Death Stranding

With 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.

Death 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.

Death 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.

The 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.

Death 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.

We 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.

A work of unbridled ambition and imagination but also a pretentious, contrived, and frequently quite dull gameplay experience - Death Stranding is peak Hideo Kojima.

If 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.

Kojima’s mysterious would be epic has its moments but can’t carry the weight of expectation.

There 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.

Death Stranding is less like a masterwork from a newly liberated veteran, and feels more like a debut effort of an imaginative and yet still unrefined game creator. Its convoluted story is propped up by a solid cast, and the very dull gameplay is just helped along by the well implemented multiplayer. It will only really appeal to fans of a very specific game subgenre, or those who enjoy unbridled narratives.

In the end, there is much to like about Death Stranding, and I can’t stress enough how much I loved rebuilding America with thousands of concurrent players — that spirit of cooperation was magical. It’s just tragic that the core gameplay loop was let down by dodgy combat scenarios and a listless, meandering story. Death Stranding is still one of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve had in a while and I certainly don’t regret playing it, but I can’t rate it higher when it whiffs so hard on so many areas that needed more focus.

There is, after all, something quietly revelatory about a big-budget videogame that has as much in common with the work of Bennett Foddy as Ubisoft's boilerplate sandboxes. Far from a masterpiece, then, but Kojima's first post-Konami release HAS laid the foundations for something greater. Which is fitting, since that's what he's had us doing for 60-odd hours. [Issue#341, p.102]

If Death Stranding were a movie, it undoubtedly would have been a hit, which is a good sign for Kojima Productions’ move into the cinematic space. Though the video game has enough spectacular moments to earn a passing grade, the amount of downtime keeps it from receiving a glowing recommendation.

I wanted to like Death Stranding. I'm a big fan of Kojima's previous games and I enjoy them for the mishmash of ideas they always are, and in theory I've no problem with playing a delivery man (I've put far too many hours into Euro Truck Simulator), but this game drowns its exciting systems and ideas with a messy execution and dragged out campaign. By stretching it out to such a long playtime, you can't escape Death Stranding's weaknesses - repetitive missions, simple combat, and a badly told story.

I have to give credit to Hideo Kojima for trying to make something different. For me it didn’t pay off, but I did feel there were moments of brilliance here and there. Death Stranding is an ambitious game, but it’s also one that’s self-indulgent and overwrought. With better pacing and the excising of some of its less flattering content and features, Death Stranding could have been something special. As it is, however, it’s just a slog that ultimately turns around and spits in your face.

Perhaps 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.

If 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.

I 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.

A bloated, showy post-apocalyptic melodrama that makes a meal of some engrossing mechanics and themes.