When Death Stranding was first announced, no gameplay was shown, so no one knew what to think of the game. When the game was finally released in 2019 and you could play it, it was still hard to understand what this game is. A delivery person simulator in a post apocalyptic world with horror and sci-fi story, action adventure gameplay with stealth, light survival game mechanics and crafting in an open world? Huh? …Is it fun? This question will not be possible to answer until at least a few hours into the game, as it takes a while before you start getting into the pace it establishes and understanding if you like whatever this is or not. I think, I really liked it. But it also took me over 80 hours to finish it and have this answer.
How do you even play the game? The world of Death Stranding is designed as an open world location and you can get to most of the elements that you can see using almost any route you choose. Though, to be more precise, it’s several separate open world maps, with the first one serving as an extended tutorial and the second serving as the main setting for the majority of the game. These maps have several bunkers that you gradually unlock at each of which there is a terminal you can access. Using the terminal, you can begin a delivery mission, or several, that will most commonly ask you to bring a number of items to another bunker, but occasionally you might need to find and recover the item in a specified zone of the world and bring it either back or to another place. There are other, even rarer, types of missions, but these tend to be most common.
It’s as simple as that, really. You get a delivery, manage how you fit the items and how much weight you can handle, and then try to get it somewhere safe, sound and preferably quick. With the main gameplay focusing on the process of managing how you plan your route, what helpful gadgets and vehicles you use, how you plan your equipment and how you avoid dangers along the way. But even though, as the game gets you more and more efficient, safer and quicker ways of travel as it keeps going, the journey may get shorter, but it can never be removed. As Death Stranding is about that journey that connects between point A and point B.
I thought I would get bored. In fact, I did when I first played the original version of the game around the time it released on PC. But this time, I gave the title enough time to grow on me and evolve and eventually, even though it took several hours, it clicked. There’s certain satisfaction and joy in a good plan, a good choice of a vehicle or route, a cool evasion or combat with the amazingly creepy “BT” ghost enemies or trying to stealthily knock out all of the highwayman-like criminals that control certain areas of the world. The tension of utilizing the last ladder to cross a river, the joy of finding some other player’s construction exactly where you’d need one, the fun of riding a motorcycle across a mountain. Rebuilding a road brings a certain sense of pride, as does a well planned zip-line route. The game finds a genuinely good balance with its light survival and crafting elements to make them feel meaningful, without them ever getting tiresome and nagging. And makes the journey across a plain or a mountain a little adventure you’re invested in, instead of just a trek where you hold forward.
That said, the simulation of movement across different terrain under different weather conditions, does occasionally get frustrating. It’s usually quite player biased and “forgives” many things that should by all means lead to tumbling down. But it also may often lead to annoying things, like slipping on absolutely nothing or having a sudden rush of inertia with next to no weight, so turning the character around requires a full stop. Sometimes making tiny adjustments is a chore. Sometimes vehicles just refuse to move forward or backwards for no reason whatsoever and then get unstuck as soon as you first perform opposite movement to the one you wanted.
Combat dangers are also surprisingly uninteresting in the game. Despite the fact that the team at Kojima Productions were clearly utilizing a lot of their experience from Metal Gear Solid V (to the point where some actions are timed very closely to the ones in MGS V and have similar presentation), the combat and stealth in the game are easily its weakest and least interesting gameplay parts. They often feel like a necessary annoyance, rather than a challenge or an obstacle and I often wanted to avoid it just because I didn’t want to spend time dealing with it. Because it wasn’t fun.
Oh, but I did mention other player’s constructions earlier, what’s that about? The game features an optional online component that is vital to the core narrative concept of the game, which is of connecting people. As soon as any of the areas in the world joins the network, you see and can interact with elements and tools left by other players. Who will help you build and rebuild things in the world, get you additional resources, help you in boss battles, leave you vehicles to use. This whole system is mostly automated and happens in the background, with just a couple of elements being about proactively sharing with the community, and due to that, I can hardly even imagine playing the game fully solo as much more of the game will be slower and much harder. To the point where I hope there is some fallback planned for the future of the game, where it will simulate the real people when servers go offline.
Since this is a Kojima game, narrative concepts (like that of connection) are great. And storytelling is stupid. As is the plot itself. It’s not entirely nonsensical, but the ideas and concepts that are brought up are far more interesting, than anything the game actually shows or says. And while a lot of the scenes are “shot well”, many sequences are so hilariously stupid you’d think it’s a parody. It also doesn’t help that the whole ending sequence of the game is about 2 hours of non stop story dumping with barely any gameplay you feel you have to sit through because you’ve been with the game for this long already, might as well see it ’til the end. Even if it’s terrible.
But you’re not going to be playing the game for the plot, or characters, or actors. Or stealth action combat. You will be playing it for the journey across atmospheric landscapes that are beautiful and horrifying. While occasionally wonderful soundtrack kicks in. And sometimes an average licensed song might start playing, but it’s still nice. And once I caught myself thinking that – this game is far closer to what I expected S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to be in its loneliness, weird creepiness and strangeness, rather than what that series actually is.
Death Stranding is a game that requires time and patience. And there is a chance that after you give it that, it will still not click with you. Either due to countless little annoying choices the game makes, or maybe because it’s too slow for your liking or maybe something else. But I ended up enjoying it. And while I don’t like games taking this insane amount of time to finish as usually they don’t deserve it, I can’t imagine this game being any faster and bringing the same experience. So if it sounds intriguing enough, give it a chance. Just plan your time accordingly, as the game will eat a lot of it.
started playing at the same time, hope I will find your buildings :)