Death Stranding | PS4 Review

Precious few games have had as much anticipatory weight on their shoulders as Death Stranding. The baggage and history of Hideo Kojima looms large over the entire product. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to see the auteur game director fully unchained. Seemingly every gamer was interested in just what the hell this game is, regardless if they planned to play it or not.

One Nation

Sam Porter Bridges is our lead character, played to perfection by Norman Reedus. Sam is a reserved, antisocial character who hates to be touched, and Reedus delivers the performance in captivating fashion. Early on, after hours of cutscenes, Sam reluctantly accepts a bold mission to reconnect a broken America.

America has been hit by the Death Stranding, and event that brought BT’s, or Beached Things, to our corporeal realm. They’re fancily-named ghosts. The world and setting has an unbelievable amount of exposition and layers to discover. I enjoyed the setting, characters, and universe, but didn’t so much appreciate how dialogue would repeat the same information over and over again.

Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts

I am astonished to tell you that most everything makes sense by the end. Death Stranding almost makes a point to be overbearing and confusing in its early hours. By the end, however, it all comes together. There are few things to be fuzzy about, but based on the sheer volume of lore and story to discover, it’s crazy the game pulls it off at all.

There’s a wonderful theme of coming together through the game, using Sam’s anxiety about humans as the focal point. It can be a little heavy-handed at times, but it’s a game that speaks to our times. The ending hours are overly self-indulgent, and more than a little pretentious. Even still, it’s a fascinating world Kojima Productions has built.

Bringing the World Together

I mentioned the characters earlier, but I wanted to call special mention to the performances. Almost every actor involved is incredible. There are some lengthy monologues in the game, but they’re always captivating to watch. Mads Mikkelsen turns in an expectedly incredible performance as the main villain, and Lea Seydoux commands attention with every scene Fragile is in. I was most surprised by Troy Baker, however. As the villain Higgs, he is a nonstop delight to watch. It’s one of his best performances to date, and is a great showcase of his range.

Despite all that story, make no mistake, Death Stranding is a game about walking. To reconnect the world, Sam has to activate relays while traveling across America east to west. Along the way, working as a Porter, Sam is delivering packages.

It’s far more engaging that it seems. Packages add weight to Sam, and how it’s distributed matters. I used the auto-sort every time, but even still you need to be careful. Trip on a rock, and you could lose your balance. Fail to recover, and the packages may get damaged in the ensuing fall. It gets even trickier as the environments become more varied.

Spelunky

Ladders are a useful tool to scale cliff sides, and climbing anchors are a great way down the other side. This is a small example of the many tools you’ll find. The real kicker, though, is the online functionality. After reconnecting an area to the Chiral Network (a pretentious way to say internet), other players’ items become available to use.

This could be as simple as a ladder. It could even be a vehicle, making the delivery that much easier if the terrain is agreeable. Maybe you and your online pool of players will sacrifice an insane amount of building resources and construct a highway together. This is when the gameplay shines brightest. It does feel like you and complete strangers are coming together to do something otherwise impossible. By yourself, you may be able to build a small section of road, but there’s no way to complete it on your own. It requires coming together, and each small sacrifice makes everyone’s deliveries easier.

Those highways are also your best bet to get past the enemies in the game. These terrorists are addicted to stealing your packages. You could try to stealth past these enemies, but Death Stranding may have the worst stealth of the console generation. It’s clunky even if you strip yourself of packages. Pretty disappointing coming from the man who helped invent stealth.

Keeping Your Enemies Closer

Gunplay fares even worse. A wide variety of weaponry comes your way, and all of it is universally terrible to use. I can understand why combat was included. Making Sam’s already impossible goal to walk across America seem even more arduous.

But the game clearly wasn’t designed with conflict in mind. I can’t stress enough how much better Death Stranding would have been without combat. The walking and construction is a compelling gameplay loop that the terrorists just bring to a dead halt. Also, the bosses are absolutely terrible, and I wish the game could have just restrained itself in this regard.

Regardless of any qualms I have, Death Stranding is still a game I implore people to check out. It’s downright crazy that a game this “out there” could get a budget this large in the modern era. Only a name as big as Hideo Kojima could pull that off. History will look at this as a bewildering addition to the console generation, and you’ll want to be sure to have checked it out. I’ve honestly never played anything like it.

This review is based on a purchased copy of Death Stranding on PlayStation 4.