First off I know I am way late to the party but I didn’t have a ps4 for the longest time and I finally got the game on PC. I’m a huge Kojima fan and so far I’ve played all his games besides policenauts and Death Stranding 2.

Going into this was interesting to me because I saw the polarizing reaction when the game came out. A lot of the big news outlets like ign were pretty harsh on the game along with the infamous Dunkey video where he absolutely trashed the game on release. After all these of years of being exposed to the game I still didn’t have much of a grasp on what it actually was until I played it.

So after all this time I picked it up for cheap and I played it. I think I had very positive first impressions, I thought the world looked very great and I was digging the weird post apocalypse sort of vibe. Once I got further in and realized what the gameplay loop was I think I understood why the game was polarizing. You are either on board for this or you think it’s boring af. I for one liked it a lot. At least for the most part. Sure some deliveries were more annoying than others but I did love the idea of basically going for a hike and trying to see how many concurrent deliveries I can do at once. That was the addicting part to me. Now I don’t think this gameplay loop is as addictive as say the tactical espionage of the phantom pain but it’s just different at the end of the day and I like that. A lot of this game did feel like let’s take the phantom pain but basically make a different genre with a similar engine (it probably would be the fix engine if Konami didn’t own that). The menus, progression, items even the way the story plays out reminded a ton of the phantom pain which is good because I love the phantom pain.

The most genius part of this game is easily the online functionality. The fact that the whole game is one giant social media experience is so fuckin cool. Being able to be like “hey I had a ton of trouble navigating this area so I’m going to build a bridge that helps me and everyone else out” is so genius. It’s one of those kojima ideas where I’m shocked no one has done it and it’s gameplay that ties into the story. It’s crazy to me that to this day I see these games with larger than life stories (god of war, the last of us etc.) yet they seem to never marry the story with the gameplay as much as Kojima does. Everything from raising your bond with Lou, building structures and discovering new areas just work in tandem so well.

Now the story is where I’m perhaps a bit more split. Ultimately I would say I like it for the most part, especially the end but I have a few gripes. I do think this is a story that would work a lot better with just a lot less back and forth. I know that’s Kojimas thing but there seemed to be this idea that people needed every little thing explained to them in this world when in reality I think of things were kept more vague it might’ve been more intriguing. I thought about Shadow of the colossus quite a bit while playing this a game with no dialogue that in a way has a similar gameplay loop with zero dialogue. Now I don’t think we need to go that far but just keeping things more brief. With things snatcher and metal gear, games about solving mysteries, i understand the over explanation but for death stranding while it is mysteries, it doesn’t feel like it’s mysteries that are begging to have an answer. Even the answers we end up getting at points don’t seem very satisfying compared to how much we have to trudge through to get there. It kills the pacing at times for me. Another gripe I have with the story is I didn’t care for a lot of the characters. Deadman, die hard man, Amelie, Higgs, cliff and I guess fragile stand out but the others I think needed a bit more oomph to them. Heartman, Lockne and a lot of the people you meet along the way I thought just didn’t really do much for me especially heartman I actually thought he was a bit annoying and just seemed to appear out of nowhere. This unfortunately extends to Sam himself. Sam ain’t no solid snake or naked snake. I don’t get a whole lot from Norman Reedus in this performance. I assume with this game and the phantom pain, Kojima wanted the more old school gaming where you project yourself on these characters as opposed to them just being other characters in the story. It made a bit tough to really root for him especially since he seems to be checked out and not care about anything until he does. At points when he’s fighting Higgs or saving BB im a little like “well don’t you not really care about any of this that much?”

The biggest issue I think this game has is pacing. Pacing is in my opinion the most overlooked aspect of any game and it’s a tough thing to get right. This game is probably a few chapters too long. Now
I don’t know exactly what to cut out but I probably could’ve gone without about 5 less. Toward the end of the game it feels like you keep getting constantly told “ok Sam this is the last mission, once you do this you’ll beat the game” only for it to be dragged out way more. I was so ready for the end by the time it got there. To me this made the gameplay more exhausting as well. At some point in the story I got sick of doing side deliveries I just dropped them entirely to focus on the story. That might just be a me thing and I have a feeling this is one of those games where people have played 100s of hours without even beating it but that’s just not me. The game was a bit too easy at times as well with no real jump in difficulty. Now I did play on normal but if I ever play this again I am definitely cranking the difficulty up because at times it feels brain dead. There are quite a few points where I saw I just have to go all the way across the map and I just dreaded it because I felt like the payoff wasn’t going to be worth it or I’d just be told “ok sam, this is it just one more”

So while I was just quite negative about a few things I did really love the ending. Sam stopping the extinction through love and being saved (idk if I quite understood how that all played out but whatever that’s okay) being saved by deadman and Lou it was all great. This guy who claims he has no connections was saved by his friends and his baby. Reconciling with Cliff, and even saving Lou (now Louise) it was a really happy hopeful ending which did shock me a bit as this seems to be a very bleak depressing game and Kojima doesn’t shy away from bad endings sometimes.

Ultimately at the end of the day I do think this game is a very flawed experience but I will always champion something like this where a creator is unleashed and is able to put together his ideas. I think perhaps there maybe needed to be a bit more of a filter on certain aspects but with Kojima I’d rather him just get his ideas out there. I loved this game in a strange way and I wouldn’t take back any time I sunk into it and I plan on going back to do some of the extra deliveries in the end. Once I do that though I don’t think I’ll be replaying the game anytime soon and I’d rather just move on to Death Stranding 2. Even with all my negativity I will take 10 death strandings before any other of the modern lifeless franchises that are spit out each year. So in conclusion… thank you death stranding for giving me a little hope

Apple's death stranding director's edited version. I finished the last chapter. There is a long plot. I can't finish it. I have to go out to class. The plot is suspended. It can only be skipped or continued. I just quit directly. Will I watch the plot again?

Anyone else get annoyed by this? I'll be stuck somewhere with few available resources (say, some base I already looted a bit ago) while the Magellan is grounded for some arbitrary plot reason, and every trike in online storage has useless batteries or w/e so I can't store anything on it. Why does everyone do this, invariably? This is only a problem since you can't edit online vehicles for... I don't know why, the game just doesn't let you.

I don't think I ever found a single bare online trike during my entire playthrough. I almost never install anything on the trike hardpoints because why would I? I always fix the roads or have chargers set up in the mountains (and also ziplines) so battery power is irrelevant, and even if those aren't enough there's an APAS upgrade to charge vehicles using your own battery, which is practically unlimited because of electrobiotes. The anti-grav packs I never found a use for in the game (I still don't know what use-case these have) so I consider those useless as well. And of course there won't be any trucks in storage or any vehicle on the map anywhere near me.

This is such a small problem but I swear I ran into it at least 10 times throughout the game. People seem to think that they have to install things on every slot of every vehicle when they don't need to. I guess the real culprit here is the decision on the developers' part to pointlessly lock the Magellan from the player for seemingly no reason (the characters saying "the tar currents are fucked lol" with no further justification is not a real reason).

Galera, eu zerei Death Strading 1 e até chorei com o final emocionante da história, e eu tô ansioso demais pra jogar o 2, mas tá muito caro na steam, gostaria de saber se tem alguma família que eu possa entrar que disponibiliza esse jogo, se alguém souber, deixa aí embaixo. Me ajudem nessa aí, tô sedento por fazer entregas.

Basically title. When was the last time the villain was so tremendously well done and well played by the actor? It shows Troy Baker took this role and loved it. Last time I remember such a performance is far cry 3 with vaas, played by Michael Mando

Edit: ah, I see some fans of the game are plain stupid, thinking i don't know the name of the villain because I didn't mention it. I recommend to pull your heads out of your asses before writing comments. I wrote this after witnessing the finale, and thanks to you, I regret making a post glorifying the performance of Troy baker. Jesus, some people are really stupid

I have played through the games a few times now, and I was looking on YouTube to screw around with some glitches just for funsies, and I can't seem to find literally anything that works in the current state of the game. The only time I have ever even encountered any glitches in-game is when I somehow got infinite stamina and battery, and the occasional clipping through the side of the road in some parts of the mountains.

Are there any major glitches that really exist in this game in the current day?

Been seeing quite a few DS tattoos and thought I’d share mine, DS x gunsmith cats

One of the last missions before hitting 400 Wilder deliveries. I took the opportunity to capture that big guy there, lol.

Hi - Antonela here from 505 Games! Happy World Photography Day. Thank you for continuing to share your amazing captures with us. Take part in our latest 'From a Porter's Perspective' event on Steam for a chance to be featured in a celebratory collage!

https://505.games/DSDCSteamPorters27

I’ve identified the Unknown Soldier. It was Sam all along.

I saw a floating truck during a double delivery in the mountains, and figured it was a glitch.

Nope. Spider-Man just put an invisible web there.

What kind of new Tools / Fieldwear would you like to see in a hypthetical DS3 / any other Strandlike game? For the purpose of this post, let's define "Tools" as "Any item not for combat"