When Hideo Kojima broke free out of the proverbial shackles of his former employer, reestablishes the game studio bearing his name, and signed with PlayStation to make a brand-new video game franchise, there was a lot of hype and mystique surrounding the project. What will the maker of Metal Gear Solid, and who would’ve also directed a new Silent Hill game, do next?
The result was Death Stranding. The 2019 open-world adventure that equally bedazzled and baffled long-time fans of the stealth-action series Kojima Productions is known for. Death Stranding ended up being this avant-garde cargo delivery game set in a ludicrous setting where society has become isolated, everyone stayed indoors, and relied on brave porters to deliver care packages around the un-united United States, because going outside is not safe.
It’s a surreal concept to rack the brains on, that is until the next year, 2020, where we all had to be isolated and stayed indoors and have to rely on couriers to deliver packages around the world because going outside was not safe.
Though that being said, Mr. Kojima being a modern-day Nostradamus (remember that really long talk on “memes” and misinformation from Metal Gear Solid 2?) doesn’t excuse the oddness that was Death Stranding. Not everyone jived with the direction the game had going for. The Director’s Cut release attempted to bring to the forefront more of the stealth-action elements by a smidge, a sign that the team heard the fans who are not sold on Death Stranding being a “walking simulator.”
So where does Death Stranding 2: On The Beach go from here?
Surprisingly, it’s rather more of the same.
What was a strange road not taken by any big-budget game developer has now become familiar. There are more and more cargo delivery games out there in the market within the indie space. So what’s DS2 here has to offer, then? It is offering an experience that you can come to expect to A Hideo Kojima Game. As pretentious as that label at first glance, this game unmistakably has an auterial stamp on it, quirks and all.
While I find Death Stranding 2: On The Beach a gratifying game overall, I can’t help but feel this entry is suffering from a sophomore slump. It’s not leaps and bounds better than the 2019 predecessor. But more refined in its delivery. More bombast and confident in its stride. Yet goes above and beyond what other video games of its budget are offering despite also being guilty of having flaws and shortcomings you wouldn’t expect a game of this scope would do. Truly a Hideo Kojima Game in that regard.
Presentation
If Death Stranding starts with a gentle, low roar (to the tune of Low Roar, rest in peace), Death Stranding 2 puts its foot forward with loud whispers to the tune of Woodkid’s Minus Sixty One. The opening scene use punched-up visuals, but when it cuts to real gameplay, I simply couldn’t believe what I am seeing. That’s not just a pretty vista with highly detailed rocks. It’s part of the game’s traversal environment. All while the low-key bombastic music soars, bringing your soul up on your first on-foot trek of many.
Definitely a “I can’t believe it already switched to gameplay!” moment.
And that’s not the only highlight of Death Stranding 2’s environments. Once you reach continental Australia after trekking parts of Mexico, you’ll be amazed by how beautiful the barren world looks. Gold, sandy desert. Red, hot sands in the dunes. Craggy cliffs of the snowy mountains. And even pockets of lush greenery nestled in between the Post-Stranding Australian canyons. Sure, looking at the full map and you see a goofy, not proportionate and not correct continent when compared to the real deal—the mountains look way too tall!— but on the ground, it’s a majestic view.
And nothing’s here just for show. See that mountain? You can go there. You have to go there, at some point.
The draw distance is ludicrous, and I really feel that adds a lot to the wowness of that opening sequence.
I’m rarely impressed by realistic video game graphics these days. And the fact that I am profoundly affected by pretty graphics is a testament to the visual artists and the programmers that worked their magic to pull this extravagance of visual delight.
It’s ever more delightful when you take into account the weather effects. Dust storms will hinder visibility, and moving around is much harder. Nights are proper dark. And voluminous clouds look so pleasant if weren’t for rain being something you absolutely have to minimise your exposure to due to lore reasons (it ages anything until they are destroyed or die). And look at the night skies! I have never realised how pretty night skies can be when its clear of clouds. Expect breathtaking views and jaw-dropping scenery.
It’s still a barren world similar to this Death Stranding’s depiction of North America, with only a few derelict ruins that still stand to suggest normal human lives were had before the Death Stranding hit. Of all the things that remains to remain standing in this depiction of Mexico, it’s the border checkpoint. Make of that what you will.
Impressively, Death Stranding 2 does not chug at all when in Performance Mode. It maintains a steady 60 FPS throughout my playtime on a base PS5. Though I find it rather concerning that the console’s fan is on full speed when pausing, which opens up the world map. And the map sometimes don’t load up instantaneously if you keep pausing over and over, more reason to actually use the marker tools. I did face some odd game crashes here and there, but I was also playing before the Day 1 patch went live.
And of course, the character models look impeccable. You’ll mostly see the ridiculous stuff via cutscenes, where the game, like any big-budget blockbuster titles these days, will swap to higher-res models to make those close-up shots unbelievable. The performance capture in the cutscenes feel natural and the cinematography worth of that Martin Scorsese meme. In-game models don’t look as bad either, especially when you consider how much “battle damage” our protagonist Sam can take. From sunburns that only affects his exposed face to being covered in dust, mud and blood all over. Not to mention the corroding cargo boxes, vehicles and built structures when exposed to rain. There’s a lot of little details that makes Death Stranding 2’s purposely dead empty world feel alive.
Though I find it slightly annoying that some UI elements are hard to see. Why have white text overlayed with white-and-blue (though mostly white) strand effects placed on top of a white-and-bluish hologram projection? Some of the floating texts that label objects dropped in the world also has this problem of legibility. It’s exacerbated due to me playing on a tiny 23″ monitor screen (and my worsening eyesight) but there’s no options to make these floating texts a bit more easier on the eyes.
As for the sound and music, well, I hope you love Hideo Kojima’s personal mixtape. The music choice this time around is mostly cosy vibes, no Apocalyptica-type heavy metal music this time, I’m afraid. With only a few exceptions. How about some kawaii J-pop? Or Woodkid on producer role putting out tense EDM? A lot of artists from the previous game’s soundtrack are on here, including CHVRCHES and Silent Poets. And the new songs are just as good travel music as the previously featured songs returning. Woodkid provided some powerful stripped-down music that hits hard in the feels. I am personally a fan of Daichi Miura’s contributions to the Death Stranding 2 soundtrack, and it’s a song that will only be released as a single on the game’s launch. Horizon’s Dreamer is a jolly beat, sure, but something about the vocals in Polytope that gives the sensation of screaming to the top of your lungs while you’re alone in the barren plains. Or this meme. Perfect for long walks outside as you contemplate. Plus, you can make your own playlist and have the music accompany your journey, rather than having the music player bound to the private room.
And even if there was no license music, the OST to Death Stranding 2 by Ludvig Forssell, just like it was in Death Stranding, is straight fire. The combination of synths and orchestra to create the same melody that, with some tweaks the musical arrangements, can heighting or loosen the tension is something only a great video game can offer. The music accentuates nicely the occasional stealth-action encounters you will inadvertently have to go through in this cargo delivery game. And it’s wild that his one credited full song in the game works chillingly well as a lullaby for babies and to soothe the soon to pass away.
On a smaller note, the little dings the UI makes when a notification plays, or the sound of navigating the menus, is really nice. It has that slick sci-fi sheen to it that really makes it more pleasurable to prepare for a mission. They’ve simplified the mission clear screen to be faster, so it’s not as stimulation overload as a TikTok post that was in the first game this time around.
Given Death Standing 2 takes place in Mexico and Australia, it’s nice to see that in the English dub, there are folks with matching accents that appear in the two locations. In Australia, in particular, you can expect to hear go-to slangs like “bloody ripper” and “hard yakka” being uttered. You’ll hear them often enough to even pick up some of the accent, the folks down under has a specific pronunciation of “data” that you will not unhear after playing this long enough. Not all the folks you meet are native to the region their residing, of course, so don’t be surprise to hear an American, British and or folks being dubbed to speak English, though one particular character will only speak in Japanese undubbed, for an understandably specific reason.
I can’t find much fault on the way Death Stranding 2 presents itself. I personally don’t think highly of realistic graphics in video games, so for me to be impressed by how the visuals look here means this is high praise. Same goes to the audio experience. It’s a big budget game after all, and the development team have made used of its resources well to really show off how grand a video game can look like in 2025.
Gameplay
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach continues the adventures of one Sam Porter Bridges. Sam the man has successfully connected the UCA in the previous game, and then he went into hiding. But he has now been called to action again to do what only he can do: trek an entire continent and get the various disparate communities to connect to the chiral network in Mexico and Australia, alongside new and familiar faces as support.
DS2 can be played without going through the original. There’s a recap of events available, and while you will miss out on getting a few deep cut nods to Death Stranding, the story of DS2 is self-contained enough to feel satisfying to experience on its own. Most of the previous game’s story is spoiled, of course, though whatever happened with Cliff was not explained much in the sequel.
Yes, DS2 is still a game where you play as a glorified PosLaju courier. You still walk, jump, climb and trek across long distances with big boxes of easily broken packages to send to some bunker where some person live on their own who happens to be a celebrity cameo you may or may not recognise. And yes, you still can make use of tools, either of your own or of other players via indirect co-op.
All of these were hard to explain and comprehend when the original game launched. It was weird, odd, bizarre even. But it’s now become the new normal. We’re used to this. We’ve seen it before.
And for the most part, Death Stranding 2 feels like more Death Stranding.
Now, I have to admit that I didn’t finish Death Stranding and it’s not for the lack of trying. I like the idea of the game, but man, the game just goes on and on while not really letting you free and play however you like. It coddles you like you’re BB Pod if gets angry after you stub your toe, missed a step and fell down face-first down a rolling hill. It just never wanting to let you go.
Unfortunately, Death Stranding 2 is also guilty of patronise the player too much. “Hey, this is a tough mission you’ll be doing next!” or so your handler claims and it’s just one extra stop to a regular A-to-B delivery. “Make sure to prepare because the next mission might involve combat!” And it’s not that of a big deal of a sequence. And then when you unlock a new equipment or tool, you can read the text description of it, only to have the person giving to you explaining what it does (more or less rereading the text the game presumed you skimmed through) and then an option to ask for another explanation which is more or less the same description you just read/skimmed and heard. Hey, if you like that celebrity cameo there’s more lines you can hear them speak, I guess.
But there is good news to anyone like me who liked the idea of Death Stranding, but just couldn’t play through it. DS2 gets the ball rolling, and rolling fast. And you don’t have to deal with the lengthy exposition of how the world works, some of its quirks like how rain ages things, you can understand through context or the in-game codex, the Corpus. I like that you can immediately pull out the Corpus mid-cutscene if a new term appears, Final Fantasy XVI’s Active Time Lore-style.
Plus, the BB Pod isn’t something you really need to manage that much. Now don’t judge me for this, but being negligent on the Pod hasn’t been as detrimental as I feel the early hours of Death Stranding was.
You also unlock the tools and equipment faster this time. There is not much new tools at first. Your fundamental go-to remains the ladder and climbing rope, something you can deploy at any time at any place. A shame that the rope climbing is still as clunky as I remember from the little I played of Death Stranding. I may have had too high hopes that maybe they’ll add crate stacking one day, climb on cargo as makeshift stairs, but no. An 0451 game this is not.
But at least that core gameplay, of you having to trek a long path with no outside help, using the limited tools you can craft and carry, working out a route on your own and ensure you don’t fall over and damage the cargo as you walk to your destination, is still as good as it ever was. There are no yellow marks here, you figure out yourself if Sam can traverse through the terrain, though the cool terrain scanner can help indicate a path where it’s easier to walk through while conserving stamina. This core gameplay element, of just going about on-foot, the “walking simulator” bit, remains a solid experience, assuming you find traversing the open world’s rugged terrain as fun. I sure do.
Death Stranding 2 has the occasional encounters where you must go to an outpost filled with enemies, and you can attempt to do them stealthily or guns-blazing. You can sneak through like a ghost, grabbing the things you need without harming a soul using special grenades to create cover. Or silently take the enemies out one by one, you have pistols that can either shoot tranquilizers or shock them enough to knock them out cold. Or walk behind them with a Strand equipped to do the typical video game one-button silent takedowns, though it’s designed to be clunky as it’s tied to a stat Sam can increase with repeated use. There’s enough tools, on paper, to play this like a tactical espionage action game, but a tactical espionage game this is not.
Guns are immediately available, and interestingly, you start with a good selection of weapons carrying non-lethal “MP” ammo. I understand due to lore reasons, killing people outright is bad. And if you do ending up killing people you need to go do a corpse run (as in to dispose of said corpse) or it ends up spawning BTs. So you don’t want that. What I find baffling that there is so many safeguards to stop you from having to interact with the game’s system in this way. You’ll find plentiful of non-lethal weapons. You need to input a specific code to turn specific weapons to live, killing ammo. But why ever kill people, then? It’s so hard to do with no real incentive or tactical advantage that might as well be a mechanic wasted as no one will even interact with it unless they really, really, really want to. Which most players won’t.
And that’s the thing with Death Stranding 2, and the series altogether. I can see that, if the developers are bold enough, they let these many systems interact and allow players to create their fun in seeing how they can create emergent gameplay. But all of these systems are so prescribed that there are not many avenues to think out of the box and use the tools and mechanics in inventive ways.
Here’s a specific example of what I mean. I found an optional outpost where I can deliver a package to. Problem is, it’s on an island. Too far to build a bridge to. But then I saw a monorail track passes through there. I thought, hey, is there an option to drop down from there: the answer to that is yes! Sort of. Apparently a zipline using the underside of the monorail track doesn’t let you drop mid-way onto that said island. But if you travel via monorail where you latch onto the side of the cargo-grabbing arm (there’s no seating in the monorails), you have the option to so. That said, the higher fall will mean you (and the packages) will get hurt. So that’s sub-optimal. And apparently the optimal solution to this was, just wade through the water. It’s not that deep, bro. Like, the water’s not deep, I forgot to scan the terrain and now I see a winding path which the developers intend people to trudge through. I went to lengths of coming up with a solution to a problem using some of the available mechanics only to be told there’s one easy way of doing it and over-thinking isn’t rewarded. Sigh.
I’ve mentioned that you can pick your own route to reach your destination. In reality, the environment is designed in a way that there’s only a few viable paths from point A to point B. And all I needed to confirm this is by looking at the path trails left by other players connected to the in-game chiral network (and the real world internet). More often than not, most players will follow a few different, but similar paths. Plus, some story missions have set-pieces too, so the developers already expected you to go these specific routes that’s supposedly of your own. How else can they can do the needle drop and play a new music track that fits the mood perfectly for that particular delivery for a story mission? Breath Of The Wild this is not.
When the systems do collide, it unfortunately ends up in player frustration rather than emergent gameplay. I still struggle with clearing outposts while feeling good at doing so. Yeah, Sam can sneak around, can do CQC, and wield guns all fine, but there’s an ingehit clunkiness to it all due to the on-foot trekking mechanic the game is built around on. For one, melee and hand-to-hand combat feels rhythmless. I never got around to finding out how to block. The slow-mo after each enemy taken out works okay when you’re shooting, but when you’re throwing hands, it usually ended up with you throwing one extra punch than you should, adding to the clunkiness.
Later on you’ll get some CQC moves where you need to hold down a button to trigger them. But when most enemies with guns shoot on sight, how do you find a good opening to reliably use these spectacularly silly moves? It’s usually not worth it, especially when outpost-clearing missions are graded by how much damage you take, so going gung-ho will mean you’ll have to reattempt that mission if you want that S-Rank. You’ll only ever interact use the sillier CQC moves for funsies outside of missions.
Also, I still can’t reliably ensure that I aim down sights to shoot on without accidentally holding down the backpack straps during combat. I know there’s an option to adjust this behaviour, it’s a known issue, but I still from time to time ended up having a bad gun pull-out game as I made Sam braced his pack in the heat of a battle. Movement is obviously hampered when you have so much cargo on your backpack so you regularly have to remember dropping off cargo before you sneak or fight, which gets cumbersome. And even more annoyingly, Sam can still lose balance due to uneven terrain during these tense encounters.
These two mechanics, the on-foot trekking and normal stealth-action controls, aren’t as compatible as they should. And don’t get me started on the ability to hold a package in each of Sam’s arms but they only detect a trigger pull or release for this action after a very long delay.
This is a problem I have no idea how to solve, and I assume the development team also couldn’t find a good compromise either. I thought of if the game has a toggleable combat/stealth mode which removes the backpacking controls to prioritise sneaking and fighting. But how can the game ensure players don’t abuse this to avoid dealing with foot balance when trekking and do deliveries? Until a better solution to meld the on-foot delivery mechanics to play nicer with the stealth-action gameplay, it’s hard to see creative play, where a player is able to use the many disparate mechanics in any kind of situation and create memorable set-pieces of their own, happen in the Death Stranding series.
But that doesn’t mean DS2 is devoid of creative play. The many structures you can deploy can be a way to express oneself and think out of the box. Placing ziplines so you can zoom to the top of a hill instead of doing the same tedious hike over and over is so rewarding, So is figuring out how to connect a zip line of another’s player, and find a way to connect that to your established line. You don’t have to build all the structures on your own. Players the world over, be it friends, acquaintances and even total strangers, can have a hand in contributing to your game world with their own structures appearing in your world. Think Dark Souls or Elden Ring online message system, but you can drop a silly joke using premade words like “Fort, Night” and drop a whole structure that can help someone else in their times of need.
Before you know it, what seemed to be an empty, barren world slowly becomes full of life thanks to the various structures dropped by fellow players. You’re not sharing the exact same world, mind. So don’t expect your carefully place ziplines that only makes sense as a long line that connect to each other would all be plopped as whole to another random player. They might just get that one zipline you place on top of a boulder that seems impossible to climb on.
This is another magical trick Death Stranding has: the “Social Strand System” as it is dubbed. The indirect co-op feature not only gives the void world meaning, but also making this isolated experience more connected. You never walk alone. Shout to the world and you might hear another Sam shouts back at you, someone out there is playing Death Stranding 2 and are in the same vicinity as you are right now. Trails of other players, cairns of where took a rest, vehicles and loose cargo someone dropped.
There’s always something, and someone, out there in this lonely world.
It’s a running theme the game has, where we are all connected in some ways, and the positive-vibes-only nature of the system where you can send likes to someone who indirectly helped you, and makes you want to pay it forward by helping in other ways is just something else. Nothing you create, the structure, the items, have permanence, a reality that’s part of the Death Stranding world, but also just a universal truth. Our presences on this world is just as fleeting. Nothing lasts forever. But the sensation of knowing that you plopped a generator in some random part of the world, decked with a hologram with a Vtuber cheering the passerby on, has helped someone one by the number of likes it has gotten, that moment is precious. And those precious moments is what will carry most players through this open world adventure where you are literally are a glorified Grab delivery guy, going to point A to point B, transporting cargo. It’s a boring, tedious task. But also rewarding.
It’s rewarding enough that it convinced me to be part of the Works Department and ensure roads are all paved and monorails are all online. If no one’s chipping, I will. Someone has to help out, right?
And you will find the urge to help someone out, as the game will become increasingly difficult near the end. Like those mountains you see in Post-Stranding Australia, it’s a sharp incline. Sure, the early game may feel rather easy due to how eager everyone is to chip in. Every time I carried a PCC with plans to a put a watchtower up, someone’s there beat me to it. I see no reason in the first 10 hours to stop at a timefall shelter, I hardly even use the canteen to refill the stamina. I feared the game might be too easy due to everyone chipping in and helping out with making structures all the time. I almost feel like I wanted to disable them, an option available if you truly want to play Death Stranding 2 solo.
But by the endgame, you’ll be praying for anyone to drop a zipline, a generator, a timefall shelter or even just a guidepost to light the way to a path you should be taking. And you will eventually hear Sam breaks the fourth wall mocking you to “take the ******* drink already,” as the last leg of your delivery run across the continent will surely test your porter skills. And I love how properly challenging it becomes late in the game.
Death Stranding 2 could easily be a cosy delivery game if it weren’t for those pesky BTs. I remember how annoying those things are in the early hours of Death Stranding, as you are forced to sneak past what’s more or less invisible enemies with no way around other than to really, really be sneaky about it. Because having to run slowly while tar-shaped homunculi emerges from the floor to grab you is both harrowing and just as frustrating to deal with. Think of the cargo damage from tumbling through the rough tar-stained terrain!
So thankfully, you begin DS2 with a better ability to sense these Beach Things, and a way of fighting them. Plus, BTs don’t always appear in the same designated zones. They are more of a random encounter, though some areas are more prone to BTs appearing than others.
Also, it’s funny how these BTs used to be the most intriguing thing about Death Stranding, that haunting cutscene of the first BT encounter in the original game can never be topped. And by DS2, you’re out here facing these boss battles like it’s nothing. Heck, why not turn these giant monster battles into a love letter to tokusatsu? This is a Hideo Kojima Game after all, and Kojima sure loves tokusatsu of all kinds based on the wild things you can do to BTs in DS2.
And yeah, the act of shark-jumping here means DS2 isn’t a scary, or even a spooky, game anymore like the original sort-of was. We’ve known the unknown. The strange has become the familiar.
So what’s really new to Death Stranding 2’s gameplay? Most of them are ancillary stuff. Monorails are something you can build this time around, on top of a road network. They usually connect to mines, so it’s useful to haul the loads of materials for the roadworks. You can catch a ride on one of them, but there’s no passenger seating, so hopefully it’s not raining outside. There’s a few new structures the PCC can build, but I never found that many folks place the new Chiral Bridge in a game-changing way. The Ziplines, which was introduced in Death Stranding Director’s Cut, was the most meaningful of the structures I’ve interacted with. The DHV Magellan sounds like an incredible thing, but apparently it’s just one of many ways to fast travel. There is a cargo storage in there, it acts as a delivery node, but no, the game thought ahead and will provided diminished number of likes if you decide to do your cargo delivery run by storing them in the DHV Magellan fast-travelling across the map. You gotta haul it proper. And that’s all I recognise as “new,” again coming from a person that didn’t complete the first game.
Overall, Death Stranding 2’s disparate gameplay mechanics don’t blend as well, which adversely affects the stealth-action aspects. But the cargo delivery elements of the game and the indirect co-op component are still rock-solid that only with a few additions it remains as gratifying as it was in the previous game. There is more action this time, but only by a smidge, you’ll still be spending most of the game making rounds delivering things.
Content
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is a long game. It took me 88 hours before I see the credits rolled, half of that is probably me going back-and-forth and around the continent to turn this walking simulator into Australian Truck Simulator. The true endgame of DS2 is getting all those roads online. You can probably rush this with 60 hours of playtime, which is still a lot of game for a modern-day video game.
Curiously, I find the ratio between gameplay to storytelling rather imbalanced. For a game with Hollywood stars headlining the posters and promos, DS2 dolls out those excellently performed cutscenes too sparsely, with a lot of them skewed towards the end.
Look, if you tapped out by Hour 20 or so, I get it. The pacing in DS2, while much better than the opening five hours of Death Stranding, is still a little off. For a long period of the early game you really don’t see much plot development. All you do is going around sending boxes to people who you may or may not recognise. A lot of the early cutscenes you see are either short teasers of a longer scene which you have no idea what’s going on, or cutscenes where cool stuff does indeed happen but then you’re back to delivering duties as normal. A lot of those early cutscenes were used as part of the marketing, because how else would you market this open world courier simulator? Sam walking around, which makes the bulk of the game, isn’t exactly enticing on its own.
And for a long while, the story beats just meanders. Okay, cool, you recruit these two girls with fascinating origin stories and abilities. Oh, so DOOMS sufferers have uniquely weird, some would say bizarre, abilities. And… now they’re background characters that only appear in cutscenes. All that hype of recruiting new members to the team and all I got is a weather forecast filter for the world map I barely use. The whole Drawbridge crew keeps saying they’re here to support Sam and his deliveries but they only come to play at the very end of the game. For the most part, you’ll only see the two new girls, Rainy and Tomorrow, in short slice-of-life scenes, where the girlies go do girly things. I don’t mind that, it’s actually pretty cool seeing these ladies have fun, mess around and do random poses for the camera. But that’s pretty much the only meaningful interaction you, the player, will have with the the rest of the Drawbridge outside of Dollman. After all that hype, huh.
At least villain Higgs remains a showstopper of a character. He’s gone full metrosexual Joker this time, and Troy Baker’s performance as the ultimate hater who seeks to end the world for the love of the game is worthy of an award or three.
It’s a shame that all that hate is directed to Sam who barely responds to anything. And I don’t think it’s because Norman Reedus, or the rest of the Hollywood star casting as a matter of fact, is just there for a fat cheque. It’s more the fault of the script they’re being handed. I get that the game presents Sam as this aloof and reclusive character, but he should’ve vocalised more of his feelings, because I just don’t feel like Sam and Higgs are supposed to be bitter rivals as they are supposed to be. It’s no fun seeing one-way banter. Higgs is sending some amazing shuttlecock slams only for Sam to respond with an impassioned clear shot that barely keeps the rally going. A lopsided performance of what could’ve been the duel for the ages. I’ve recently played a game starring a mostly quiet protagonist yet still it manages to create a dramatic conflict of ideals where both sides are giving their all, so forgive me for being disappointed.
And Reedus can act! There are cutscenes where his non-verbal performances feel real, Sam felt like a proper human and not a voiceless player surrogate. I was hoping Sam would launch into a political diatribe when he started questioning people, but he never followed it up and launch into an argument or anything. Let the man speak more! Because dude could’ve given quite the performance if he was allowed to go full ham on an already hammy script you’d expect from A Hideo Kojima Game.
On that note, you should hear how he says a guttural “Otsupeko!” as Sam superman punches an enemy while wearing a funny rabbit hat. He’s absolutely selling it. Norman Reedus has made his claim of being the strongest nousagi.
The early and mid-game will be bone dry in story content, as Death Stranding 2 reserves its long cutscenes (they even warn you when it’s coming) for the endgame. And yes, there are the usual philosophical and political ramblings you’d come to expect, though as Kojima himself stated, it’s intentionally written to not be predicting any more future events, but still offers some good food for thought. Let’s just say he has held his hot takes on current issues so it can be presented in a video game. Less prescient, more contemporary. And yes, the seemingly silly subtitle does make sense once you see through the story.
But there’s also a disconnect between story and gameplay. You would think the many weird cutscenes would make sense when it’s in context, when experienced in a gaming session. But no, these scenes and the game could exist separately. Though you will walk away with a different opinion of Death Stranding 2 if you experience it only as Death Stranding 2, the game or Death Stranding 2, the cut-scene compilation edit on YouTube. Yet I also don’t think it will change your mind if you experience the game and story as a complete package either. If a Hideo Kojima Game is supposed to be polarising, well, I guess this is by design, then. The two halves don’t really come whole, but you do get two halves of completely different experiences.
And as such, I am warning any player that is picking up Death Stranding 2: The story is bottom-heavy in that most of the cool stuff you want to see only happens in the final hours of the game. It’s a long time investment to really see the cool cinematics and set-pieces the developer is known for. You’re expected to put in the long, laborious hours lugging packages and cargo to and fro, only to receive a handful of mandatory combat encounters and a few minutes of elaborate cinematics, as a treat.
Is it worth it? It ends on a high note, and will leave you excited for what’s to come. I got a good buzz seeing how the tale concludes, though a little disappointed that it could’ve been done better.
You will only get the whole carrot from the stick if you finish the game. Until then, have a few nibbles of it. I really hope you love the delivery gameplay as much as I did, because I don’t think it’s worth your time if you don’t.
Personal Enjoyment
This shouldn’t surprise you, but I’m not a big fan of Hideo Kojima.
Not Hideo Kojima, the person. But Hideo Kojima, the brand.
The events that transpired after the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has propelled Kojima, the brand, as this martyr icon, as endorsed by the Dorito Pope himself, which gamers have propped up as some prophetic genius. The so-called fans of Kojima, the brand, in my eyes look like a bunch of cultists worshipping a cult of personality.
In short, I don’t like the parasocial fans he somehow attracted. And how highly they speak of him.
But playing Death Stranding 2 to its completion made me realise that I don’t hate Hideo Kojima, the person. As much as I dislike the idea of a video game auteur, I also can’t deny that the game he helmed here has a bunch of his fingerprints all over like a DOOMS sufferer. And you know what, dude’s just passionate about a lot of stuff. I couldn’t care less about cinema, his main passion as per his Twitter bio, but the more I play the game the more I realise he’s not just a Westaboo cinephile. He has vast interests. He’s proud of Japanese culture. He has good taste in music. And I cannot hate a person who is just a straight-up kaiju and tokusatsu nerd, even if that niche isn’t something I am passionate about myself.
But it was knowing that he too fell into the rabbit hole that is Vtubers that sealed my respect for the Kojima. Dude’s just a passionate guy who wants to share his interests with the world through the medium he’s working with. And all this while I didn’t realise it as such because we never had a common connection. I didn’t expect the whole “strand” and connection theme of the Death Stranding series will end up me forming a parasocial relationship which I said to despise, but hey, here we are. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
That being said, I was always sold on the concept of Death Stranding, not the concept where it’s supposed to usher in extinction and all that. But Death Stranding, the cargo delivery game. Once I know that this is an elaborate Euro Truck Simulator 2 game with less trucks it completely clicked. This is a game I wanted to play. But man, between the lengthy technobabble of a lore explainer, how slow it teaches you basic concepts that I probably could figure out in minutes instead of hours, and the annoyance of BTs that disrupt this from being just a cosy game of traveling from one point to another, I couldn’t get into the first game. I tried, I just didn’t have it in me.
So to be forced to go through Death Stranding 2 for this review, only to find out there’s a lot more of that cosy delivery game I expected from the original, was an absolute delight. On the first 10 hours, I was actually screaming to have even longer delivery routes. This was before realising how agonising a coast-to-coast delivery would’ve been, especially if no one volunteered to be part of the proverbial Works Department and put out some roads, or getting the new monorails online.
The game does get more difficult later, but the fact that I wanted it to be more challenging on the get-go means I really enjoy the seemingly tedious gameplay loop. I didn’t realise I spent 40 hours before reaching what supposedly the midpoint of the game, which was expected to be about 30 hours in. Where did that 10 hours go? Mostly to max out a connection with a certain Prepper, of course. And pave some roads. But still, the hours just went by fast.
When you’re out on a delivery run and your favourite music is now playing on your custom playlist, as you zoom out and take the sights in, see the beautiful starry nights, the vastness of the lands now peppered with various structures fellow porters have put down, it’s a majestic experience. This is how it feels to go outside, touch grass, and just soak in the atmosphere.
And that sensation of knowing you helped someone out indirectly, is so gratifying. I didn’t realise until the end of the game that about 700+ other players, the relatively few folks that are either part of the media like me, content creators, or even staff from the developer and publisher, have connected with me. Some are famous enough that I knew by their tags, and my contributions to the game world was seen by them. I logged off one day and come back to see a notification that over 200 people were pleased with me and sent likes, just for placing some stuff that appeared in their world. I never knew I can reach that many people, let alone have them all be pleased with my contributions to the (game) world. It’s a small sense of achievement. I did something nice, I probably helped a few of them as they grind through this ridiculous long game and they got to prepare their content before the embargo lifts. Thank you Death Stranding 2 for letting me know that I am somewhat a useful person. It means a lot.
I honestly didn’t expect that I went through a journey of self-actualisation throughout Death Stranding 2, but here we are.
That doesn’t excuse the many misgivings Death Stranding 2 has made to me, personally. The clunky controls really annoy me during stealth/combat sequences. I still find it a missed opportunity to not get the characters played by famous actors and actresses more involved in the minute-to-minute gameplay. Sam could’ve been a better character if Norman Reedus was allowed to ham it up animal-style. And goodness me, I’m not a baby, stop patronising me.
Though I don’t mind the silly winks to the 4th wall and the obvious references, from specific in-jokes by the celebrity cameos (which I only recognise one) to past games from Kojima Productions.
This has a been a long-winded way of me saying I didn’t expect to like Death Stranding 2 this much. It still manages to annoy me in some ways, like A Hideo Kojima Game would. But like a good walk in the park, I needed this. I have yet to experience grief before and I dread when the inevitable will come, so I guess this is what it feels like to process your thoughts and come out feeling better. And for those who are grieving, I feel like this journey will hit you differently. Your mileage may vary, but you might want, even need, to take this long walk alone, for your mental well-being.
Verdict
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is a refinement of 2019’s genre-breaking open-world adventure. It’s less weird, has a lot more cargo delivery action, more stealth-action encounters and a new beautiful world to trek across.
The mish-mash of two opposing game mechanics, the on-foot trekking and combat/stealth controls, makes the latter a clunky experience, and the story is too spread out with not much happening in the mid-game. The star-studded cast only appear sporadically throughout the long playtime.
Death Stranding 2 won’t change the minds of anyone who didn’t like the concept of playing a courier for hours on end. But the faster early game pace should entice those who don’t like the plodding start of the original.
Should you commit to the long-haul of this cargo delivery game, you’ll find joy with interacting with the indirect co-op system, because, you may have heard this before, the real Death Stranding 2 is the friends* you made along the way.
*connections you make with other players.
Played on base PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is a refinement of 2019's genre-breaking open-world adventure. It's less weird, has a lot more cargo delivery action, more stealth-action encounters and a new beautiful world to trek across.
Should you commit to the long-haul, you'll find joy with interacting with the indirect co-op system, because, you may have heard this before, the real Death Stranding 2 is the friends* you made along the way.
- Presentation 9.5
- Gameplay 8
- Content 8.5
- Personal Enjoyment 8.5