Cassettes can be an important part of the game, as there is a lot of story placed on the tapes that you secure as you play through the game’s main missions. However, there are also plenty of tapes that are simply there for entertainment purposes, containing popular tracks from the 1970s and 1980s, which you can listen to at any time you want through your iDroid.

The only catch is that a good portion of these tapes are hidden throughout the world of The Phantom Pain, making it similar to finding a needle in a haystack. The bright side is that this page will list the locations of all of the tapes you can find. Due to their nature, it can be hard to describe a detailed location for every tape, but if you keep your ear open, you’ll hear music blasting as you get closer, signaling that there is a cassette tape in the vicinity ripe for taking. They will be playing from a radio and when you approach them, you will get a button prompt.

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The music tapes are always found in radios (left). If you hear music playing, walk up to the radio to take the cassette (right).

Whenever you begin the game, you will have a total of seven music tapes, with the rest of them requiring you to find them in the wild. If you go to one of the locations listed below and can’t find the tape, come back at a later time.

Acquired Tapes¶

Besides the music tapes listed above, there is another set of tapes that do more than just allow you to listen to music. When played, these tapes can produce some special effects depending on the situation. For example, the animal ones make it so that animal type won’t attack or run away if you get close enough (too close and they still will). Note that these tapes are not found in radios like the music ones and do not play any sounds, but are just actual cassettes laying around.