then follow her around and picking her off.
You had to do it three times though. Anyone tried holding Quiet up three times yet?
Heh, I used to love doing this to people in Modern Warfare 2.
I used to love hunting down Nuke Boosters. They always got so salty.
Dropping jeeps on camping snipers as a commander in BF2 was a source of much mirth.
This is exactly how it happened to me… wish i had thought about the dropping of supplies on her… i just spent my time sniping her with the pistol… : (
While I feel there are some things that previous Metal Gears do better (mainly due to their linearity), the way the open world aspect of the game works opens things up for really unique game experiences. I stumbled upon the battle not ready to snipe things out, so after a while of whittling away at her stamina with the tranq pistol, I decided to shuffle around some Mother Base members to unlock a tranq sniper for development, develop it, get it delivered to me on the field, and kick off a proper sniper battle. It’s when you get the opportunity for unique problem solving experiences that Phantom Pain really shines.
It doesn’t really matter about the new opportunities for play, all people ever remember is what isn’t there any more.
I’m almost certain this was how the Germans dealt with Russian snipers during WW2.
Maybe not supply crates, but dropping artillery barrages on their positions.
Didn’t stop Simo Häyhä.
and he had a massive russian body count before WW2
Unless I’m mistaken he didn’t do much work in Stalingrad….
Battlefield 2 called: wants its vehicle drop back.
Well i was running around for 1hr and 15 mins… trying to take her down with a tranq pistol… lol…
I can confirm this doesn’t work on the PC version, unless it only works when she is in a specific location but as soon as the drop comes into view she bolts and changes location.
No, it still can work. I’ve tried on the PC version and she was oblivious to the supply box on her head. All you have to do is actually make sure her attention is diverted on you. So pop out to get her attention on you and BAM, instant results. 😀
I found a good way, just call for a bombardment, that got her in one go.
I can confirm it does work on PC.
I just called in a supply drop to hit her on the head twice, got an S rank in 3mins – lateral thinking for MGSV
I took her down with the tranq pistol. Took a good 15 mins or running around. Worth it.