Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

I have a love/hate relationship with the first Death Stranding. Prior to its launch in 2019, I was enamored with the world and, as a Metal Gear fan, couldn't wait to absorb a new Hideo Kojima story. Every trailer looked bananas, but as more gameplay footage revealed you're actually just a post-apocalyptic delivery person, I was wary of what the moment-to-moment gameplay would entail. Was this really just a multi-million-dollar mailman simulator? It didn’t seem terribly exciting.

My tune changed when I wrapped up Chapter 3 of the game. I loved hiking across the Icelandic version of the US and playing backpack Tetris to efficiently lug boxes to quirky survivors. I felt a real sense of reward and community building roads, bridges, and repairing infrastructure for other players. Conversely, the combat felt tedious, slow, and ill-suited to the core experience. I avoided fights whenever possible and loathed the titanic boss encounters. Death Stranding's baffling plot somehow made Metal Gear’s mythos perfectly comprehensible by comparison, and not in a good way. The final act left a sour taste in my mouth. 

Despite my complaints, I was happy I saw Death Stranding through to the end because while deeply flawed in some areas, there's nothing else quite like it. Most of all, the foundation was strong enough that a sequel, done right, could be even more special. 

I’m happy to say that, so far, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is fulfilling that potential. I spent four days at Kojima Productions in Tokyo playing over 25 hours of the follow-up – roughly 40 percent of the experience, according to director Hideo Kojima himself. I walked away thinking one thing: Death Stranding 2 is a very fun game that amplifies the original’s strengths while vastly remedying its weaknesses. 

I’ve written in-depth features breaking down Death Stranding 2’s individual elements, such as its interactive encyclopedia, new progression systems, improved combat, and delivery/transport features. Check out those pieces for a more technical overview of the game, as this feature will provide a more general summary of my feelings about the game after the event. 

Death Stranding 2 is staggeringly beautiful. Leveraging Decima, the engine Guerrilla Games created to power its Horizon series, everything from the gorgeous lighting to the immaculately detailed terrain and foliage makes it one of the most visually impressive games I’ve seen this console generation. 

As sharp as the fidelity-focused Quality Mode looks, I highly recommend switching to Performance Mode. The game looks and plays fantastically when running at a smooth 60 frames per second, and it’s worth taking the relatively small graphical hit, as frequent grass pop-in is the only major drawback I’ve noticed. Everything still looks gorgeous either way, and it’s worth noting I played the game on a base PS5. 

I’ll refrain from discussing major plot beats in these impressions; I’ll only say I’ve seen a lot of what has been shown in trailers. Believe me when I say Death Stranding 2 is a wild game, even more so with context. The story takes place 11 months after the end of Death Stranding. Protagonist Sam Bridges succeeds in reconnecting the United States, reborn again as the United Cities of America (UCA), and abruptly abandons the government under seemingly bad terms, taking his now-former BB, Lou, with him. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since. That is, until Sam’s ally, Fragile, tracks him down to propose a new mission: work his porter magic again to reconnect other parts of the world, including Mexico and Australia, which I visited during my demo. 

Sam’s former Bridges allies, such as Die-Hardman (now President), Deadman, and Heartman, have gone their separate ways. Fragile now leads Drawbridge, a new organization consisting of members such as Dollman, Tarman, and, eventually, Rainy and Tomorrow. I’m already more invested in these personalities than I ever was in the Bridges crew, largely because they’re much cooler: Tarman is a hardened yet empathetic ship captain with a tragic past. The endearingly cheerful Rainy brings levity to the party. Tomorrow (Elle Fanning’s role) may or may not be of this world and commands an incredible power. And of course, there’s the chatty and charismatic Dollman, who is his own brand of weird and is possibly the best character so far. Since they all occupy Drawbridge’s mobile headquarters, the DHV Magellan, you spend more time getting to know them than the previous Bridges crew. I always looked forward to seeing Sam interact with this eclectic bunch of personalities, who play off each other well, from what I’ve seen.

The plot is much easier to follow from the beginning since it has an established foundation to build upon. We now understand how the world and its people operate. However, the biggest reason for this newfound clarity is the newly added Corpus, an interactive encyclopedia in the vein of Final Fantasy XVI’s Active Time Lore. Notable key terms appear in the upper right-hand corner during cutscenes, and hitting the Options button pauses the scene and displays relevant lore. Corpus also contains a glossary, character profiles, and an evolving synopsis of events called The Story So Far that provides a straightforward recap of each narrative moment. Corpus did wonders in keeping me on track for two dozen hours in Death Stranding 2, and it’s one of several smart new features.

Another welcome change is the scenery. The first Death Stranding was a pretty but visually monotonous adventure due to the largely unchanging Icelandic-like landscapes. The sequel immediately remedies this sameness by making the adventure a globe-trotting affair. I can only speak for Mexico and Australia, but the new locations provide a welcome variety. Death Stranding 2 begins with Sam trekking across a desert’s arid, rocky cliffs. Before I tire of this scenery, the adventure soon introduces lush forests. New dynamic weather events bolster these impressive biomes. I trudged through violent sandstorms and dodged raining fireballs that ignited a raging bushfire. These occurrences add another layer of challenge to delivering packages safely.

Reconnecting scattered survivors to the Chiral Network remains a thoughtful and engaging balancing act of efficiently stacking boxes on Sam’s backpack and hauling them for miles. Another example of how Death Stranding 2 puts its best foot forward is players gaining access to the motorcycle-like Tri-Cruiser within the first couple of hours. It took ages before you could fabricate vehicles in the original, so I love how quickly the sequel puts you behind the wheel to expedite traversal. You’ll still build bridges, roads, and other infrastructure for you and a community of players to use and maintain. If you loved contributing to Death Stranding’s landscape, the ability to build entire monorail systems to transport materials from mines introduces a deeper layer of complexity for more industrious players. With Kojima Productions introducing monorails and mines relatively early, I can only imagine what other types of factory-like mechanics are in store. 

Death Stranding 2’s most pleasant surprise is its much-improved combat. Creative new weapons help to improve gunplay, and a freeform approach to encounters reminds me of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s best elements. The freedom to tackle enemy bases as you see fit, whether stealthily or guns blazing, and the ability to transition between approaches mid-encounter is great. A suite of new, inventive weaponry is a joy to experiment with, including items that produce decoy holograms and even a BT-damaging boomerang. It also helps that every weapon I tried incapacitated enemies instead of killing them, an act that was discouraged in the original game to avoid causing a voidout (the atom bomb-like explosion caused by dead bodies); a sniper rifle used tranquilizer rounds, for example. I look forward to conflicts rather than avoiding them as I did in the original. The boss battles I tackled were visual spectacles and entertaining gunfights against well-designed adversaries. For those who wanted more exciting action in Death Stranding, this sequel seemingly 

Perhaps best of all, Kojima’s trademark weirdness is everywhere. Whether it's surprising and hilarious interactions with Dollman, the funny ways you can take out enemies, and the myriad of cheeky and overt Metal Gear references, Death Stranding 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously. Even Higgs, whom I thought was the worst and most insufferable character in Death Stranding, is more entertaining now since Kojima just turned him into a cartoonish, guitar-playing cybernetic clown. 

I clocked 26 hours after four days of playing and was sad to put Death Stranding 2 down. Where I was hot and cold on its predecessor, I’m all in on the sequel, and I’m impressed with how closely Kojima Productions seems to have listened to feedback. Despite offering me a substantial preview, I missed plenty of content, including optional side missions, cool weapons/gadgets, and, potentially, significant plot beats. 

Players can miss an action-packed and seemingly vital cinematic if they choose not to trek through a particular area during a delivery. After seeing it myself, I spoke to other journalists who missed it because they chose to bypass the area where the scene occurs. Knowing this, I wonder if there were other moments I unknowingly missed due to how I approached exploration. That’s a bold choice, but off-the-wall ideas like that make Kojima games so fascinating, and Death Stranding 2 seems chock-full of secrets big and small. 

Kojima focused on telling a weird story and creating a bizarre experience around it in Death Stranding, which was only somewhat enjoyable. However, the sequel seems more purposeful in delivering a well-crafted and consistently entertaining experience. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has the makings of a perfect sequel: one that iterates and improves upon its predecessor in every way.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launches on June 26 for PlayStation 5. You can learn more about the game by following the links to the following features:

Death Stranding 2’s Improved Combat Channels Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain In The Best Way

How Death Stranding 2’s Interactive Encyclopedia Helps Players Make Sense Of The Lore And Narrative

Meet The Strange And Powerful Members Of Drawbridge

Death Stranding 2’s New Progression Systems Encourage Flexibility And Reward Every Approach

Death Stranding 2 Lets You Create Monorails And Transport Animals