Death Stranding: Director’s Cut – PS5 Version, Reviewed on PS5 – Exploration, Stealth, Shooter, Action
If you know Hideo Kojima games, you will know that there is more than meets the eye, to say the least. Death Stranding delivers a unique experience packed with emotion and intense story moments. Dubbed by some critics as a “walking simulator,” is Death Stranding actually worth your time, or will its deliberate pacing drive you to find the beach? Spoiler: It is worth the time.
Story:
This high-concept story is set in the future. America has become a wasteland, after explosions devastated the countryside and the landscape was hit with calamitous supernatural creatures. The decimated United States population survives either in large hubs typically near city ruins, or sparsely populated camps and families living in the wastelands.
Spectral monsters roam the lands between, attracted by anything living, and hungry for death. These monsters have been dubbed “BTs” or “Beached Things.” The “Beach” in question is a land between life and the afterlife, where our spirits go before moving on. BTs appear ghostlike, and can be human sized or much, much larger, and come with an “umbilical” type cord connecting them to the world.
BTs not only are mostly invisible monstrous beings looking to leech off of anything living, but they also produce nasty weather dubbed “Timefall” as the drops literally age anyone that gets caught in it. The environment is all around scary, and to make matters worse, anyone that dies is at risk of “necrosis,” or being consumed by a BT. If this happens, the energy discharge is similar to a nuclear bomb.
With all this chaos, humanity is on the brink. Connections have been severed. Supplies are limited. Hope is waning. Life and death are at even bigger odds. Danger is never ending. How can anyone in a world like this survive?
Enter you, the player, as Sam Porter Bridges. Sam is a freelance courier and was born for this dystopian future and role of connection maker. While Sam’s main function is to take on jobs and deliver cargo, the world is so dangerous that there are multiple jobs and types of cargo that are necessary to complete.
Whether you are taking a body to the incinerator, or delivering food to a colony, every step you take is an important one. Humanity needs you, even if it just seems like some petty job of delivering boxes of entertainment over a large and snowy mountain to a remote location. Making enough deliveries to areas builds up trust between colonies, and eventually a large communication system can be built, named the “Chiral Network.”
Since Sam is entering the American wasteland and risking his life to deliver packages to colonies across the nation, the company he works for (BRIDGES) has hooked him up with a few helpful things. One is a nice room and storage area at the first home base. Another is a “Bridge Baby” or “BB.” This BB is literally a premature child which is in a state between life and death, and living in a small pod similar to a womb.
Yeah, things get crazy in this game. BB allows Sam to form a mental connection with it, and works as a detector for any BTs. It starts raining, and BB starts crying, and you know danger is near. This really doesn’t touch on the real story behind the game, or the multitude of other characters, and that is a good thing, since that absolutely amazing story is one to experience as the player.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is quite interesting, and unique on multiple levels. It is not your typical exploration game, or shooter, but does have elements of these types of genres included. The player gains experience by delivering packages based on both speed and condition of goods.
On a console, the controller simulates your balance, as the player will hold the trigger buttons to make Sam balance. As you let them go and prepare to move, your packages start to sway, making the balancing act of the game never-ending. Walking over grass is not too bad, however trudging up or down a rocky mountainside starts to give some balancing challenges. Players must plan their routes on most every single terrain type. A bad plan can lead to a lost delivery.
Basic delivery gameplay is literally picking up boxes of packages from collection points and walking them to the drop-off point. Terrain is anything from a field full of hills and ponds, to a gigantic blustery snow-filled mountain, with mostly everything in-between. Weather are normal cycles, and the Timefall rain is always scary and full of monsters, and even damages your goods that you carry. You will come across lost shipments scattered across the countryside also. Are they worth the risk? You decide.
As the game progresses and terrain gets more and more treacherous, the player is given upgrades to consider, such as access to limb supports to handle heavier goods, ladders to scale mountains, bridges to overpass water or gaps, carrying hover-trollies for extra booty, speedier vehicles, delivery robots, fast moving zip-lines and much more.
These upgrades allow for conquering most any type of challenge, and setting up paths to return faster and smoother, avoiding the disastrous slips and angled climbs after setting up a delivery route. By the end, you may decide to build an entire road network and drive your deliveries, or maybe just zip-line it up and down the mountains left and right. Freedom of choice is on full display here, as well as what jobs to take and when.
Mostly maps are open world, and allow for exploration and quest completion at the players choice. Combat versus the BTs happens often, but mostly is just another facet of the terrain which must be considered in maintaining your goods in the best quality. Slipping and falling down a mountain while running away from a monster does not make your client happy.
There are multiplayer elements included; however, they are not conventional gameplay mechanics. Instead, as you roam the countryside you run into other players constructions. You can either decide that you like these ladders, zip-lines, bridges and such, or you can deconstruct them in favor for your own routes. All of these items are also rated by social players (giving Thumbs Up), so building a very helpful item that other people use in their worlds can actually contribute to bonus’ in your own game if people like it. This gives the world a sense of being alive, despite mostly being a single-player game.
Graphics:
This game is absolutely lovely. The terrain and maps are beautiful and modeled after real terrain (even if not really the United States). It is gorgeous at all turns with differing weather just enhancing the trek. Movement is natural and character models are so detailed that they look just like the actors portraying the characters.
The cast is fantastic, so seeing them in the game and looking so good just enhance the emotion. All around the combat and weather effects are just as smooth as the amazing countryside. There were no graphical bugs I remember despite a relatively large map size in total.
Fun-level:
Here is where the audiences will split. The gameplay is certainly slower paced at times, as you are truly just focused on making deliveries and carving out new routes through treacherous terrain. For the players that thrive on non-stop action and shooting, they will not find their third quenched. For anyone with slower paced ambition and a love for a well-paced story, they will be able to handle this game with ease.
I personally loved most all aspects of this game, and the fact that the story was insanely cool and creative really drove it all home. The world realized in the game feels so real and natural and exploring it was an excellent experience.
Downloadable Content (DLC) Review:
While technically it is DLC content and expanded over the original game, this “Director’s Cut” version includes all additional content included in the game seamlessly, so there is no distinguishing regular game material from expanded.
Overall, the Director’s Cut material includes enhanced graphics (4K and 60FPS), adaptive trigger enhancement for the controller, new combat abilities, new items, a new car, a race track, additional building structures, cosmetics and more.
Final Score: 9.0
DLC Score: N/A