Death Stranding is an action-adventure game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Initially developed for PlayStation 4, Death Stranding is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows; it can be found on Steam too. Death Stranding was released on 8th November 2019.
In Death Stranding, you play Sam Porter Bridges (portrayed by Norman Reedus in both visual and voice). Sam is a courier on a post-apocalyptic Earth, specifically working in the United States after a cataclysmic event brought devastating creatures to life that roam the Earth.
Death Stranding hosts a star-studded cast alongside Norman Reedus, including actors Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley, Troy Baker, Tommie Earl Jenkins, and Lindsay Wagner, with well-known film directors Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn having their own characters within the game.
With all of this in mind and featuring stunning, story-rich trailers, I was excited about this game. I bought a PlayStation 4 in preparation for the game.
However, when I eventually got to play it, disappointment didn’t even come close to how much it devastated me. The game is rated at PEGI 18, but I would set the audience rating at all who can suffer through it.
Graphics
Don’t get me wrong. The graphics are stunning. They give me futuristic Skyrim feels. You know, like Skyrim but with technology. It was amazing to look at them and be so mesmerised by them.
I only had a few issues with the graphics. As I’ve said, they were like Skyrim, so not enough to forget that I was watching a game. However, the character graphics were much better. This is obviously because they used motion capture and the voice actors themselves were the ones to do it. It was very well done.
Gameplay & Game Time
The gameplay and game time, on the other hand, was diabolical. I’ve combined both of these sections because they scored the same, and I also can’t tell which caused the most pain.
Death Stranding started okay. It was the basic intro to learn the controls and doing some activities to get comfortable with them.
Then it started. What felt like forever for the first taste of the story.
Even though I played about 43 hours of Death Stranding, I don’t think I got 5% of the story done, which is ridiculous for 43 hours of playing.
Death Stranding’s trailers displayed a story-rich game with a fantastic cast and complex storylines. Plus, with the game being a product from Hideo Kojima, I was excited to see his next game.
I wandered around for hours, endlessly hoping that the next compulsory side quest would lead to a story progression, but alas it never came. It became painfully apparent that the game was more focused on the multiplayer aspect than the story despite the advertising. The never-ending compulsory side quest felt like I had never left the opening section, where the game teaches me the controls.
I was hunting for a story near the end. Any sliver of the story was like a drop of water in a desert. And any story that did come was delivered in massive cut-scene-like sections. The story was more like watching a game film than playing a game.
It reminded me of FFXV: Kingsglaive, a film released alongside the FFXV game. It’s an optional watch but gives backstory, and there are some excellent links to it in the game. Death Stranding felt like it tried to combine the film with the game but left no story for the game to have. The opposite of FFXV, which was able to kick off from the film and progress to the eventual overarching story end.
Audio
Despite the gameplay, the audio was good. It was atmospheric and fit the game well. However, due to the gameplay and game time, I was able to appreciate the audio as much. I was getting frustrated hearing everything when I had been listening to the same thing continuously for hours with no story to match.
Difficulty
I’ve rated the difficulty as average, but I barely experienced anything to really have a say on how difficult it was. From what I experienced, Death Stranding doesn’t host much combat and more evading and stealth gameplay.
Basically, evade the stringy shadow creatures – and rain.
Since the whole game was a lot of useless running about for NPCs just to get to the next sprinkling of story, there weren’t many challenging tasks involved unless you included trying to stay sane during the process.
Story
There was some lore, although I can’t be sure if it was because I watched all the trailers and picked stuff up or if it came from the droplets of stories from the game.
If all the story cutscenes had been brought together as a film, it could have worked better as a short film. Since this wasn’t the case and the story was left for players to hunt down, by the time I got any story, I was frustrated and fed up to the point that I couldn’t enjoy the story at all.
What made it more frustrating was that the story was teased about being this unique masterpiece involving some brilliant actors, only to be some sparse basic story. I’ve experienced more and better stories from walking simulator games that cost a couple of pounds or are Free-To-Play. And yeah, Death Stranding is a glorified walking simulator.
Price
The price was not worth it. I think I spent somewhere between £40 to £50 on Death Stranding and regret it. As I’ve said, I could have bought something 90% cheaper or for free and had a better experience in a shorter game.
Bugs
And on top of everything, the game was laggy. Could it have been my laptop? Maybe. However, the fact that it was lagging along with everything else only made the experience worse.
Fun Factor/Replay Ability
I struggled to play it once! Seriously. I struggled to get through the game once and didn’t even finish it. I could watch a playthrough, but I will not play it again.
Did I enjoy it?
No, it was worth the money story-wise as for the motion capture, graphics, audio and all that, then it’s different. In those cases, it is worth it and could have been brilliant if the gameplay had lived up to the hype.
Conclusion/My Opinion
Overall, Death Stranding had so much hype and advertised a fantastic story with a star-studded cast that never met expectations. Ultimately, Death Stranding became a glorified walking simulator with a hefty price tag to match. If the game considered its supposed “Story-Rich” side more and less on combining its multiplayer aspect with its base game, then it would have worked better.
Information & Rating
Rating: 3/7
Total Steam Play Time: 43 hours
Did it run with ease? Yes
Name: Death Stranding
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS
Edition: Base Game
Genres: Walking Simulator, Action, Adventure, Story Rich,
My Gaming Laptop Specs
Graphics
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti
Processor
Up to AMD Ryzen™ 7 4800H
Display
15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS (144 Hz / <6 ms Response Time / 100% sRGB / 300 nits / Dolby Vision™ Enabled)
15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS (60 Hz / 100% sRGB / 300 nits)
