- Publisher: Kojima Productions , Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Release Date: Nov 8, 2019
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Nov 7, 2019With intensely interesting lore and characters, an awe-inspiring aesthetic and one of the most mind-crushingly dull gameplay loops I've ever experienced in a high-budget video game, Hideo Kojima's supernatural epic is pretentious and profound, filled with tedium and terrifying wonder.
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Nov 5, 2019Death Stranding is not a game for every type of player. Its special but repetitive and sometimes outright boring gameplay will make you either love it or stay away from it like fire (or BT). If you have weeks or even months of free time, Death Stranding is the game for you. Otherwise, it’s better to invest it on a real trip with less cargo and no babies.
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Nov 1, 2019Death Stranding is The Tree of Life of videogames. Some people will hail it as a technical and narrative masterpiece that pushes the medium forward. Others will simply be bored to tears by the slow, repetitive gameplay. Both takes are valid. Death Stranding is a bold project that’s sure to be as divisive as the political anxiety it’s commenting on. It won’t change the minds of Kojima detractors who think he should just make movies, but the game’s thoughtful social components showcase why he still plays such a vital role in the games industry.
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Nov 1, 2019The real issue is that Death Stranding’s gameplay really is as simple as it appears to be, and the elements around it – the story, combat, and lackluster mission objectives – aren’t satisfying enough to anchor the title and get players invested.
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Nov 1, 2019Death Stranding might be Kojima's boldest game to date. It may also be his most tedious. Either way, its originality outweighs its sometimes exhausting structure and poor pacing... but only just. Maybe not a game I would recommend to everyone, but certainly one of the most interesting games of 2019.
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Nov 1, 2019We will all remember Death Stranding, the game that was brave enough to oppose the norm. But in the end, it falls a victim to its high ambition as it struggles plenty due to numerous pivotal decisions in storytelling and gameplay.
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Nov 1, 2019A work of unbridled ambition and imagination but also a pretentious, contrived, and frequently quite dull gameplay experience - Death Stranding is peak Hideo Kojima.
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Nov 1, 2019If Death Stranding wasn’t so padded out it could have been something special; instead, we’re left with a repetitive letdown that’s far more enjoyable to watch than play.
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Nov 1, 2019Kojima’s mysterious would be epic has its moments but can’t carry the weight of expectation.
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Nov 1, 2019There is a fascinating, fleshed-out world of supernatural science fiction to enjoy across its sprawling and spectacular map, so it’s a real shame that it’s all been saddled on a gameplay backbone that struggles to adequately support its weight over the full course of the journey.
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Nov 8, 2019Perhaps the most interesting part of Death Stranding's legacy will be the fascinating and barmy hype train we've all been riding for the last few years. It's certainly been a fun ride, but the destination wasn't worth the wait.
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Nov 1, 2019If you do manage to hold out, you will be rewarded with flashes of brilliance, it’s just that those flashes are buried as deep as the core story is buried in the endless dialogue.
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Nov 1, 2019I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to all but the most rabid fans of Hideo Kojima's work. And even then, I feel like this game may cause some of them to balk and question their devotion. It pains me to say it, but Konami may have been a necessary evil for him, a check and balance against his crazier, more self-indulgent impulses.
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Nov 1, 2019A bloated, showy post-apocalyptic melodrama that makes a meal of some engrossing mechanics and themes.
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Nov 1, 2019Try it if you want all the Metal Gear ridiculousness and overwrought drama with none of the stealth-action thrills.
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Nov 11, 2019I am so glad Death Stranding exists. It’s serenely beautiful and conceptually fascinating, while also being frequently tedious and at worst, completely laborious...An experience of visual wonder and quite incredible ideas; an impossible elevator pitch, somehow brought to fruition; something that you have to experience for yourself, just to see if you like it. All brought down by the underpinnings of a game isn’t refined enough in its core mechanics or coherent enough in its narrative delivery to justify the hubristic run-time.
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Edge MagazineNov 7, 2019Quite what we're supposed to make of all that is anyone's guess, but in fairness that's a recurring theme. Expect our final verdict next month - providing we can stagger over the finish line, anyway. [40-Hour Impressions; Issue#339, p.28]
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Nov 1, 2019Hideo Kojma's first post-Metal Gear game is a messy, indulgent vanity project - but also a true original. [Eurogamer Recommended]
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Nov 1, 2019Every inch of Death Stranding teems with meaning or implication. Even the stupidest and most pretentious developments build to create a multi-layered game, one with numerous potential points of attack to analyze. It is a story about fatherhood. It is a broad dig at the gig economy. It is deeply concerned with upcoming environmental disaster and American politics, old and new.
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Nov 1, 2019Death Stranding builds a complex and surreal world, and it's hard not to marvel at the way it all comes together.
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Nov 1, 2019Death Stranding feels like two games in one, designed for seemingly opposite audiences. One is a wholly unique open-world adventure with asynchronous cooperative multiplayer that allows me to feel like I’m part of a community, building a world from scratch. And the other is a long, confusing, deeply strange movie. The former is pulling most of the weight, but they share equal screen time. And, like a steamer trunk full of sperm, it’s impossible to separate the good from the bad. It’s all in the same box.
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Nov 1, 2019Death Stranding is a game that demands to be argued over and analyzed for years. It starts rough, and then gets better and better as it goes along, culminating in an ending that is both hugely important to its universe, and also very small and personal to Sam. It has big ideas for things it wants to say, and then it layers them in with heavy-handed messages about togetherness and bonding with your fellow man.
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Nov 11, 2019It's wonderful that Hideo Kojima gets to do whatever he wants to do. It's equally wonderful that I can do whatever I want to do, and what I did was stop playing his game...Death Stranding is a hassle. A slow, monotonous, fiddly, irritating hassle. It's pure indulgence, every whimsical fancy that crossed the studio's minds has been tossed in without regard for the player's time or the gameplay experience.
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Nov 1, 2019To fully embrace Death Stranding, you have to let go of that desire to know everything. Much like watching Lost or playing pretty much any JRPG, the overall narrative is just a means to an end. It’s a setup for creating dramatic, emotional moments. It’s not always easy to get to those moments, and you’ll have to suspend your disbelief quite often to fully enjoy them, but for a certain kind of player, that long, exhausting journey will be worth the effort.
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Nov 8, 2019I’ve never played anything like Death Stranding, and I doubt I ever will again. That alone is worth the $60 price tag.
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Nov 1, 2019A thoughtful and gorgeous game of work and exploration, held back by lackluster action sequences.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6,340 out of 10667
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Mixed: 336 out of 10667
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Negative: 3,991 out of 10667
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Nov 9, 2019
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Nov 9, 2019
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Nov 8, 2019