I'm not going to pretend that I was able to understand all the bizarre machinations of the world of 'Death Stranding' on this first play through. But I will admit that I felt wonder throughout. And the human moments really connected. The story of sisters Mama and Lochne (Margaret Qualley, the both of them), especially, really got to me. The overarching theme of 'better together' was surprisingly simple and sincere for a game I expected to colder and more machine-like. So if the confusion of the story is the game's fault, and not the fault of my too-simple brain, I don't mean to suggest that the game didn't connect or didn't mean anything to me. It did.
The gameplay is outstanding for being so wholly original. Call it a walking simulator if you like, but I've never before played one that had me think about a game world in this way. That had me plotting routes; and concerning myself with cargo weight, battery lifetimes, balance, and terrain. I've also never before played a walking simulator before with this many vehicles, this much technology. If I have one gripe with the gameplay, it is in the random timefall events that play out like the Fury Bowser moments in 'Bowser's Fury.' After a while, you learn exactly how to navigate them so the only function they serve is to bring a grinding halt to your progress. I would have preferred timefall to only occur in certain places and within missions, like those where you have to enter timefall regions to collect specific cargo items.
The older I get, the more I yearn to play games that aren't immediately comparable to a thousand others I've played before. 'Death Stranding' won me over by feeling like one of a kind. The perfect game for the pandemic era and inexplicably made before the pandemic. A game about lonely people in isolated communities and the seeming futility of building connections if the fate of humanity is to eventually tear them down again. But hope keeps peeking through in the story. And hope is there in the moments of relief that emerge from the community created by the online servers. When I would discover a climbing rope where I needed it, and after I had used my last one, I was glad to know I wasn't alone.
The gameplay is outstanding for being so wholly original. Call it a walking simulator if you like, but I've never before played one that had me think about a game world in this way. That had me plotting routes; and concerning myself with cargo weight, battery lifetimes, balance, and terrain. I've also never before played a walking simulator before with this many vehicles, this much technology. If I have one gripe with the gameplay, it is in the random timefall events that play out like the Fury Bowser moments in 'Bowser's Fury.' After a while, you learn exactly how to navigate them so the only function they serve is to bring a grinding halt to your progress. I would have preferred timefall to only occur in certain places and within missions, like those where you have to enter timefall regions to collect specific cargo items.
The older I get, the more I yearn to play games that aren't immediately comparable to a thousand others I've played before. 'Death Stranding' won me over by feeling like one of a kind. The perfect game for the pandemic era and inexplicably made before the pandemic. A game about lonely people in isolated communities and the seeming futility of building connections if the fate of humanity is to eventually tear them down again. But hope keeps peeking through in the story. And hope is there in the moments of relief that emerge from the community created by the online servers. When I would discover a climbing rope where I needed it, and after I had used my last one, I was glad to know I wasn't alone.