Welcome to our review of Death stranding, the director’s cut or what is known as the game from Hideo Kojima where he got carte blanche to create whatever he wanted.
From legendary game creator Hideo Kojima comes a genre-defying experience, now expanded and remastered in this definitive Director’s Cut. In the future, a mysterious event known as the Death Stranding has opened a doorway between the living and the dead, leading to grotesque creatures from the afterlife roaming the fallen world marred by a desolate society. As Sam Bridges, your mission is to deliver hope to humanity by connecting the last survivors of a decimated America. Can you reunite the shattered world, one step at a time?
– Remastered for the PlayStation®5 console – enjoy advanced combat and a new competitive ranking system.*
– Expanded content – use additional weapons and vehicles, take on new enemies and explore new locations with extra missions and minigames.
– New discoveries – experience an extended storyline in an expanded area.
– Social Strand System – stay connected with players around the globe.
Death Stranding is a more than unusual game, often dubbed the UPS game in an apocalyptical world and quite frankly, I agree with that on most accounts. Despite its flawless visual upgrade on PlayStation 5, this game does not survive the stigma that haunts it, this is nothing more than the attempt at something great when a masterclass creator like Hideo Kojima is given the chance to go all out.
But that is also its downfall, I am currently 10+ hours into the game and aside from that very interesting beginning of the game, I felt mostly bored playing this slow and sluggish game. I am sure that some will already be fuming at the mouth, but this is simply my impression right now and I never lie in my reviews, I always write from the heart and yes, it is totally fine to disagree with me. That is what makes this game so great, it diversifies the audience and this probably more than any other game I have ever seen. At least for games that did not get review bombed on Metacritic by the idiots that indulge in that practice.
It is okay not to like a game that others love. This is called your personal opinion and in the case of Death Stranding, I got really annoyed by 3 things. First off, I loved the mechanic of stacking the cargo the way the game does, but at the same time, I disliked the entire reduction of speed behind it. I know, I know, but Timmy, that speed is only reduced when you get too much weight on your back, well yeah. The entire game appears to be a continuous flow of having a near max load on your back, thus reducing speed massively, and well, I fell down very little due to the great mechanic of forcing balance onto your cargo.
Another thing I truly despised, the BTs, the enemies so to speak, every single time they appeared, I was just clueless. They dragged me from a driving tricycle, killed me almost every time and instead of attacking them and stand up for myself, all I could ever do was basically run from them. A really annoying experience every single time and once I even went to bed when it happened again. I decided to cut my gaming time short and then just turned off everything in the game room and head to bed.
Also, I felt like the entire realism of the Sam character being Norman Reedus (The Walking dead actor) to be very strange. You can take a shower, take a toilet break, … It is just so weird to have this hyperrealism and that voice, maybe I am not ready yet for this part of gaming to arrive?
For me, the way this game is designed, I do think it is a journey in itself, but with all the weird design choices and often very long treks through the wastelands, no, I just can not love this game. I am kind of disappointed with the game, I had heard the often mixed reactions, but the majority of them were positive, mine not so much… I got tired of failing mechanics and watching Sam fall down a cliff because I missed yet another ladder. Like the game is all about how tough can you have it while delivering a simple package?
In conclusion, how do you rate a game where you just could not get the love going? Where you failed to get captured by its mechanics? Where you just felt more like it was a boring rather than a captivating experience? You take all the good points and the bad ones. Weigh out one to the other and you come up with a score of barely 6 out of 10, a score I stand behind. Sorry to the fans, but this game is not that swell.
6/10
Tested on Playstation 5
