well what do i do know :(
8,5/10 - Length
8,5/10 - Enjoyment
7,5/10 - Perfomance/Bugs
9,5/10 - Story/Experience
7,5/10 - Gameplay

Score = 8,3/10

Even if I were to say "I have no words for it", I would still write a ten-page essay on Death Stranding just talking about how crazy it is in the best way possible. But in short, I should just say I spent years just hearing things about it but never fully diving into what it truly is about. 5 years after the release and a shit ton amount of hearsay, here I am, realizing no amount of discussion I would be exposed to would prepare me for it.

Death Stranding is one of those games that push the boundaries of the medium and make you realize you could care about the craziest things in the world. Delivering cargo to assholes? Rebuilding highway roads with resources that require ungodly amounts of grinding? An unborn baby in a yellow pod? Hour-long cutscenes? A 60-year-old Japanese guy's dream ensemble cast playing characters with cool names and vastly engrossing backstories?

Yeah, Death Stranding has it all. And despite being a 50-hour long "Stabilize your cargo, and do it slowly but not that slow!" simulator, it finds a way to keep you interested at every turn. Whenever you think the game becomes stale, repetitive, or boring, it introduces a new mechanic or something to make your job easier, but not that easy.

The first half of the game is a bit too long. I think I spent 4/5 of my gameplay time in the first half and the last 10 hours in the second half. The story gets much more interesting and fast-paced in the second half with deliveries requiring less and less repetition. This is also accompanied by a few annoying stuff, like losing the entirety of your get-up every other hour, which makes you feel like the progress you made outside the story didn't help you much in the end. The story also relies on heavy parallels and reveals but they can be hard to track or underwhelming at times.

All this is still not enough to undermine the overall amazing experience. There aren't many games that make you feel like your journey was for a noble cause and you really did make a difference in the world. Death Stranding is certainly one of the lucky bunch. It just happens to be accompanied by uneven terrain and weird co-op.

I'm emotionally conflicted about this game.
Did I enjoy it? Well... yeah... but not really...honestly it's not even a good game, it's actually a terrible game, it does everything a game needs to do in a very bad way, and it's just not meant to be a fun experience overall, yet I still believe that it's not a bad game.

At first, I enjoyed the gameplay more than the story, walking actually feels nice, having to be careful about the terrain, managing my cargo and exploring the world felt really cool. Sure there are many annoying mechanics, but if you're careful enough, it's relaxing.
The driving is kind of weird though, sometimes it's alright but most of the time you end up getting stuck on rocks and it can get irritating, so there are moments where walking is the superior option.

There are many gadgets and tools to use, you can even create bridges and roads, and that's great but the game never really explains how to actually do it, so I ended up walking or using a vehicle. I did take advantage of the online features though, which are pretty helpful but nothing special.

Now, for the story, I don't know what to say except from the fact that it's very confusing, especially the first half of the game, so many unanswered questions, bizarre scenes and things that don't make sense at all. It's honestly quite funny, and I was very desperate to get to know more and more, but in the end... the story did make more sense, and it got better, but many things still confuse me, it's a complicated story and the characters are interesting, but there's just so much information, you can easily lose track of what's happening, mostly because the last few hours are just non-stop cutscenes and explanations upon explanations. I got to admit though, the plot twists near the end, and the emotional scenes actually made me appreciate the story more.

I don't know if I even recommend this game to anyone, it's truly one-of-a-kind, a unique experience like no other, and even though it's a mess of a videogame, it's just something else.

Final Rating: "Almost Good" ~ 6.5/10.

I have mixed feelings about this one, in many ways this game is a truly unique and wondrous experience - it tackles perennial issues in game design in novel and exciting ways. It's easy to criticize because you spend a lot of time walking in it, but they made the walking engaging - that's the point! It requires planning and focus to walk. On several occasions during my time with Death Stranding I stopped paying attention to look at my phone or talk to someone, and Sam promptly fell flat on his face because I didn't avoid a rock or see a big step up ahead. There is a level of realism here that you just don't see in games, it's not 1:1 mapping of walking but it succeeds in requiring just about the same amount of focus and attention that walking would in the real world - an impressive feat.

Then there's the inventory system - normally in games with lots of items, your character has the ability to carry an absurd amount of items with sign that they're holding anything. In Death Stranding, almost everything you carry - you really carry it. That means careful planning of your inventory before a journey, considering what items you might need depending on the terrain you plan to cross, or the type of cargo you're carrying. The game has a fast travel system, but you can't travel with most items - the only way to get stuff from point A to point B is to schlep it there, and there are a bunch of smart ideas and systems in place (like 3D printing new items), to keep that diagetic and not too onerous.

Another cool idea is Timefall - magical rain that advances time for everything it touches. On the surface this is a pretty cool idea anyway (though doesn't really hold up to too much scrutiny), but it allows the game to include item degradation in a way that doesn't feel ridiculous. Most games with this feature, your items last for a laughably short time - iron swords that break after only 10 swings, etc. In this game, stuff gets ruined by time acceleration whenever it rains - it helps to explain why external structures get damaged, why your cargo and items get damaged, etc. I found it really satisfying.

For me, Death Stranding was at its best when I was simply carrying a large delivery over new, uncertain terrain and a cool song kicked in. The path between my and my destination was a puzzle to solve, and I found a lot of beauty in the bleakness and solitude. However, those songs never really got to play out because they always kicked in too late, and I'd find myself either waiting around outside my destination for the song to finish or just abruptly cutting it off.

That's how I felt for much of my playtime, stretches of awesome scenery, tranquility, engaging movement mechanics and mild problem solving, using a well placed ladder to make a journey much simpler, resting under a shelter left by another player.. only to be abruptly cut off from those feelings and thrust into some weird combat encounter, or an overly long cutscene filled with meaningless exposition. Some of the story beats and character moments were really cool, especially the opening of the game, but I really found myself struggling to stay invested by the end. I just wanted to deliver packages! Maybe that's how Sam feels too, and that's the point? I don't know. But I do know I dreaded being whisked off to World War 2 or whatever for a boring stealth battle, and I let out just a few too many exasperated sighs in my time with this game to say that I truly loved it. I think.

Looking back at my thoughts on the original Death Stranding, I pretty much have the same things to say about this “Director’s Cut” iteration: I like delivering packages and I like the world, but man do I not care about the story and the cast here with the exception of Mad’s Solider Guy and Die-Hard Man.

Playing on the hardest difficulty, I found delivering was weirdly easy to handle but the mandatory war sections felt unbearable without additional planning beforehand.

Despite my hangups, I’m still excited for Death Stranding 2 and hope Kojima Productions leans even harder into the package weight management + daddy day care gameplay experience

Death Stranding is a weird game. It's hard to even call it a game for that matter. A substantially portion of my playthrough was simply holding down the 'W' key alongside the occasional balancing act when stepping on uneven terrain or some course correction here and there. But I'm so glad I stuck with the game through the credits, until the very end.

Hideo Kojima and his team have crafted what can easily be considered one of the best and most intriguing video game campaigns of all time. I mean it when I say to go in as blind as possible. This game is filled with masterful metaphor and extremely complex symbolism that can easily have infinite interpretations. The story itself is far from straightforward, however, rest assured knowing that nearly every question worth answering is answered to some meaningful capacity. Each character is finely crafted to serve a purpose, and while the actions of the player may seem inconsequential at times, every action builds to make the world feel more real.

Let's talk gameplay, as that is easily the most divisive aspect of this game. I am a fan. While it is objectively boring and tedious (almost to a point where I almost assume it was defined to be aggravating) it really puts you in Sam's shoes. Your struggles are his, and his are your's. The multiplayer aspect integrates seamlessly into general gameplay and helps you realize just how much impact you have not only in your individual instance, but in the world of other players. Combat sequences are tight and responsive, with everything from grenades to a wide arsenal of guns feeling incredible to use. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the controls which are serviceable at best and miserable at the absolute worst. Some menus are clunky, and several mechanics are hard to initially grasp, but it all makes sense in due time.

The game is an incredibly slow burn, however, towards the end (after about Chapter 7) it picks up significantly. However, chapter duration ranges wildly. For example, Chapter 8 took me around 8 hours to complete (although I wouldn't be surprised if it takes some much more) while the very next chapter took me just eleven minutes (excluding cutscenes).

Lastly, let's talk this PC port. 505 Games have done an excellent job of porting the Director's Cut to PC platforms, with incredibly solid performance, in depths options (minus an FOV slider), and some nice quality of life options such as Ultrawide resolution support.

I truly can't recommend this game enough. While not for everyone, sticking with this game despite it's flaws is absolutely worth it. I cannot wait to see what Kojima and his team are cooking up next.