Death Stranding 2: On The Beach | Review

Platform: PlayStation 5

Engine: Decima

Developer: Kojima Productions Co., Ltd.

Composers: Woodkid, Ludvig Forssell

Nominations: The Game Award for Most Anticipated Game

License: proprietary license

Genres: Adventure game, Shooter game, Role-playing video game

NO AI USED IN THIS REVIEW

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Improved upon Death Stranding in every way except novelty
• 30+ hour main campaign
• 50+ hours of content
• Played on base Playstation 5
• Amazing in-game cinematic flare
• Woodkid soundtrack is great
• Greatest walking sim ever created (it’s not a walking sim)
• Tense gameplay
• Fun building monorails and roads throughout Australia
• Story themes batshit crazy and entertaining
• Story more coherent than it’s predecessor
• Gameplay mechanic tutorials explained better
• Zen atmosphere at times
• So many useful intertwined gameplay mechanics
• Enjoyed the major side missions
• Summon BTs
• Kaiju battles with music are awesome
• Dollman is great (I said it Dollman)
• Many fun easter eggs
• Voice acting really good
• DHV Magellan is sorta like Mass Effect’s Normandy
• Feelings of drama, sadness, pain, loss, laughter and connectedness!
• I enjoyed Neil Vana as a character but not his three fight sequences
• Higgs the rockerboy is over the top, evilly fun and complex
• Final sections spectacular and closes the story on a strong note
• New characters Rainy, Tomorrow, Tarman, Charli, Dollman, Neil Vana were great
• Plenty of celebrity cameos in this
• Used a modified Pickup Off-roader a lot
• Played on Normal difficulty
• Not as challenging as the first game
• Mexico and Australia maps better than predecessor’s
• Nothing is wasted from it’s themes, to your time to useful gameplay mechanics
• Can continue doing orders with special options after completing main story
• Plenty of Metal Gear Solid stealth and combat gameplay mechanics
• Pizza Chef can teach you insane pizza strikes
• King of The Tar Lake questline really good
• Ghosthunter’s questline fun

Introduction

Hideo Kojima and I have been connected (See that? My name is Connected-Man.) ever since I played Metal Gear on my NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) back in 1987. I was in the 5th grade and simply didn’t appreciate stealth in video game back then as I did after completing Metal Gear Solid on my Playstation 1.

I completed Death Stranding to credits on release via my Playstation 4 and loved the bond of Sam and Lou in it’s story. My gripes with Death Stranding was that it started slow and didn’t explained to the player it’s plethora of gameplay mechanics coherently.

Death Starnding 2 immediately rectifies the gameplay mechanic explanation early in-game which will help new players to the franchise dive in and understand it’s many mechanics faster.

Some people love Kojima. Some people thinks he’s too eccentric and over the top who writes pretentious cacography jargen slop with too many cutscenes in his games. Me? I’ve been loving his work since Metal Gear Solid full stop. I also played some of his other games that aren’t as popular and love those as well such as ZOE. I just like the man’s style of directing in video games.

Presentation

I played through Death Stranding 2 to credits on my base Playstation 5 in performance mode. Let me tell you it was almost flawless as I noticed one stutter near the end of the game’s heavy action set-piece gameplay sequence. 99% of Death Stranding 2 looked amazing and ran almost perfect for the most part.

I did not notice any bugs or glitches but some clipping in regards to cargo when traversing the land as Sam. Again, the latter isn’t a big deal at all. Another improvement from Death Stranding would be the overall pacing and choice within pacing.

In Death Stranding 2 I always had control of my time which is precious to me. At times I would push through a Main Order which are the main content. Others, I would focus on side content like capturing BTs, building roads or delivering lost cargo. There are plenty of Easter Eggs to discover if you’re into that as well.

Death Stranding 2 isn’t a short vdeo game to complete. I made over 400 gameplay VODs without trying during my playthrough, Point being my time was never wasted. I loved the cutscenes yet they are skippable etc. Respecting the player’s time.

Story Spoilers

My lord I loved the story and writing in Death Stranding 2. Some people will call it forced, a hack’s work or scribble. Not I. I really appreciated the story themes whether it’s about connectedness, extinction, forging bonds and fear of loss which are all real to me and Sam.

Early into the story Lou and Fragile are killed by Higgs Monaghan who’s plan is the create the Last Stranding using Tomorrow (Sam’s daughter) as an Extinction Entity. Throughout the story Sam struggles with the reality of losing Lou and later Fragile.

Lou and Tomorrow who’s name is Louise resists Higg’s Last Stranding Extinction Eventat the Beach while devouring him (Higgs). Thumbs up! Neil Vana is a smuggler new to the series who is a great addition. I enjoyed his storyline in regards to Lucy Strand.

Death Stranding 2 gave me much needed history into the characters that were merely mentioned in Death Stranding. So yeah, I really enjoyed The writing and story in Death Stranding 2. Lots of feelings were involved by the end of the story campaign. And I loved the conclusion as well.

Gameplay

I’m going break down the gameplay mechanics into different sections because there are so many genre mashups in Death Stranding 2’s gameplay. You have the porter orders which have to do with route simulations and cargo management to travel across the map to deliver packages.

People call the latter the walking sim portion of Death Stranding 2 but it’s so much more than that. Planning out Sam’s equipment weight, using loaders, whether to use vehicles or not are important. Repair Spray is important.

Combat is another major gameplay mechanic in DS2. Do you want to go stealth and incapacitate enemies or go in Rambo style guns a blazing? No matter the gameplay mechanic it’s explained and presented well. There is a lot of Metal Gear Solid DNA in Death Stranding 2’s stealth and combat. It feels good man.

Overall, I would say due to the novelty in my case and with the better presentation in tutorials Death Stranding 2 was easier to complete compared to DS1. Unlocking weapons, vehicles and cargo require you to level up shelters via a star system with 5 stars being the maximum.

The DHV Magellan is a great add on that acts sorta like the Normandy in the Mass Effect series. You can use it to travel, use the VR Training, customize your look, eat cryptobiotes and drink Chiral Tea. You can use the shower and toilet.

When you sleep too much on the DHV Magellan it can trigger nightmares for Sam that at times are hilariously entertaining or all too real feeling of familiarity. I also enjoyed the DHV Magellan cutscenes involving Rainy’s quizzes and Tomorrow’s apple training.

Zen moments within Death Stranding 2’s gameplay were plentiful. I enjoyed building various useful contraptions like Ziplines, Safe Houses, Roads, Monorails or Generators when my vehicle ran out of juice. I loved stopping and resting while taking in the scenery mid route to a station. Resting saves your game by the way.

The Pizza chef questline was hillarious and fun. But most importantly he teaches Sam martial art pizza strikes you can use in combat. You can throw pizza dough at enemies to disorientating them.

Enemies ranged from various BTs like gazers, catchers and watchers of red and gold color variety. Giant BTs which you can capture via the Ex Capture Grenade that you get as you progress the story. You can summon giant special BTs into fights with Giant BTs creating a Godzilla movie in-game. Loved it.

There are also human enemies like MULEs and the Extreme Survivalists. Different weapon types affects BT’s and humans differently unless you have the type of weapon that can hurt both!

Visuals | Art

Death Stranding 2 one of the best looking games on base PS5 in performance mode bar none. The decima engine doesn’t mess around. The facial and animations are top tier. Death Stranding 2 has some of the best cinematography in a video game due to it’s use of an in-game camera system. Great acted cutscenes also.

Lighting and texture work were S-Rank with Nirvana the chiral fire strange realm Episode featuring it’s copious amount of sparklers proved to me you don’t need ray-tracing for reflections in-game.

Sound | Music

Music implementation in-game when making major orders was phenomenal at times featuring Woodkid and Ludvig Forssell. Voice and motion acting were all solid lead by Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, Troy Baker, Elle Fanning, Shioli Kutsuna, Jonathan Roumie, George Miller, Darren Jacobs, Alastair Duncan, Alissa Jung, Luca Marinelli, and Debra Wilson. You know I normally don’t go into video game music and voice acting much but for this game I have to give praise for their great performances in Death Stranding 2.