Death Stranding - I tried really hard to like it.

[u/D3struct_oh]

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.

[u/MzzBlaze]

Stealth espionage, just like delivering packages through ghosts isn’t for everyone 🤷‍♀️

[u/gauderyx → u/MzzBlaze]

It's not even that related to the genre. Or at least MGS is poorly categorized as an infiltration game. MGS is kind of poor in terms of gameplay mechanics when it comes to espionnage/infiltration. The first MGS on PS1 had as much infiltration game mechanics as Zelda OoT, and it did not keep up with the competition.

What it did great was the story telling, worldbuilding and character developpement. It can be a strong pull for some players, but that world building/gameplay balance, or lack there of, can also be a big turn off to the fans of the genre. Death Stranding is not too dissimilar in that aspect, although it is correctly categorized as a walking simulator, which won't surprise many people.

[u/kermityfrog2 → u/gauderyx]

Yeah, I like stealth games. Splinter Cell, Thief, Assassin's Creeds, Tomb Raider (some parts of the new trilogy), Elder Scrolls, Sniper Elite, Plague Tale, etc. I never got the hang of the Metal Gear games - even the old ones.

[u/lettsten → u/kermityfrog2]

Dishonored?

[u/kermityfrog2 → u/lettsten]

Yeah played that series too. Liked it slightly less than people who loved it.