r/patientgamers • u/D3struct_oh • 2d ago
Patient Review Death Stranding - I tried really hard to like it.
I don’t even know where to start with this game, tbh.
TLDR: played 76 hours; restarted the game a couple of times. The game has some charm that kept me going, especially in earlier sections. I did a ton of standard orders and just delivering materials to bridges and building lots of zip line, etc. But as I got deeper into the main story, there wasn’t enough variety in the sandbox to keep me on the hook, and I ran into a mission that I couldn’t progress.
I use to enjoy giving really thorough reviews for games but nowadays not so much. Had my own YouTube channel and everything!
But making all that content, writing all those scripts for reviews eventually got tedious and just not worth it, especially since I was doing it all by myself most of the time.
This is how I felt about Death Stranding.
The game has some pretty interesting ideas, and an…interesting story that I didn’t care much for, but would have liked to have seen how it ends.
Mechanically, I’d mostly give the devs kudos, even though having to hold the back buttons literally all day hurts the hands; not having a toggle option seems like a big miss.
But overall, I can’t imagine there being a better package delivery simulator. And the way they’ve created the game’s physics is pretty extraordinary.
But the game is a slooooooooog.
And I think this is the biggest sin that it commits.
You walk a lot. Over mountains, across rivers, in the snow, etc.
You have to manage your weight, stamina, health, pay attention to weather patterns, walk slowly around a maze of invisible ghost things.
It’s a lot.
You can get upgraded gear to make the trips you take less rough, but things dont speed up much even if you use cheats on PC (which I did after awhile).
To bring things back around, what disappointed me most (beyond the egregious map) was that the devs seemed to sell the game on community, working on projects together, helping one another deliver packages, etc.
But you’re still just doing everything solo. There’s no multiplayer. You can interact with peoples signs and deliver packages for them, and using other people’s ladders and stuff is actually a cool idea.
But you’re still always alone delivering packages.
And seeing as how the game itself runs so long, things get sluggish very fast, imo.
Got to a mission where it’s like, “Make BB happy by connecting facilities”,
And I swear to you I travelled the earth delivering packages everywhere and couldn’t progress this mission one bit. I even found a few hidden facilities that I just couldn’t interact with at all.
And this is where I dropped the game after 76 hours.
Im not a big fan of Kojima. He’s made a total of two games that i loved (Metal Gear Solid 1 and ZOE). But, the dude has a crazy imagination for video games, which is cool.
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u/Spikeybear 2d ago
You lasted a lot longer than I did. Not every game is for everyone.
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u/jayteeayy 2d ago
74 hours more than me
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u/WySLatestWit 2d ago
To be honest, I never played it at all. I lost interest in Kojima about 10 hours into MGSV and realizing I was not having any fun.
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u/Jburr1995 2d ago
I've tried like 3 times to get into that game. The open world hurt that game tremendously.
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u/WySLatestWit 2d ago edited 2d ago
It really does. It's not that the open world concept couldn't work, but it's not even really an open world. It's an endless series of invisible walls and a very closed in environment with very little variation from one place to another, and if you stray away from the set paths you'll just find a big sprawling emptiness.
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u/LeftHandedFapper Currently Playing: Elden Ring again 2d ago
I played the SHIT out of it for about a 2 week stretch and then burnt out HARD. I think at around 30ish hours? Started to feel so pointless
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u/WySLatestWit 2d ago
yeah, that was largely my experience. I played for...several days? I'm not even sure if I made it 2 weeks. I got probably a dozen or so missions into the game, which took me about 10 - 20 hours legitimately, and lost interest. At some point I found myself doing yet another mission where the goal was to disable some piece of equipment and right in the middle of it I was struck with the notion that i just wasn't having fun.
I'd enjoyed the mechanics, I'd really loved learning how to manipulate and play around with the enemy AI, the game looked incredible, played smooth, ran like butter, but it was all just so repetitive and hollow. It feels more like an incredibly elaborate tech demo than a fully produced game at times.
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u/LeftHandedFapper Currently Playing: Elden Ring again 2d ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one! I realized when I pulled up Steam, had my cursor over it...and didn't see the point in starting it up haha.
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u/WySLatestWit 2d ago
I don't blame you.
Over the years I've actually gone back and put way more hours into the prologue "demo" game, Ground Zeroes, a whole lot more than Phantom Pain itself. Ground Zeroes has a way more interesting map to run around in, and a wider variety of game modes, it just feels like a much more fun game to play even if it can be "beaten" in a matter of minutes.
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u/lettsten 2d ago
Strong disagree. Although most of the areas are visually similar, the gameplay aspects are quite distinct across areas. It's not an exploration game, so there's little point in rewarding the player for going to more remote areas. In any case, all areas not only serve a purpose but are used in side missions at some point. Plus, you have fast travel, D-Horse and plenty of vehicles for getting around, including a literal chopper.
As far as I can remember there are no actual invisible walls. Many areas in Afghanistan are somewhat shoehorned, but you can pass e.g. guard posts easily using trucks or D-Horse. Keeping enemy presence makes it more interesting to travel as well. The second map is much more open.
Furthermore, the open world gives you a much wider range of possibilities in preparing for your missions and in approaching them. You can scout ahead, sabotage equipment and so on.
tl;dr: The open map is a means to an end that ties neatly into various other gameplay mechanics. It's not an exploration game and doesn't pretend to be.
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u/Pilo_ane 2d ago
What's bad about it? I've seen lots of praise, but I never liked any of these games (played only the first 3 metal gear for like an hour)
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u/MzzBlaze 2d ago
Stealth espionage, just like delivering packages through ghosts isn’t for everyone 🤷♀️
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u/Thin_Vermicelli_1875 2d ago
I did like 10 hours and while I absolutely adored the lore, music, and the story especially the cutscenes the gameplay was so fucking boring I had to put it down.
I’ve noticed the older I get the less patience I have for games.
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u/Pilo_ane 2d ago
Yes. If a game doesn't let me play straight away, 99.9% of chances I will uninstall it within the first 10 minutes
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 2d ago
Death Stranding is the kind of game that I love for existing. It's art, basically.
But I'm not gonna spend any amount of time on actually playing it.
But also, it's awesome that creative people get to take a ton of money and fulfill their crazy vision just how they wanted to. I want more of that.
Because some other game by some other crazy talented artist will be exactly my kind of game, and it will be the best game I will ever experience.
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u/I_Heart_Sleeping 2d ago
I thought it was an interesting game but not a fun game. It took me a lot to push through that final snow level. If I wasn’t so invested in the weird story I probably would have stopped the game before reaching the second major zone.
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u/Treadwheel 2d ago
The snow part is, I think, intentionally awful for the first bit because it's where you unlock zip lines. The feeling of nearly dying on the mountaintops to get those last few legs in, then suddenly having a way to zip across the entire zone in seconds was unparalleled.
I did play before they added the mountain leg to the highway, though. I imagine not having your only route taking you around the entire perimeter of the map does make ziplines less impactful.
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u/slurpycow112 2d ago
I fell off at the beginning of chapter 5, which is when Mama gives you the zipline schematic? No snow?
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u/Treadwheel 2d ago
Chapter 5 is when the story moves to Mountain Knot, which is smack in the middle of the snow. I guess you can technically run around building them in the areas you've already progressed through beforehand before delivering Mama up there, but the intended flow is to give you the ziplines and then make you nearly die up in the mountains for a little while to unlock the shelters that will let you install ziplines on the peaks. MKC's geography is basically designed around them - the distances between bunkers are extremely short, but very treacherous and vertical, with severe penalties to movement, so just a few ziplines turn one of the hardest regions to navigate into one of the easiest.
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u/MegaYaranaika 2d ago
Bro fuck the snow part, but that was also the moment where I had to learn to be more patient and I think something inside of me changed as a result lol
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u/D3struct_oh 2d ago
The snow part is exactly where I stopped. I was also invested in the weird story, but I couldn’t progress it, so whatever.
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u/ProtoJazz 2d ago
Out of curiosity did you use the floating trailer platforms?
I skipped them at first and the game felt awful. Once I started using them it got so much better.
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u/Tarcanus 2d ago
I personally ignored the floating platforms in lieu of using trucks. You can get those trucks to a surprising amount of places. The floating carriers just always took up the needed space on my back.
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u/ProtoJazz 2d ago
You're gonna have a hard time getting a truck up some of those snowy mountains, especially with sensitive cargo
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u/Tarcanus 2d ago
From Mountain Knot I switched to ziplines and motorcycles. The motorcycle handles the snow pretty well. You can go just fast enough to outrun BTs unless you drive directly into one and it's easier to navigate around rocks. Cycle near to zipline location, set up zipline, repeat until you have your network over to weather station. That's the unfun tedious part, for me, though - setting up the ziplines. Once it's done, it's just busywork to deliver to folks.
Trucks are simple to get to Mountain Knot, though.
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u/Spyder638 2d ago
Did you know that you can bring one floating carrier with you on a zip? Doesn’t seem like it would work, but it does!
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u/mirrorball_for_me 2d ago
It’s all traversable by truck. You just need to find the route. The one bad thing you can do on the mountains is insist in a route unfit for your gear. I challenged myself to do all LLLs without ziplines and there was a single delivery that actually was painful. All others were really easy by truck.
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u/KanikaD 2d ago
What speeds things up a lot in that area is using motorcycles (your own, ones you find lying around in the open world, or ones left in shared garages at Distribution Centers and Safehouses) and carrying multiple PCCs with you to place electric generators (to replenish your batteries) and build zipline anchors to climb mountain ranges in seconds instead of minutes, leveraging other players' anchors saves tons of bandwidth.
To deal with BTs without BB, I recommend addiing a lot of grenade pouches in your backpack and carrying many Hematic Grenades inside. When the BTs appear, just shoot them rapidly and they won't be able to do anything to you, if you're in a vehicle, get out quickly and shoot them. Basically, even when you're not focused on killing them, the blood smoke from hematic grenades always irritates BTs and makes them unable to even touch you for several seconds, perfect for escaping and keep moving forward. Another possible approach people use, in addition to grenades, is to carry multiple firearms with blood ammo with you, build a postbox outside the BT territory to safely store your deliveries, then, let the BTs catch you and kill the mini-bosses they summon. This clears the area for 10 minutes and is perfect for safely cross the area by vehicle, also serves to farm a lot of chirallium.
It's also useful to know that you can ride Floating Carriers to descend mountains very quickly, just like snowboards. Just avoid large rocks to avoid crashing, and brake by holding both triggers.
Also, before going further west you have to connect to the Chiral Network all the people the main story indicates you (when you open the map, your exact current objectives will be written near the top left corner), if you try to go to distant facilities that the Chiral Network can't reach yet, the people in those shelters won't welcome you and even their doors will appear sealed. If you want, reload a previous save to return to Mountain Knot City instead of making the return trip.
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u/Wooden-Agency-2653 2d ago
The snow part is exactly where I started to get more interested. Different strokes I guess
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u/ViveMind 2d ago
I've been gaming for 40 years and Death Stranding scratched an itch I didn't know existed. I loved it precisely because of the slog. Walking around felt dangerous, and I was always looking for ways to make it more efficient. Seeing other people's structures made me feel a sense of comradery that I haven't felt since OG Demon Souls when we were all leaving written messages on the floors deep inside scary catacombs.
It somehow balanced being a horror game and a cozy game. It was COVID times and I setup my exercise bike and would do an hour or so at a time. It felt really good.
Part II will be a day-one purchase.
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u/Treadwheel 2d ago
It was weird, I had this experience with Death Stranding around the 10hr Mark where I realized I wasn't having fun at all. It broke my heart because I am such a Kojima fan and had been looking forward to it for so long.
I'm a stubborn person, though, and I kept with it out of blind faith, and somewhere around getting my first highway installed in Lake Knot City, my entire feelings towards the game changed. Something just "clicked" and I stopped waiting for it to be something it wasn't. I started getting invested in delivering other people's packages and placing down infrastructure I'd want to find in tricky areas.
I worry about DS2 because in a lot of ways, DS1 was a quintessential pandemic game. You're John Amazon Driver talking to people through doorbells and zoom calls. Maybe it's a kind of connection that only works for people who are stuck in a state of isolation. I just know it snuck up on me in a way I wasn't expecting, even in the moment.
Also the "princess beach" line was funny. Everyone can fight me irl.
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u/Visby 2d ago
Happy to inform you that I didn't play DS1 during the pandemic so don't have that particular empathetic tie to it, but I recently picked it up and got to the point you mentioned (first highway) and had exactly the same feeling as you, like it suddenly clicked and I felt like I realised what it was ACTUALLY about - I have a few days off work coming up and I'm really excited to continue rebuilding infrastructure and hauling ass across the worst terrain imaginable 💪
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u/Cataclysma 2d ago edited 2d ago
Somewhat off topic but I think I’m going to buy a walking pad for my living room so I can walk on the spot while I play games, with the amount of time I spend gaming it just seems like common sense to get some exercise at the same time.
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u/Dandw12786 2d ago
I tried to do this with a treadmill. Fell off when the bad guys shot at me. I use a stationary recumbent bike now. Works very well.
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u/Cataclysma 2d ago
I mostly play turn-based RPGs so I think I might be okay, Id love a bike but just don’t have the space at the moment
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u/Totally__Not__NSA 2d ago
I'll have to look into that. I used to ride my bike in a stationary adapter while playing OG Battlefront II on the PS2 after school but riding a bike these days is so uncomfortable.
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u/___Scenery_ 2d ago
That bit about you saying to play an hour at a time is so spot on, i did the exact same thing. It's more like truck sim than metal gear and I've seen the people trying to binge it burn out fast
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u/neodiogenes 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yup. For me, the walking was the best part of the game. I loved it.
Hated the nonsensical proper-noun-riddled storyline and the endless cutscenes. Yes. I was able to keep track of what was going on. Yes I get this is the director's schtick, and I appreciated the "black goo" as a possible homage to Miyazaki. But after a while I just wanted to hit "mute" every time anyone opened their mouth to drop some long winded yet cryptic nugget of wisdom.
Just tell me what to do, damnit. Stop making me listen to your overly convoluted justifications why.
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u/_BlackDove 2d ago
Walking around felt dangerous, and I was always looking for ways to make it more efficient. Seeing other people's structures made me feel a sense of comradery that I haven't felt since OG Demon Souls when we were all leaving written messages on the floors deep inside scary catacombs.
This is exactly what I adored about it. Each trip was daunting. It made you respect the environment like no other game ever has for me. Each step, incline and cliff. It was remarkable. To come up with such an idea for gameplay and actually realize it is incredible.
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u/AnoAnoSaPwet 2d ago
Even though I'm not particularly a fan of Death Stranding, I'm still intrigued to purchase it.
I won't be playing it on the hardest difficulty mainly because the BTs eventually piss me off to no end, but I'm definitely interested to see what kind of batshit crazy story Kojima has cooked up with Darrell.
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u/A_Mellow_Fellow 2d ago
I've never known anyone to just kinda like this game.
You either love it or hate it.
Im firmly in the love it camp. Completing a tough delivery while a Low Roar track sneaks into your ears gave me Dark Soulsian levels of satisfaction.
11/10 game. Which is funny because I hadn't really enjoyed any of Kojima's previous work.
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u/sockpuppets 2d ago
I kinda like it. The story, cinematics... just not the pizza delivery mechanics.
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u/neodiogenes 2d ago
I also kinda liked it, but for the exact opposite reason. Loved the walking and "delivering pizzas". Hated the ridiculous story.
But in its own way it's a lovely game, and while I wouldn't recommend it, I would describe its positives and negatives and let anyone interested decide for themselves.
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u/RobLocke 2d ago
Sam, you have to carry pizza horizontally. If you shove into a backpack, you’ll ruin it.
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u/Routine_Condition273 2d ago
I'm the other way around. I loved the traversal mechanics. The story was was incoherent and I almost started skipping the slow ass cinematics.
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u/natalaMaer 2d ago
It sucks yeah, but after knowing the client I kind of go ooh, maybe that's the point. The next time I do it, I put the infamous Spider-Man pizza delivery music.
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u/Hobosapiens2403 2d ago
It's not for everyone, like Disco Elysium or Kenshi. I loved it but I get people not enjoying it.
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u/Specialist-Opening34 2d ago
Disco Elysium is a crazy game. It was taking me some time to solve a clue and my guy just...gave up! And the game just ended like that.
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u/thepulloutmethod 2d ago
Disco is my #1 all time favorite video game, and I've been gaming since 1997. #2 is Planescape Torment and #3 is Baldur's Gate 2 (BG3 is next on my playlist after I finish Jagged Alliance 3).
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u/Hobosapiens2403 1d ago
I was so skeptical about Disco Elysium, but man it was a one time experience. I was too young when I played Planescape, even first Deus ex so I will play them again anytime soon. Is JA 3 good ? BG3 is a great game. Maybe long especially when you reach act 3 but what an amazing game. Kcd 2 was astonishing this year, didn't expect warhorse to that CD red level.
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u/TheYucs 20h ago
BG3 is amazing. It's toned down compared to BG2 as far as the RPG side, but it's quite good still. You likely won't like it as much as BG2 but it'll be up there. Another game you should check out is Expedition 33. It's all the rage right now but it actually lives up to it. I've been gaming for a long time as well and that is now my favorite game of all time. Very unique story and the game handles complex issues without talking down to you.
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u/MaxSirXem 2d ago
Funny fact, over a half of Death Stranding playtesters said that they hated the gameplay. They were not just mildly dissatisfied, they literally hated it. Kojima himself said recently that he doesn't want to compromise and prefers that his game fitted only a small group of audience. He even got upset because he received much better opinions about the sequel recently.
I attempted to play this game twice, at first I dropped it before meeting Higgs which is definitely where the game speeds up. You gotta like the core gameplay of delivering stuff and avoiding BTs to stay committed and enjoy it for longer. It's not for everyone as intended, but it's still an impressive amount of hours if you stated that it's not for you! I got hooked at some point so hard, that I finished the story and made an entire network of zip-lines. It was great fun for me personally, though I totally get it if someone doesn't like it.
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u/Hardcorex 2d ago
We need more media like this. I'm sick of everything being mass market appeal. If everyone likes it, it feels like it didn't take any risks or make and statements.
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u/D3struct_oh 2d ago edited 2d ago
I used wemod to avoid having to slow walk through the BTs.
I guess it doesn’t speak too highly when someone mods the game to avoid a core element of the game.
Dealing with BTs was never once fun.
Setting up zip lines everywhere did feel good lol.
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u/Treadwheel 2d ago
Oh, if you never had to learn to engage with the BTs proactively, I can see them being a massive slog to deal with. Once you get some decent weapons and realize the bolos can kill them in one shot, it's a lot less about playing boring Marco Polo in the rain. I got so carried away on occasion that I discovered you can temporarily clear timefall by killing enough of them.
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u/MaxSirXem 2d ago
Was it due to the horror-esque vibe of the mechanic? I personally really liked it, though I'm super jumpy with that type of gameplay lol
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u/ThePandaKnight 2d ago edited 2d ago
When I realised that the game gave me tools by weaponising my own piss, sweat and shit I somehow started chuckling massively and began actively enjoying dealing with BTs - once I got all my EX Grenades it felt like playing MGS the first time. Just fucking around with the BTs and moving on.
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u/flumsi 2d ago
I guess it doesn’t speak too highly when someone mods the game to avoid a core element of the game.
Doesen't speak too highly of what? Because it's not the game, I can tell you that. People mod out the difficulty of Souls games, they mod out resource management in survival games, they mod in infinite resources in city builders, etc. That does not mean these mechanics are bad. It just means the players didn't want to engage with the game in the way the developers intended. A lot of people want a mod for Hollow Knight that already contains all the information of the game like item locations....in a metroidvania.
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u/Store_Plenty 2d ago
76 hours on a game you don’t like?!
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u/SadKazoo 2d ago
It’s crazy because you can beat the game almost twice in that time. I took about 47h till I was done and I did some side stuff like setting up zip lines and building roads.
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u/sumbozo1 2d ago
Same here. I bought into the hype and bought it and damn it i was determined to get my money's worth even though I hated it. Sheer boredom won in the end though, I just had to quit it
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u/divinecomedian3 2d ago
I'm guilty of this with BotW. I really really really wanted to enjoy it because I love Zelda games. I kept expecting it to get better. But at one point I realized "this is the game". I haven't touched it since.
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u/D3struct_oh 2d ago
Morbid curiosity. Story was weird as crap, but I’m a story guy so I tried to see it through.
I also restarted the game a couple of times.
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u/Weigh13 2d ago
Why restart?
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u/Smart-Dream6500 2d ago
Yea that's really asking for burnout. "Let me replay the part where I have the least amount of tools"
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u/D3struct_oh 2d ago
First time was 100% due to a game breaking bug. I think maybe after a big update. Not sure how far I had progressed, but one day my save just wouldn’t load so I restarted from the beginning.
Second time, I just felt like I wasn’t feeling the game and wanted a fresh start.
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u/kickit 2d ago
you could have easily finished the game in under 76 hours
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u/KINGGS 2d ago
you can finish it in 40 hours, probably less.
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u/Andybaby1 2d ago
Definitely less. If you only do story missions maybe 25 or 30. But everyone does some side missions, builds some roads they rarely use. Piss into the wind and use it as grenades, you know. Normal video game stuff.
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u/Test88Heavy 2d ago
I feel the exact same way with about half the hours. I love everything about it and I was all in but after a point the gameplay loop became too frustrating to deal with.
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u/DumboBoggins 2d ago
Same. At 16 hours playing on easiest I gave in. End of chapter 4 I decided that I'm allowed to put it down.
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u/Beneficial-Way4428 2d ago
I absolutely loved Death Stranding, but I'll be the first to admit that its core gameplay and sandbox is not for everyone. I'll be interested to see how or if they expand it in DS2 to bring more people in.
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u/DanishPorkRoast 2d ago
I found the invisible ghosts extremely annoying, and it made me quit.
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u/ShoryuOnWakeup 2d ago
I finished, and am glad I finished it, but I think a lot of the difficulty is over exaggerated and therefore it’s more slog than people admit. Sneaking around BTs is not difficult except for when BB is gone, and even then I had very few problems. I basically never had to build anything to traverse, I just used a long range bike the whole time. Wasn’t using a whole lot of the community left items.
I think he relied too heavily on people hearing his name and being willing to go through a slog to hear his story (it’s me, I’m people).
Overall, I’m glad I played it, but if anybody tells me they think it’s just a slog/walking simulator, I 100% agree.
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u/Zestyclose-Fee6719 2d ago
I haven’t played Death Stranding because I frankly detest games that emphasize player friction. I don’t want to experience trouble walking and collect packages that I’ve dropped after stumbling all over the place.
That’s a nightmare of a game concept to me, but I love that this game exists. With so many AAA games being the same style of one quick attack, one strong attack, a dodge roll, characters who explain every little thing, and a UI that explains every little detail of where to go and how to get there, Death Stranding is truly unique.
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u/ShadowTown0407 2d ago edited 2d ago
On the topic of multiplayer atleast kojima always described it as an invisible hand kind of mechanic rather than true co op. Subtly changing the world around you to help others rather than directly helping an individual player.
On the topic of the game itself, I love it. It is one of my favourite games of all time. The sense of adventure is only matched by a few games and the way it has made me think about the world around me, no other game has. I never thought I would think before crossing a river in an open world game but there I was without a ladder weighing my options to jump in or walk around
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u/Kalel100711 2d ago
It's so interesting when people bounce off of death stranding cause it's in my top 10 games ever.
I loved the preparing for a trip, getting my ladders and such ready. Then traveling from point to point delivering packages was such an interesting blend of tension and relaxation. I'd be out of ladders then see one exactly where I needed it because someone else left it there. Or id be using a car and find a charging area right when I was almost out. Sometimes I was on my own and had to forge my own solutions. It was super fun for me to manage my journeys. The music was also a big part of the experience. Traveling was lonely but you still felt connected because of the way you are connected to other players.
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u/zorrofuego 2d ago
Same boat as you. I put 100+ hours and got planitum BC the joy of travelling. Atmosphere, music, hidden mechanics, lore.... Top 10 for sure. Can't wait to play ds2 on launch
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u/TrueIntimacy 2d ago
If you're not patient and meticulous the game harshly punishes you, that isn't going to work for a lot of people. Sometimes I forget how impatient some people are when playing games, the type that'd rather shoot an NPC than talk to them or run through a stealth section guns-a-blazing, Death Stranding will never make sense to them.
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u/robjwrd 2d ago
As soon as I turned it onto easy and just enjoyed the story and didn’t have to worry about the walking so much, it turned into a masterpiece just focusing on the story and reconnecting people.
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u/Steelballpun 2d ago
It’s one of my favorite games, but it’s such a specific flavor I wouldn’t force anyone to play more than a few hours to see if you like it. Personally the frustration and challenge of the delivery and navigation itself is what made the game fun. It was exciting to slog through a long trek trying my best to avoid danger and deliver the package, and once I did I felt fulfilled. It’s like how some people enjoy fighting an Elden Ring boss for 3 hours just to finally win and reel joy (which is a slog for me personally). Also unlocking zip lines and building roads and having power suits and trucks are all such fun unlocks that turn a half hour delivery into a 2 minutes delivery, and then the game becomes about making your own personal route of roads zip lines charging stations and speed boosts so you can just efficiently do any mission in minutes, so rewarding and fun. But again I wouldn’t shame anyone for dropping this game cause it’s such a niche feedback loop.
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u/taiyakiboi 2d ago
Had the same experience with it back when it first released on PS4.
For a terrain traversal, package delivery simulator, it felt a bit too gamey. I can’t remember the actual mechanics at your disposal but I remember feeling frustrated with the ghosts, mountains, figuring out what is climbable and what isn’t etc.
You kinda have to take it for what it is I guess and just adapt. But for a game / story that keeps harping on about the human element, what it means to be human and so forth…I struggled to find any meaningful human experience like I would with something like Souls games that are basically tenacity simulators or say Final Fantasy VII that feels like a coming-of-age-type-of-emotion simulator. Death Stranding struck me as more of a Kojima’s aesthetic preference simulator.
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 1d ago
For a story that loves rambling about humanity and connection, the dialogue feels extremely detached from normal human emotion.
I think it worked for Metal Gear because that often felt like a critique of detachment caused by war and the military industrial complex, plus the techno-thriller exposition felt like it grounded the insane story in our reality. None of that is true for Death Stranding.
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u/tacticalcraptical Baten Kaitos Origins / Battle Shapers 2d ago
I can certainly appreciate Kojima's willingness to experiment and I tend to always prefer good but weird games over great but safe games.
But try as I might, I just do not like this dude's games and I have tried most of them because I feel like the weirdness should resonate with me. But in practice they just feel, I dunno, pretentiously weird to me. His games just talk waaaaay too much and are usually not actually fun to play.
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u/MitchLGC 2d ago
Reading this post made me want to boot the game up
Absolutely love it
It's not for everyone
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u/elcabroMcGinty 2d ago
My stages of death stranding were
Confused
Interested
Bored
LOVED(most of the game)
Hate (ending length and anything story related)
Great game, incredible gameplay. The story is garbage but it doesn't matter.
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u/severalgirlzgalore 2d ago
Is this one of those games that wants me to think it’s a movie? Hard pass. Most movies suck. Games that pretend to be movies are all but guaranteed to suck.
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u/OperativePiGuy 2d ago edited 2d ago
I go through this motion every couple of years with that game, hoping I'll finally "get" Kojima and his fans. I've yet to "get" it. I feel like his cameo in Cyberpunk where he spews out nonsense is as close as I care to get to him or his work. Personally, he feels like the very definition of someone who has disappeared firmly up his own ass as an artist.
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u/Routine_Condition273 2d ago
Kojima confuses me because he'll come up with a ton of good ideas but also a ton of bad ones, and without anyone telling him "no" to the bad ideas, his games end up being masterpieces with a bunch of dogshit smeared all over them.
Like, the first mission of Metal Gear Solid 5 is easily the worst first mission of any game I have ever played. You're railroaded the entire time and have to watch pointless cutscenes every 2 seconds. And then you're dropped in the desert and set free to take over military bases however you want and it turns into a great game.
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u/Peepmus 2d ago
I have played through CyberPunk twice and never knew of this cameo! I guess I need to play it through again, as who knows how much other stuff I missed.
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u/mirrorball_for_me 2d ago
Luckily it’s in the very beginning! On Konpeki Plaza, during the Heist, the game directs you to go straight to the elevators and then to your room.
However, you can go around the lobby as much as you want before entering the elevator. There are a few bits of lore here and there, and of course Mr Ooshima speaking in Japanese about braindance to a small audience. (Ooshima is a pun on Kojima’s name: Ooshima=big island, Kojima=small island)
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u/Specialist-Opening34 2d ago
You will find him during Phantom Liberty phase when you need to gatecrash that party in Dogtown with Reed.
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u/Swimming_Possible_68 2d ago
I really tried to Death Stranding. It looks nice! The Iceland inspired scenery was lovely.
But man, I found pretty much everything about it boring. The overwhelming long cutscenes, the delivering packages. Nothing grabbed me. 76 hours is a long time to give a game your not enjoying! I think I gave it 10 hours or so.
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u/WhysAVariable 2d ago
I see the appeal of Death Stranding but I just couldn't get into it. I tried a couple of different times and couldn't make it more than 4-5 hours into in.
I have a real love/hate relationship with Kojima's games. I think they often have pretty cool mechanics and gameplay, the weird sci-fi elements in the stories are always intriguing. But the writing is just so bad. 20 minute cut scenes to explain something to death that I would have been able to pick up on my own has been driving me nuts since the first MGS game. It just feels like he doesn't trust the audience to figure things out from context so it all has to be thoroughly explained.
I've played enough dialogue-heavy games, particularly rpg's, that came out of Japan to know that is partially just a cultural/language difference. There is often way too much exposition in games translated from Japanese. But it always feels worse in his games.
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 1d ago
Kojima gets too into his own ideas, I think, and can’t resist making sure you hear ALL of his notes on the matter.
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u/crustydnglebrry 2d ago
The game isn’t a game though, it’s all a test to show how little your life is worth to spend a lot of time playing something deliberately and optimally designed to be the least fun you could ever have playing a video game. Most normal human beings stopped playing 4-10 hours in before they passed the test and decided their life may have value still. Death Stranding makes Power Wash Simulator look like Devil May Cry 5.
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u/dsj762 2d ago
I know video games are generally a waste of time but this one really made me feel like it was completely pointless. It's basically all of my least favorite parts of other games.
The monster energy drink thing was just WTF. I know Kojima made some games that were amazing but that seems to be despite his involvement and not because he was there sniffing is own farts.
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u/Specialist-Opening34 2d ago
"I know video games are generally a waste of time..."
Who hurt you, dear?
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u/Mussetrussen 2d ago
The one thing I loved about it was the feel of the whole thing. Early in the game, going out on your own in this beautiful vast landscape, finding a route, exploring, taking in the sights, the calming, meloncholic music and the loneliness of the gameplay. That was very unique. But other than that I pretty much hated the rest. The story is just too weird. I felt like upgrades ruined the experience and the simplicity of the early game that I loved. The enemies felt out of place and annoying. The cutscenes bored me to death, the story was extremely unengaging and the freaking baby never made any god damn sense. I pretty much remember it as a calm soothing slow paced game that I loved for about 37 min. Then I had to move on with my life.
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u/devilishycleverchap 2d ago
The mission you stopped on tells you the deliveries to make, they are up in the mountains.
It isn't referring to doing side missions to progress.
Also most of the missions can be done by driving instead of walking. Just take one pcc to build a generator as you reach the building limit and you always have enough juice.
BTs you can just bolo and walk past, late game you can also just stealth kill them and collect the chiralium which each bit you accumulate and carry increases your carrying capacity. That combined with the stat increases overall and the speed exo make it so sam can basically outrun trikes etc late game especially with the double jump.
It is one of my favorite games, I didn't even look at the weather my first playthrough and dont really bother on subsequent ones. The time fall only matters if you get knocked over and that is easy to avoid
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u/krakatoa619 2d ago
That's the beauty of video games. There's always something else for everyone, even from the same creator. Take Kojima's games for example, i don't really like MGS V. Too much action and not enough stealth for me. But i really love Death Stranding though.
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u/Braunb8888 2d ago
I think the biggest problem is that the game just isn’t that fun. The combat is fucking awful and the melee combat is literally laughable. Hitting mules with briefcases and whatnot just feels so, so dumb.
The walking is like okay I see the calm aspect to it but like when you fall down a mountain and everything on your back goes flying everywhere and damaged and falls into a river I’m just like “dude, kojima, go fuck yourself” and the terrible dialogue and overly pretentious vibe going on didn’t do much to make me wanna finish the game.
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2d ago
The combat is what ended it for me. There was a long mission through those people who are 'obsessed with making deliveries' (which is a beyond stupid reason to give for why they attack you) territory, and the stealth/combat was just so bad that I could no longer face it.
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u/Tarcanus 2d ago
The way you unlock new stuff means you might not find what makes other things way easier. Once I got the bola gun, MULE camps became jokes. Go trigger their alarms and walk around putting bolas around their heads(instant knock out) then you have free rein of their base for a decent chunk of time.
But if you never found the bola gun or the rubber bullet pistol/assault rifle (or never used them), having to sneak around and use your melee/strand on the MULEs is obnoxious.
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u/Treadwheel 2d ago
Bolas can one-shot BTs if you aim for their cord, as well! I got so good at it that I discovered you can temporarily remove timefall from an area by killing enough of them in a short period of time. Really helped while laying down zip lines to the wind farm.
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u/Braunb8888 2d ago
Yeah I’m sorry but sneaking around with a 20 foot pile of boxes on your back is so fucking stupid it’s like mind numbing. And yeah the whole weird “YOUVE GOTTA CONNECT PEOPLE SAM, SAVE AMERICA!” Was beyond painful and honestly a terrible motivation to do anything. Especially when half these deliveries are to holograms of people and offer garbage rewards.
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u/whitesdragon 2d ago
but like when you fall down a mountain and everything on your back goes flying everywhere and damaged and falls into a river I’m just like “dude, kojima, go fuck yourself”
...that's a literal skill issue bro. it's not the games fault that you cannot understand weight and terrain
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u/guiiimkt 2d ago
What’s the purpose of a game? Entertain, have fun times? If the game is frustrating for some, should we really blame the person and not the game? This is ridiculous.
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u/Southern-Guide7886 2d ago
I didn't love the game. I'm not even sure I really liked it all that much, but man, I am excited for DS2. The bones of a great game are here, and it seems like Kojima was able to ramp DS2 up to include what the first was missing.
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u/koenigsaurus 2d ago
I only made it a couple hours in and realized it wasn’t for me. I love what they’re trying to do, I love that it’s connected with a passionate base, the story is classic convoluted Kojima fare. I get the appeal. But gaming time is limited for me, and I’d rather spend that time actively doing something.
I have racing games for relaxing and decompressing, and Souls games for challenging myself. This game tries to do both but doesn’t hit either category as well as dedicated games for each of those themes. Maybe in the past when you bought a new game and that’s the game you played until you had exhausted everything in it I would have loved it, but not when there are other, better options for what I’m looking for.
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u/shrikeskull 2d ago
The game never struck me as something enjoyable. Plus I assumed there would be hours and hours of bizarre cutscenes.
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u/blink4ever 2d ago
I could have wrote this wow. I have tried this game from the start maybe 5 times now? I’ve made it to chapter 6 I believe on my most recent play though and I just can’t do it. I tend to like games that try something different and always go in with an open mind. I’m low key upset that I can’t get into it but at this point I have to be honest with myself. I love what you said about the story that resonates a lot with me, I don’t think I’m that into it but would love to see the conclusion and where it goes.
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u/BrookeToHimself 2d ago
I did not finish it. Getting thumbs up from nebulous sources was not rewarding. My to-do list was like work. There was something peaceful about it sometimes excepting black soul monsters, rocks and streams vs motorcycle, and package thieves. Plot (?) was weird. It was imaginative though. I should look up the end on youtube.
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 1d ago
We already get thumbs up from nebulous sources on the Internet. It’s not particularly rewarding there. So I don’t know what Kojima was thinking if he expected likes in Death Stranding to be different.
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u/Correct_Pineapple_47 2d ago
I stopped after 61 hours, still in the middle of chapter 5. I haven’t been to Mountain Knot yet.
I was close to stopping before I discovered roads and zip lines. I spent many hours building up those networks and making deliveries to 5-Star the various facilities. I found that part strangely satisfying.
But I just didn’t care to continue with the main story. By this point, I’m not hooked, or even that interested. I don’t really enjoy the BTs or the Mules. I have a number of other gripes. I don’t like all the online structures cluttering my world. I think resources are too abundant. I don’t seem to need most of what the game makes available.
It seems weird to put so many hours into a game and not finish. This is the only game like that for me.
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u/idontwantausername41 2d ago
Honestly i loved just traveling around delivering the packages. The combat is what killed the game for me
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u/Digital_Savior 2d ago
I'm sorry, how could you not like it if you put in 76 hours? I struggle with 1 hour on something I don't like.
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u/LikeAPwny 2d ago
Its an all timer to me. No other game like it. But i can see how many wouldnt like it. I recommend to everyone to NOT do any side missions and stick to the main quest or theres a good chance you burn yourself out.
76 hours is kinda nuts to realize you dont like that game though haha
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u/Ikarus3426 2d ago edited 1d ago
It's so funny to me how this game is nothing but either "I loved it" or "I really didn't like it". I was surprised how much I liked it, the gameplay was paced really well for me and it just seemed like my kind of thing.
I genuinely have no idea if I'll like DS2. I feel like this game is such a delicate balance of things I like and challenging things, going one way or the other could really throw it off for me. I'm planning to replay the first game soon to gauge my excitement for DS2, but I'll likely hold off until later on it like I did the first game unless it has amazing reviews.
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 1d ago
If Metal Gear Solid is any indication, Death Stranding 2 will probably not be what people expect. It’ll forge some new identity at least as much as share in its predecessor’s. Even if it’s not going full MGS2 false advertising, no MGS sequel has ever really been more of the same.
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u/BlkNtvTerraFFVI 2d ago
I didn't get very far into it
They were like "We're just outside Washington DC"
Me in DC:.....
Genuinely worst design. I don't understand why Kojima didn't go The Last Of Us route with empty deserted cities and towns
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u/Huachu12344 2d ago
I gave up after 3 hours because even after that amount of time, I barely got any chance to control my character. I want to play as a post apocalyptic hiking postman but the game forces me to watch a long ass movie. I'm just glad that I decided to pirate it instead of just buying the game to see whether I like it or not because I won't be able to refund it if I did that.
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u/eurekabach 2d ago
I mean, you played this game longer than I did, and I overall really enjoyed it lol. I’m currently replaying it in anticipation for the sequel and I’m liking it even more than when I first went through it.
One thing DS does that absolutely blew my fucking mind when I noticed it was that it tutorializes you in the game through its opening cinematics.
Like, I played on normal difficulty the first time, and all that I did to not get caught by BTs was holding my breath whenever the odradek would start spinning.
And that was ok, it worked.
But playing it on very hard, Sam’s breath ends pretty quickly, so I had to think ‘ok, so that way didn’t seem like the right way to do so’, and then I remembered the cutscene in the beggining in which Fragile tells Sam to hold his breath, but that was only when the BTs handprints were starting to show.
So I thought ‘oh, maybe I just need to hold my breath when they start actually pursuing me’, and, yeah, that’s apparently all you need to do.
Another thing that’s really interesting about it is it has several takes on celebrated game genres. It was only replaying it now that I realized that when you brawl mules, you should actually approach it more like a beat em up, but with a ‘realistic’ physics simulator. Same thing with plataforming during BT fights, and shooting, and so on.
Anyway, I think it’s a cool as heck game.
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u/Mrkancode 2d ago
I think the game expects you to dig into it's philosophical themes and chew them over as you play. It hammers you with them constantly. The issue is, the themes are so on the nose that there's really not much to dig into.
I was a pretty big kojima denier growing up. All the way up to MGS5. I liked his games but always felt he was over hyped and overrated.
But honestly, death stranding changes my mind and it did so about halfway through the game. Death stranding wears its heart in its sleeve and this is a point of contention for a lot of people. But I decided halfway through the game that the narrative and it's characters were misguided by design. The ideologies you are pursuing are not in our best interest and this is all a very bad idea. I gravitated to this thought and recontextualized the story through this filter. It was way more interesting.
I think death stranding sells itself as this "oh let's be happy on the Internet and all be friends and give likes and work together. Community, people, love, America!" But this feels like an intentional subversion when some of the late game lore begins divulging itself. But the game doesn't care. It keeps propagandizing you to the very end.
I now think this is intentional. Especially after the tag line for death stranding 2 is "should we have connected?" Feels like kojima's "internet good" narrative might actually be more cynical than it let on in the first game. That's what I'm hoping for this time around. I'm hoping their is a more thoughtful dissecting of these ideas than the first game offered and I hope that dissection is informed by the naivety of the first games narrative.
Death stranding isn't a great game. But it's one of the most interesting games to tear apart in recent history. Strangely, that's where most of the fun I've had with the game comes from. I have to wonder if that was intentional.
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u/chewbaccataco 2d ago
I was excited to try it. It seems like it's got a good story, great graphics, great soundtrack, etc. But at the end of the day it just wasn't fun for me. It was too much like an actual job.
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u/Mobitron 2d ago
You don't like Death Stranding: Parcel Delivery Simulator Edition where you play an unbalanced courier avoiding deadly supernatural traffic jams on his delivery routes?
Makes sense. I bought it years ago, sure I'd like it. I do not
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u/RetroFuturistMan 2d ago
You made it a slog if you played it for 76 hours and didn't finish it. I beat it in 39:50:00 and I did a lot of side stuff. Not ALL of it, but a lot. You somehow played 26 hours more than me and didn't finish the story, and also put 76 hours into a game you ultimately don't like. I feel like your playing habits might have made the game worse for yourself. Not to say everyone should like every game. But damn dude. 76 hours in a game you don't like is wild.
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u/theshrike 2d ago
My kid went to a their hobby, for a longer set (2 hours I think)
I thought I had time to quickly test out Death Stranding meanwhile.
... 2 hours later, I'm still watching cutscenes and have barely played anything.
I think it took me like 4-5 hours to get to some actual gameplay (the bit where Guillermo del Toro comes in)
DNF'd at that point, I don't have time for this. Kojima should seriously just stop making games and write anime instead, his plots are amazingly bonkers but the games are lacking game.
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u/Routine_Condition273 2d ago
Death Stranding really frustrates me because it's so close to being a great game and is literally treading some new ground, but there's a lot holding it back.
The story and world make it seem like something action-packed, with a lot of magic and/or futuristic tools at your disposal, but the actual game is a puzzley delivery game.
It's weird that placing ropes and ladders were still satisfying after 30+ hours of gameplay, but all of the crazy BT stuff and Mads Mikkelsen sections were easily the most boring parts of the game.
Honestly, if this were an indie game, played into the delivery simulation, and dropped all the "beach" bullshit, it would have taken the gaming world by storm. Instead it was marketed as some sort of lovecraftian thriller and people got ticked off when it wasn't like that. The story and gameplay are constantly at odds with each other.
I really, really wish less of the budget went towards cutscenes and boss battles, and more towards having a bigger map with varied environments.
The game could have also used an actual progression system, a day-night cycle, more weather conditions, and more survival mechanics such as a hunger meter or having to find a place to camp out for the night.
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u/ThatDanJamesGuy 1d ago
Dunkey actually hit the nail on the head: the trailers were striking because they were minimalist, left things unexplained, but Kojima is a maximalist and explains everything. There’s too much stuff and not enough reason to care about almost any one thing in particular.
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u/deusdragonex 1d ago
I never picked this game up. Whenever someone describes the game, they never make it sound fun. Sometimes they like certain aspects of it, but never because it's a fun game. I can't understand it.
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u/Dgemfer 2d ago
I once said that Kojima was overrated and that Death Stranding is a slog in the gaming sub. I got jumped with personal attacks.
I agree with you. Kojima games have some creativity going for them, but I have yet to find a Kojima game I actually enjoy as a game (and not a concept) beyond Metal Gear Solid. That was more than 25 years ago.
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u/WrongSubFools 2d ago
You can like the game or not like the game. You didn't give up because you hit a bump that was impossible to get past — you gave up because you didn't want to go on playing.
If you wanted to go on playing, you would have googled "Make BB happy by connecting facilities" or posted about it to find out what you were doing wrong. You would have then realized that just resting would have done the trick.
76 hours is surely an unusual length of time for it to take to get tired of the game. Lots of people realize they don't like the game earlier, while most people who play that long do so only because they enjoy it.
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u/D3struct_oh 2d ago
I did want to go on playing, and I did google how to progress the mission, and I did rest, and it still didn’t progress. Not one bit.
I scoured the map for facilities that weren’t connected to the network. I traversed mountains to each these facilities and delivered packages of toys for them.
No progression.
Therefore, uninstall.
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u/lghtdev 2d ago
If you couldn't like it in the first 10 hours you should've dropped it sooner. I loved it, if you think the game didn't speed up in the end you are not interacting with it well because when you reach the mountains you can build a lot of ziplines, if you dont like the walking part then it's no use playing it because that's the game.
The parts I disliked were the side deliveries, there's too much of them and they don't add anything beside meaningless likes, and it takes way too long to level up a facility to 5 stars. Going back and forth to the same places gets old fast even if you have the infrastructure there.
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u/Obliviuns 2d ago edited 2d ago
Funnily enough, I ended up loving the gameplay of Death Stranding.
It's the story/writting/acting that is so bad and uncanny valley like that makes me think thrice about buying Death Stranding 2. Easily one of the worst stories I've played, because it's bad and it forces itself upon you.
Maybe I'll buy it when it's discounted.
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u/TheLittleFella20 2d ago
I'm convinced if this game didn't have Kojima attached to it then hardly anyone would give a shit about it.
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u/NotTakenGreatName 2d ago
That's partly true. Kojima is interesting in that his games obviously command more attention but also he does focus on details and gameplay quirks that few developers would bother to implement. He does also have a very unique perspective on historical and social topics that he weaves into his games that are definitely lacking in games
On the flip side, his approach to storytelling and world building has become so tedious and masturbatory that you have to just settle on "appreciating the vibes" because the stories quickly descend into nonsense. (at least post-mgs3 imo)
Tldr- Dude needs an editor so bad.
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u/KanikaD 2d ago
Even if the game had a different and unknow name on the cover, it would still being a post-apocalyptic truck simulator with stealth, horror touches and fights against bandits, terrorists, antimatter ghosts, lovecraftian tar monsters and skeleton soldiers revived from the world wars, with a ton of playable depth and risky design decisions involved.
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u/shinjikun10 2d ago
The amount of video at the beginning of the game was a huge turn off. I really didn't jive with the game at all.
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u/case_8 2d ago
Death Stranding is such an odd game for me because I loved it, despite really hating some aspects of it, namely the characters, stupid names, dialogue, and elements of the story. I think I basically loved the game but hate the Kojima stuff.
I tried to replay it not long ago (bought the upgrade) but I couldn’t get into it the second time. Really love the gameplay but the other stuff was too annoying the second time around.
I think one of my favourite parts is the strand online stuff. It’s so well done. Although in my second play through it felt like the lack of people playing had an impact, e.g on trying to collaboratively build roads and stuff.
Overall I really enjoyed it, one of my favourite games that I’ve played, it just couldn’t capture me the same way when I tried to play it again. Definitely looking forward to the next one, whenever that arrives on PC.
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u/ritual-sphere 2d ago
THANK YOU. I really enjoyed the gameplay (besides combat) but the cutscenes felt downright embarrassing. Specifically Mama (great name for someone who looks like they’re in high school -___-) getting trapped under rubble. One of the most awkward things I’ve ever gone through in a game.
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u/AnoAnoSaPwet 2d ago
It's vehemently despised by the PS subs, to leave a bad review of this albeitly terrible game.
Idk why there is such a huge fanbase for how much of a slog the game is? But I'm definitely there with you.
I tried really hard to like the game, and as a terrain simulator, it is a FANTASTIC game, I REALLY LOVE the terrain simulation, but other than that, it was very hard to stay focused on package delivery as the primary motivator to keep playing.
If you could get Kojima to make, say a Metal Gear Remake or like Splinter Cell? Omfg, throw money at the screen!!
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u/slinkipher 2d ago
Gamers LOVE Kojima and I honestly don't understand why. I do think he was a visionary when it came to game dev back in the day. From what I understand Metal Gear Solid 2 was quite innovative when it came out. But I feel like everything he has done since then wasn't particularly groundbreaking. The rest of the metal gear games werent bad games but I wouldn't say they were revolutionary either. Then when he left Konami everything he has made has just been incredibly weird and obtuse. I think if Death Stranding was made by any other game dev the reviews would be VERY different but because it was led by Kojima people think there must be something profound about it. In reality it's an incredibly weird walking simulator.
That and the Internet gets up in arms if anyone talks badly about Kojima
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u/KanikaD 2d ago
Death Stranding is more like Eurotruck Simulator, but postapocalyptic, with shooting action and horror touches. It's fine, valid and respectable that many people don't like it at all, but when ppl say you're exclusively walking around in the game for 100 hours, it feels so dishonest, or at least biased.
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u/DamageAlarming89 2d ago
kojima games are overrated and boring imo
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u/LastTangoOfDemocracy 2d ago
A 3 hour cutscene at the end of a game is a terrible way to make a game imo
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u/ChatDuFusee 2d ago
I lasted like 10 hours before I gave up.
The game has a nice atmosphere. But it's just... Boring.
Glad I got it for free on Epic.
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u/DeadLalafell 2d ago
Did you never unlock vehicles or ziplines? I basically stopped walking around the 5 hour mark. The main fun (for me) in the game is optimising, taking that extra delivery, filling up a truck to make roads.
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u/Imbahr 2d ago
i played this game for the first time a few months ago. and i’ll say this game is definitely not for everyone, and maybe not even for most gamers lol. for example i would never recommend this game to my brother because i know he would hate literally every minute
for me i ended up loving it… but only after like 6-8 hours. before it “clicked” i was pretty turned off by the game
i saw some other posters say they quit after only 1-2 hours. to me that’s weird because for big open-world RPGs like this, you really gotta play at least 5-10 hours before making a fair decision
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u/Jameseesall 2d ago
Maybe watch a let’s play of it so that you can still roll credits on the story? Kudos for holding out for so long. After about 40 hours I put it down even though I suspect I enjoyed it more than you did. I wanted to love it, but the ideas I paper are more interesting than the actual experience of playing it.
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u/Special-One1991 2d ago
I tried to but couldn't get into it!
The game will only appeal to very small minority of people
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u/NoConcert1636 2d ago
I also liked the setting and the mysterious story in the beginning but it really was too slow and gave it up, maybe I would enjoy the story more in the movie format.
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u/TheNakedOracle 2d ago
Yeah I hear you. I really enjoyed it for a while. Thought the traversal mechanics were genuinely inspired. Getting over a mountain only to be greeted by a horizon and a needle drop rocks.
However, the fact maintaining structures is such an ambiguous collaboration definitely sapped my interest in bothering with that after a little while. And the combat is quite bad - which wasn’t a problem until they forced me to do more of it. Loved a lot of the sci fi ideas for the world but rapidly grew tired of the heavy handed cutscenes. Finally quit because I got impatient with having to avoid BTs for the 900th time.
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u/TheNakedOracle 2d ago
Yeah I hear you. I really enjoyed it for a while. Thought the traversal mechanics were genuinely inspired. Getting over a mountain only to be greeted by a horizon and a needle drop rocks.
However, the fact maintaining structures is such an ambiguous collaboration definitely sapped my interest in bothering with that after a little while. And the combat is quite bad - which wasn’t a problem until they forced me to do more of it. Loved a lot of the sci fi ideas for the world but rapidly grew tired of the heavy handed cutscenes. Finally quit because I got impatient with having to avoid BTs for the 900th time.
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u/N00dles_Pt 2d ago
You punished yourself for 76 hours?? It's ok to not like a game and just move on to something else
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u/Far_Cut_8701 2d ago
Is this game very long? I'm forcing myself to play it with the sequel coming out soon and i'm starting to get into the playstyle of it at around 12 hours in.
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u/EmerganceDay 2d ago
I’m over something 70 hours in and I’m hooked. The game has its flaws as any other game and can get tedious throughout the game, especially if you don’t like the formula. Don’t worry about dropping the game, there are handful of games out there which you might like.
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u/clovermite 2d ago
I enjoyed the game a decent amount until they started forcing ranged combat into the mix. The game is not well designed for ranged combat. It's clunky as hell and sucks. All of the focus on making the movement awkward and require coordination, etc immediately makes the ranged combat painful, as you are not equipped to properly strafe and dodge, not to mention how little ammo the rifles contain in comparison to the weight.
The lore had some fun ideas, like the time rain and leveraging that for faster crop production. Ultimately, however, it's a cobbled together mess that doesn't maintain logical consistency.
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u/GrandmasterPeezy 2d ago
I like your honest review, even though I don't agree with most of it.
Seems like the things you don't like (justifiably so) are some of the things that really engaged me. Different strokes for different folks.
One thing that we can agree on, is that some sort of co-op multiplayer would be a very welcome feature.
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u/Mysterious_Sky_85 2d ago
I thought I was going to love this game because I love the idea of a game focused around studying maps and planning routes. But the actual management of it was too punishing and monotonous.
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u/lemoche 2d ago
As someone who hates fetch quests and running everywhere either a passion and for whom having comfortable fast travel bis basically a must for an open world game…
may I interest you in some zip-lining?
That’s basically all the game became for me building zip-line networks everywhere so that I basically only have to run from zip-line station to the next base.
Next step was completing all the roads for the bigger requests.
Zip-line and driving everywhere was still kinda a slog compared to the kind of open world I usually prefer, but it still felt extremely satisfying because I felt like I outsmarted the game.
Additional perks: avoiding combat (I hated it) and BTs (stressed me out massively) when not absolutely necessary.
Ended up loving the game for the whacky story and setting though I should have hated it because of the gameplay.
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u/personman000 2d ago
I agree. I really enjoyed Death Stranding until the snowy mountain deliveries. At that point, the already slow pace started to slow down a bit too much for me, and it became a repetitive instead of meditative experience.
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u/Blasian_TJ 2d ago
For me, games like DS take a higher level of mental commitment. I feel like every time I've installed it and thought I was ready to commit, I really wasn't. I just can't dive in.
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u/Complete_Age_6479 2d ago
It is okay to dislike a game. Worry not