My first go-round with Death Stranding was a complicated one.
Longtime fans of Hideo Kojima were salivating at the prospect of the first project coming out of his post-Konami studio. No one knew quite what to expect. Early trailers didn’t help much. Was this just … a delivery game? Were we in store for a Metal Gear Solid 2-like gotcha moment when we played the final product? Not really! It was, in many ways, a “delivery game.” Albeit one wrapped in a narrative and universe that made Metal Gear Solid (samurai President clones and all) seem like a realistic depiction of tactical stealth action by comparison.
I hated it. I don’t know what I expected or wanted out of this new IP, but something about holding the trigger buttons to lean left and right to avoid falling over instantly turned me off. I found the game monotonous, needlessly obtuse, and described it in a way only a veteran games writer could. Namely, I went on podcasts and said it “****ing sucks” and also “sucks s**t.” There’s a reason people pay me to talk about video games.
Seven or eight hours in, I dropped it. It wasn’t until the Director’s Cut two years later that I decided to give it another shot. I walked past the living room and saw my wife playing it, and she was carefully approaching a river and scanning it with her Odradek (the little flappy scanner thing on Sam Porter Bridges’ shoulder). It seemed too perilous to cross the deep water with all the cargo she was carrying, so she continued down the river bank until she saw a safer path forward.
This shouldn’t have been a eureka moment for anyone, as examining the land and delivering packages with caution is one of the main things the game tasks you with. However, I had rushed through my original experience with Death Stranding in order to meet a coverage embargo. I sprinted from objective to objective in order to see as much of the game as possible so that I could talk about it on a podcast in a timely manner. Turns out that’s not the way to play it! So I gave the Director’s Cut a shot, took my time with it, and was quickly ashamed of my words and deeds. Death Stranding is a great game.
When I heard I’d be travelling to Tokyo this year to play 30 hours of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, I told myself to remember my past mistakes and meet this sequel on its own terms. I would take my time, play it “right,” and hopefully have a better first experience this time around.
Having played through the original was a huge benefit when it came to my early hours. There was no surprise when I was confronted with the need to balance Sam’s cargo. And since the world had already been exhaustively established in the first game, I wasn’t suffering from constant whiplash when bombarded by one bewildering concept after another. Within the first half hour, a character brings you “the finest chiral-printed diapers” and my brain just registered that as a normal thing to say in this world. It’s like how eventually in Metal Gear Solid, we all just accepted that “nanomachines” as a concept could explain everything from psychics to vampires.
Let’s back up a bit from the chiral diapers though. You first gain control of Sam Porter Bridges during a tremendous opening sequence, which tasks you to simply “return home with Lou,” the baby from the first game. On paper you’re simply walking across precarious rocky cliffs, but the Kojima magic is hitting you from all angles. Triumphant chanting and drums set the tone as you clamber across cliff faces. A “gate quake” strikes, causing boulders to cascade down the hills around you. Opening credits flank Sam with the signature style of Kojima’s longtime title designer Kyle Cooper. Sure, you may just be walking from Point A to Point B, but I’ll be damned if Kojima doesn’t make it feel cool and important.

When Sam finally arrives at his camouflaged shelter in the mountains, we get a glimpse of his new life. It’s 11 months after the events of the first game and he seems to have found something resembling peace. Instead of the sterile private rooms he resided in during his transient past, this shelter feels homey and borderline cozy. Happy pictures of the father and daughter cover the walls, toys are strewn across the floor, and Lou is being fed things other than Monster Energy. But in a trope that Kojima has loved since he presumably saw Commando in 1985, it’s time to pull the grizzled vet back in for one more mission because he’s the only man for the job. For the record, I very much enjoy this trope as well.
Fragile (not that Fragile) shows up unexpectedly and shatters this sense of calm. Humanity is still on the brink of extinction, Bridges no longer oversees the UCA’s distribution network, Die-Hardman is no longer the President, and Fragile is suffering from “Jumpshock” after too many trips to the Beach.
I could sit here and try to explain everything going on in that last sentence but thankfully I don’t have to. One of the most welcome additions to Death Stranding 2 is the new Corpus feature. It’s an in-game glossary that can be accessed at any time, even during cutscenes. It’s exhaustive, giving you in-depth explanations on demand regarding the story, terms, characters, and mechanics. A similar system was put to great use in Avowed, and no universe needs it more than this one. I found myself referring to it regularly, and it really did help me gain a further understanding of what was going on and what I needed to do.


Your first order of business sounds simple. Sam lives near the border of the UCA (formerly USA) and Mexico, and Fragile wants you to extend the chiral network across the border to a lab operated by Deadman. A giant BT is heading that way, and Fragile offers to babysit Lou so Sam can focus on the mission. I won’t go into the specific story details that influence Sam’s journey this time around, but I will say that the first 7-8 hours of the game take place in Mexico before events ultimately take our crew to Australia. My remaining 20+ hours of gameplay during this event took place here, starting from the West Coast and working my way east. I was told that the 30 hours I played added up to roughly 30-40% of the overall game, so it remains to be seen if more continents lie ahead for Sam.
Not long into the journey, Sam finds himself on the DHV Magellan, a behemoth of a ship that can navigate tar currents and takes on the distinct appearance of the top half of Metal Gear Rex. Residing on the ship is an expanding motley crew of colorful characters, and their interplay is one of my favorite narrative improvements to the sequel. There was no shortage of interesting characters in the original game, but your interactions with them felt somewhat siloed off. Here’s Heartman’s house where you talk to Heartman. Here’s your private room where Fragile shows up. Here’s Mama’s lab where you talk to Mama. In Death Stranding 2, you frequently find yourself going back to the Magellan and interacting with a group of characters, and it really helps. It’s like the difference between the first three seasons of Arrested Development with the whole cast and that weird fourth one where they could only get like two actors together for any scene.
The Magellan is piloted by Tarman, whose appearance is modeled on Mad Max director George Miller. He’s missing a hand for reasons you’ll learn in a flashback, and suffers from “phantom pains” as a result (yes, he uses that phrase). My understanding is that because his hand is “dead,” it’s a BT of sorts and that’s why he can pilot through tar and the beach? Look, I’m trying my best here. Also, a tar-covered flying cat follows him around.


A talking mannequin torso named Charlie is the mysterious benefactor that funds the DHV Magellan as well as Fragile’s new organization (named Drawbridge). Tomorrow, played by Elle Fanning, is a woman that Sam finds in a different realm. She’s discovered in a golden cocoon of sorts and is virtually silent at first. As she spends time with the crew on the Magellan, she begins to open up and eventually demonstrates some spectacular abilities.
Next up is my guy, Dollman. This dude is the best. He was originally a human man, but somehow his “Ka” (soul) wound up in the “Ha” (body) of a puppet. It doesn’t seem to bother him much, because he just hangs out on Sam’s belt or on a shelf in the Magellan and offers friendly advice and conversation. Every single time I go back to Sam’s room, the first thing I did was see if he had something new to say. And a little pro tip: If he’s interested in any specific song on Sam’s music player, be sure to play it for him.
At one point, he asked me if I wondered how he maintained his youthful appearance. Despite that not being one of my first 50 questions I’d have regarding Dollman, I heard him out. You see, there’s a woman on the Magellan named Rainy. She’s a pregnant woman that for some reason causes Timefall rain all around her if she steps outside. Timefall rain ages everything it touches, but in a 1.5-meter radius around her body, it actually causes Corefall rain–which makes everything it touches younger. So every once in a while, Rainy will take Dollman into the shower with her. The shower water turns into Corefall, and Dollman is forever young. Simple!


A ton of little moments made me smile or laugh during the event, but it was a moment with Dollman that tickled me the most. He’s dangling off my belt as I approach a river. The poor little guy is trying his best to explain to me the dangers of high water levels, and I confidently decide to start wading in regardless. As he’s mid-sentence, my waist dips below the water level and his friendly advice turns into frantic gurgling as water floods his little puppet esophagus. Like they accomplished with Metal Gear Solid, Kojima and the crew manage to balance a deadly serious (albeit ludicrous) main storyline with moments of incredible comedic sensibility.
As this is still a bit of a “delivery game” between the cutscenes, the comedy can frequently come from unexpected, unscripted moments. When I first got my tri-cruiser bike, I loaded it up with cargo and excitedly tested out the boost function as I sped out of the garage. I probably should have surveyed the area ahead of time, as I immediately careened off a cliff, crashing the bike and scattering cargo everywhere.
While you’ll eventually have the familiar experience of falling into the river and seeing your cargo helplessly flow downstream, the more frustrating qualities of delivering cargo are significantly reduced this time around. I noticed that I wasn’t having to micromanage my leaning nearly as much, and I rarely fell down. Lou will still occasionally cry, but not with the Yoshi’s Island-like frequency of the first game. I soothed her once or twice in my 30 hours of playing, but it never felt particularly necessary.
Numerous environmental features are introduced, and they’re more cool than frustrating. “Gate Quakes” rattle the earth, while wind storms, rising water levels during rain, “chiral cinder” showers, and forest fires serve to vary up the experience. Trekking through an America that looked like Iceland in the first game was certainly beautiful, but the variety is much appreciated this time.


I made a mistake in my early hours, as I played Death Stranding 2 perhaps too similarly to how I played the first game. Lethal combat was discouraged in the original, as killing an enemy ran the risk of creating a “voidout” (massive explosion). As a result, I routed my early deliveries in the sequel to go around enemy camps rather than through them. I avoided combat, but after talking to other press at the event, I learned that I missed an important cutscene featuring a red cyborg samurai that sounded reminiscent of the horrifying introduction to Gray Fox in Metal Gear Solid.
More importantly, I learned that I shouldn’t be avoiding combat. Unless I missed something, there is no risk of creating voidouts as the weapons are non-lethal. Rubber bullets are the standard for your guns, and weapons like “tranq grenade launchers” are the norm rather than lethal alternatives. I unlocked so many weapons in the first game but was afraid to use them because I didn’t want to kill an enemy, so I usually avoided combat or stuck to options like the bola gun.
Once I retrained myself to play it as a stealth-action game, it greatly improved my enjoyment and I started looking forward to camps of enemies. I snuck up onto some high ground near an enemy outpost and threw Dollman into the air above it. In mid-air, my puppet buddy acted as a surveillance drone of sorts, tagging enemies and notable cargo. After calling him back and thanking him for his service, I tossed a decoy grenade that created some holographic wildlife to distract the bandits. Despite being historically terrible at stealth, I was able to knock out two enemies from behind before blowing my cover and resorting to more direct action. Sprinting around and dodging gunfire, I learned that I could perform pro-wrestling moves like a crossbody block or Kenny Omega’s V-Trigger if I jumped while approaching enemies. A mixture of melee combat and explosives (non-lethal of course) took out the rest of the bandits, I robbed the camp of its cargo, loaded it up onto a stolen enemy vehicle, and drove off to cash it in. I’m not going to say that this game is “MGS V meets Death Stranding,” but it’s certainly a hell of a lot closer to that than the first game was.


Even BT encounters are greatly improved. In the first game, frequent BT occurrences would require Sam to hold his breath and sneak around at a snail’s pace if he didn’t want to trigger a frustrating sequence involving trudging through tar as enemies chase you. While that can still happen in Death Stranding 2, you’re much better equipped for the situation. Many weapons are effective on BTs, such as the new Blood Boomerang that siphons blood from Sam and can eliminate BTs with one well-aimed headshot.
Boss fights are better across the board, including an excellent early encounter with a hulking red mech. An Oblivion-style “Sam’s Stats” feature allows skills like terrain traversal and carrying capacity to level up passively as you play. A new skill tree is introduced that can be respecced on the fly, depending on the situation. Everything in this game is less laborious and more fun.
Like the first game, it can be meditative in the quiet moments as you traverse the environment. But when the game wants to get loud, it does not hold back. One chapter–titled “Conflagration”–is one of the most visually stunning sequences I’ve ever seen in a game. Even running on a base PS5, it’s a spectacle that culminates in a boss encounter that rivals the best of Metal Gear Solid. Mechanically, it’s essentially a shootout with a boss and multiple soldiers, but tonally and visually, it’s Kojima firing on all cylinders and it’s truly jaw-dropping.
I’ve been to countless pre-release events, and in the best-case scenario, it usually winds up with a preview along the lines of, “What I played during my hour-long demo was great, let’s hope the final product can match what they showed off!” But I played 30 hours of Death Stranding 2 before writing this preview. I can confidently say that it’s excellent, and I can’t wait to do it all again (and much more) when it releases next month.