Last year, I spent the summer working as an Amazon delivery driver in the blazing heat. It was one of the lowest points of my life as I had lost my job and was unhappy where I was at. I spent four days a week delivering packages in upper-class neighborhoods, driving on bumpy gravel roads out in rural Iowa without working AC, and lugging heavy packages up steep driveways. I delivered in rain, tornadoes, and heat that caused other drivers to suffer from heat stroke. On this job, I bled, rolled my arthritic ankles, and dealt with all kinds of aches and pains when I came home every day. It was agonizing.
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The only way I got through it each day was through listening to music that kept me moving and motivated, as well as the people I met. During the aforementioned tornado that I delivered in, a friendly family invited me into their home to seek shelter. On some of the most brutally hot days, customers would offer me free water or Gatorade as a gesture of kindness. On average, I would have upwards of 400 packages to deliver, and if I was falling behind schedule, other drivers would pull up next to my van and lighten my load by taking some packages and finishing the delivery.
Why am I mentioning all of this? Because I couldn’t stop thinking about all of it while reviewing Death Stranding 2, a game about delivering cargo, connecting, and finding catharsis amidst hard times. This is a game where you must overcome wildfires, flooding, earthquakes, snow and sandstorms, and hostile forces, all in the name of delivering packages. You accomplish this by utilizing ladders, bridges, weapons, vehicles, and other tools left behind by other players. Everyone is helping each other in this grueling world that has become disconnected and fallen apart. It’s a game that is so fantastical and larger than life, but I found it to be more relatable than anything else I’ve ever played.
Should We Have Connected?
Death Stranding 2 picks up a year after the end of the first game. Sam (played by Norman Reedus) is hiding down by the Mexican border, raising baby Lou, who used to be his Bridge Baby (BB). He’s no longer delivering packages; he’s a full-time stay-at-home dad. However, his world quickly gets turned upside down when Fragile tracks him down and asks him to help her with a new mission: connect Australia to the Chiral Network. For reasons I won’t spoil, this journey becomes extremely personal and necessary for Sam, making him a more compelling and layered character than before.
On paper, it sounds like the plot of the first game, but they couldn’t be more different. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first Death Stranding’s story as I thought the pacing was clunky, the characters felt very disconnected from each other, and it lacked some of the emotional weight that I needed to stay invested through its lengthy runtime. Death Stranding 2 is immediately more engaging and emotionally charged. From the moment I took control of Sam, I felt immersed in a world that I was previously disconnected from. It gets into the actual story much faster, emphasizing character over plot quite frequently. Cutscenes aren’t just there to spill exposition (for the most part), it’s less about telling the player what they have to do and more about helping you care about Sam and his friends.
Death Stranding had a big problem where it felt like characters were isolated from each other. It created a segmented feeling, but Death Stranding 2 is an ensemble story. You have a ship full of characters, new and old, all working with each other toward a common goal. They converse with each other, develop their own relationships with each other, and work together as a team rather than a bunch of allies splintered across the country.
It strengthens the connection with everyone, because you spend equal time with them all instead of a chapter focused on single characters. Your crew is a pretty quirky bunch, made up of people who bring their own baggage and trauma just like Sam. They could all easily decide to give up and go underground like many other people in this world, but they choose to come together to save it. It’s powerful and leads to some beautiful moments with stand out characters like Rainy, a woman cursed with raining timefall wherever she goes, but is able to eventually recognize it as a gift.
Death Stranding 2 is easily Hideo Kojima’s most emotional story to date as well. I cried multiple times over the course of this story, which surprised me given how much I didn’t connect with the first game. I was moved by this crew’s struggles, the way they connect with each other, and Sam’s personal healing journey. I found the marketing to be very pessimistic, pondering over whether connecting in the last game was a mistake, but I think this game proves the power of connection.
All of this helps to create a consistently coherent story that shows Kojima was being more intentional this time, opting for a simpler story that still feels epic and grand in its scale. Kojima hasn’t necessarily reigned it in, he just created a better balance that allows you to digest everything he throws at you. By focusing more on character rather than exposition during every single cutscene, it allows you to follow along more easily. When the inevitable lore dumps do come, you understand the emotional stakes even if you don’t totally grasp all of the made-up concepts that are creating them. To paraphrase a quote from Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, it allows you to feel it instead of understanding it, which is arguably more important.
Kojima sprinkles in a lot of other elements to help those who want to fully understand everything, though. There’s a glossary of pretty much everything you need to know from big vocab words, character backstories, and lore, which can even be accessed in cutscenes if you need it. Similarly, Dollman, a puppet that Sam carries around for the bulk of the game, also does a good job of breaking things down in a comprehensive way. It can feel like spoon feeding at times, but it will likely help those who find Death Stranding 2’s world and lore too dense. He is very similar to Mimir from God of War, giving players helpful context while also feeling like his own character.
A Walk in a Porter’s Shoes
Death Stranding 2’s gameplay is, once again, about delivering packages or moving from point A to point B. It’s a very familiar game and it seems like Kojima worked on refining the experience so that it still feels challenging while toning down how clunky the previous entry was.
A lot of the innovation comes in the form of new gadgets and tools to use, as well as a more interesting map to traverse. There are heavily vegetated jungle-like areas, a desert-esque expanse, and a snow-covered mountain range, all of which are combined with dynamic obstacles such as avalanches, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and much more. You can never be fully certain of what is coming your way as you encounter natural and sudden dangers, creating a more thrilling and unpredictable experience.
After spending hours doing main quests, I decided to take on a side delivery that asked me to deliver a pizza within five minutes. I thought this would be pretty easy because it wasn’t very far, so I didn’t pack too much stuff. As soon as I stepped out, I noticed a heavy rain, but didn’t have much time to stop and reassess. I scaled a steep hill and was quickly met with a field of BTs, ghost-like monsters that can do a devastating amount of damage if you’re not careful. I decided that the caution I’d have to take through there would slow me down too much, and took a longer, but otherwise safer route.
I crossed a raging river using a ladder that another player had left behind and continued my trek before realizing I had to cross the river again. I had no ladder or bridge and the heavy rain was creating a treacherous current. Realizing I only had about a minute left to get to my destination and knowing the field of BTs was out of the question, I decided to cross. The rapids quickly took me off of my feet and the pizza flew out of my backpack. I had little to no control of Sam in the water, but the current spat me out onto the side I was trying to get to as I watched this pizza drift toward the edge of a waterfall where it would meet a soggy end.
However, in a twist of fate, the pizza washed up against a rock right as it was about to go over the edge. I couldn’t believe it, but I quickly recovered the pie and had it delivered with seconds to spare. It may not have been in perfect condition, but it stopped me from outright failing the delivery and created an emergent story.
The game’s dynamic nature allowed for many other moments like this, whether it was getting trapped in a blazing wildfire while trying to save a kangaroo or narrowly dodging a fatal avalanche near the top of a mountain. It’s a world that ebbs and flows, one where a river could be flooded and require you to place down a bridge to cross it, but when you return later, the river has completely dried up and you can cross without any extra assistance. That’s the beauty of Death Stranding 2. Every delivery is a new story to tell, unique to you. It’s a new mountain to climb, metaphorically and sometimes literally.
A Bigger Stick
Of course, one of the biggest changes to Death Stranding 2 this time is combat. Don’t get it twisted, this is still a game about delivering cargo. This isn’t a shoot-em-up, but Kojima isn’t holding players back as much anymore. You’re empowered with a lot more freedom and choice on how you complete deliveries. Taking a fight head-on is now another tool in your toolbox, not unlike ladders and rope. It’s an option in most cases, but can be avoided almost entirely outside of a handful of missions.
You can take down foes non-lethally or lethally (at the risk of a voidout explosion) with a wide range of weaponry that includes LMGs, sniper rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, and more. While the action is bound to draw comparisons to Metal Gear Solid V, that inspiration seems most clear in the sandbox approach to combat.
You are able to overlook an enemy base and really plot out how you want to handle it, whether it be through stealth, a gunfight, or a mix of the two. You also have a bunch of tools at your disposal like exploding robot dogs, blades, and even weaponized pizza dough. Perhaps one of my favorite combat moments was charging into a base in the dead of night on a motorcycle and doing a drive-by shooting with my LMG and grenade launcher. It was pure chaos, but absolutely thrilling.
One of my only nitpicks about Death Stranding 2 is that I wish changing weapons wasn’t so clunky. You have a giant weapon wheel which has your guns, throwables, and tools included together. Anytime you need to switch weapons or want to throw a grenade, you have to open this menu. It would be better if you could bind a button to quickly throw the most recently selected grenade to at least lessen the time spent in the weapon wheel. That said, if that’s really my only complaint in a game that also gives you the option to avoid combat the vast majority of the time, that speaks volumes about the rest of the experience.
Death Stranding 2 is not only one of the best games I have played this generation, it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played in my life. When I wasn’t playing it, I was constantly thinking about it. It’s profoundly moving, deeply engaging, and undeniably beautiful. It’s hard not to be swept up by this game when the camera pulls out and you see yourself conquering an obstacle while some moody track scores your journey.
Although Hideo Kojima wants to make games that are somewhat divisive, I find Death Stranding 2 to be one of his most refined and enjoyable works to date. I feel confident this will be recognized as one of PS5’s defining masterpieces. In the way that we talk about The Last of Us on PS3 or God of War on PS4, I think Death Stranding 2 is an essential title for the PS5 generation.
Rating 5 out of 5
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach releases this week on June 26th for PS5. A review copy of Death Stranding 2 was provided by PlayStation.
