When it comes to AAA games, established franchises, developers or publishers, each have their own fan base that will follow them and praise everything they release and will come out of the woodwork with torches and pitchforks aimed at anyone who says otherwise, regardless of whether it really is a true masterpiece or in fact, a used diaper. Death Stranding is destined to be one of those games – one that will likely be one of the most divisive games in the history of the medium. In the effort of full disclosure, I am a huge fan of Kojima’s other work, was one of the many fans who were devastated at the cancellation of P.T./Silent Hills and have completed all of the Metal Gear titles he had a hand in making. I was unable to complete the entirety of the game prior to this writing, yet I still kind of hated it. Now, before you light me up via messages and comments, I will say I respect the game for what it is, so hear me out.

If you’ve somehow managed to avoid all of the coverage of this game for the past few years, it follows a courier by the name of Sam, digitally portrayed by Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead and canceled Silent Hills project. Sam spends his time trekking across a post-apocalyptic version of the US in which most of the world’s population is dead and gone, leaving the few survivors living out their days in high tech bunkers deep below the surface, where a select few transport supplies on foot, evading the game’s version of the boogeyman: beings known as BTs. This is basically the footnotes of the story, which plays out in lengthy cut scenes filled with exposition, acronyms, and the normal Kojima weirdness. The narrative often makes little sense as its extremely nonsensical, yet is strangely captivating and was my sole reason for continuing past the first few missions. The downfall here is there really is a lot to take in just in the narrative, which often made me regret not taking paper notes referencing everything that is thrown at you early into the story at a rapid pace.

The actual gameplay is far less interesting and the memes and claims that the game is a delivery simulator are all true. The gameplay almost exclusively involves wandering from Point A to Point B, delivering goods ranging from life-saving medicine to pizzas… yes, I said pizza, evading the BTs and the Timefall, which is essentially acid rain that ages everything it touches at exponential rates. You’ll plot out courses, managing the weight of your inventory in a way that makes it easy for Sam to walk at a decent pace, adding a risk vs. reward element that adds a layer of anxiety that is rare within today’s AAA game space. If you elect to carry too much, Sam will get fatigued quickly and need to rest often. You’ll also be slowed and required to shift his weight at regular intervals when navigating uneven terrain. There are some other minor gameplay elements that offer something different than the average action-adventure title, but they are so minor it almost feels like they were an afterthought added late into the development process once the realization that the main campaign feels like a culmination of every side quest offered in the past decade or so.

Combat is present, but comes in extremely small segments, often favoring stealth over running in headfirst to every confrontation. If you’re expecting to run around mowing down enemies and creatures with fully automatic weapons, you’ll be sorely disappointed. For story-related reasons (that degraded that whole “fun factor” for me) that I won’t go into in this space, Sam doesn’t kill the other humans wandering the world because corpses cause bigger issues than you could imagine, so most of his attacks are stealth-based, which work well enough, or come off as horrendously clunky melee combat that doesn’t hold a candle to the CQC tactics of Solid Snake. The game changes entirely when you encounter the BTs, which are so similar to the Ghosts from Metal Gear Solid 5 it’s not funny. These can summon larger beings that resemble various wildlife that was modified by a version of the Venom symbiote. These somewhat random encounters are thrilling at first, achieving a level of anxiousness that is only rivaled by the likes of Alien Isolation or Outlast, but can quickly turn into a slog if Sam is carrying too much weight due to the fact that Sam cannot defend himself whatsoever against them until around the midpoint of the narrative, when you’ve probably lost a metric ton of cargo, as well as your sanity. The first time I was cornered by one of these beasts I was stuck on a large rock in a situation that felt like I was stuck in the third act of Tremors, throwing grenades and even peeing (yup, you read that right) on what looked like Shamu with a Graboid face. After every other option was exhausted, I decided to ditch my cargo, running like hell as far away from the odd creature that was chasing me, only to be grabbed and dragged about like a kitten in the mouth of a lion, leaving my packages scattered. Worst case scenario, Sam winds up dead pushing you back to the last checkpoint to slowly walk the same path.

There is a social aspect that revolves around leaving messages (akin to those found in Dark Souls) and ladders or ropes for others on the same server as you, as well as sharing supplies at designated points. Doing so may net you “Likes,” adding the dopamine rush that many get from hovering over their social media accounts like hawks, waiting for that next hit which goes towards your leveling system. The problem I ran into with this is that if I didn’t log out of the game between sessions and opted to use the “always-on” function of the PS4, I’d be disconnected and lose a lot of my previously placed items when servers changed. It’s a minor gripe that is easily remedied, but I feel like this wasn’t a worthy use of resources for the title and could’ve been left on the cutting room floor.

Any way you look at it, Death Stranding is one of the most beautiful games of this console generation, looking almost photo-realistic in every area on a standard PS4, blurring the lines between reality and the digital world, especially when it comes to fully digitizing the representations of famous actors and pop culture icons. The small details, such as the lifelike wrinkles, facial animations, and strands of hair really sold the immersion making me wish this was an animated movie opposed to an interactive experience, where I could’ve simply sat back and enjoyed the crazy story. The only instances I found to be particularly jarring would be some cut scenes in which I was carrying what amounted to a full Jenga boards worth of parcels on my back and Sam would wave his hand through them as if they were non-existent.

If you’re a fan of Kojima’s work, you owe it to yourself to at least try Death Stranding – not because it’s a “fun” game, but it’s definitely one to experience for yourself and draw your own conclusion. I loved the story, the visuals, and the insane cast of characters, but the gameplay left me wishing there was a “skip” button like there was on the cut scenes. If you disagree with me and feel this was the greatest gift to the world, that’s cool, you probably have a great future at your local Post Office or UPS depot.

6 out of 10

Pros:

• Best Looking Game of This Generation
• Weird Kojima Story
• Some Fun Celebrity Cameos

Cons:

• Painfully Boring, Repetitive Gameplay
• Lack of Proper Action
• Social Aspects Don’t Add to the Game in a Meaningful Way

Death Stranding was developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and 505 Games for PS4 and PC, respectively. The game was not provided to us for review on PS4. For more information on Death Stranding, please visit the developer’s official site.

 

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