Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

One day, you play a game so good that it defies your simple expressive abilities, leaving you wondering how you can, because you want to so badly, communicate such greatness to other people. How can you describe so many emotions, characters, and their phenomenal portrayals, or a story so wrapped around itself yet so simple? What really makes this game so magical is that, despite being a story written by Kojima, it’s so unbelievably simple when you strip it down to the basics. What a fascinating contrast: Sam, the humble porter, reconnecting the world… one delivery at a time. People who played the first game will remember the smile and gratitude displayed on the faces of the isolated inhabitants of the UCA as you delivered them their medical supplies, a lost t-shirt, their favorite tabletop game, or the device they needed to filter drinking water. No matter what it is, you were there, Sam, you delivered, you saved countless lives, and you brought the whole of America together. Sam finds himself in the same shoes once again. Except everything is bigger and better now. Everything in this game is an improved and refined version of the previous game. There’s so much to see, so many different tools to get the job done, and the same genius of players coming together to help one another build and repair structures and make other porters safer and happier. The music is really a tune to the ears. I can say so many things about the soundtracks, every song is delightful, some will make you cry, and some will make you laugh. The game’s greatest and most pivotal moments are amplified to infinity by beautiful music that will make your heart ache and eyes water. The terrain variety introduces new gameplay mechanics, and the weather, too. The weather effects are really well done, gameplay-wise, sound, and visuals. Raindrops or snowfall, thirsty deserts or flooded rivers, bottomless lakes or sky-touching mountains, forsaken masses of land or thick forests, all winding up and down to create both a challenging and enjoyable world to walk in. I highly recommend playing this game with a controller and not a mouse and keyboard, a controller that supports haptic feedback. You will feel the raindrops in your hand, and the vibrations are implemented in a way that is just as important as music during cutscenes or fights, missing them could hurt the overall immersion. Not to mention, holding R2/L2 to regain balance is a classic. A light-pink morning where, from where you stand, nothing can be seen but an endless horizon of milky clouds, made colorful by the shy sunshine that has just risen, atop the snow-clad mountaintops. Or a moon so giant that it feels like it's about to crash into earth, so white and glorious in its black backdrop of nothingness, its light so vast that the stars, around it and elsewhere, fade away. Sam, in either case of the previous, and for all that goes between them, is delivering and reconnecting while overwhelmed with sadness and grief. To play Death Stranding 2 is to experience complete loss and utter defeat, but unlike the previous game, Sam is not alone… not anymore. “You will never be alone, Sam. We will always be with you”. To play Death Stranding 2 is to experience friendship, solidarity, self-sacrifice, regret, evil, and manipulation. But, I feel, most importantly, is to experience love too. Love that permeates everything, the same love that allowed for such a creative game to be made, both lore-wise and in real life, and for such an amazing story to be told. Norman Reedus is made with an unnatural amount of charisma and mystique that situates him perfectly to play this role. To say he was born to play Sam Porter Bridges would be an understatement. Like many things in this ever-so-short life we live, the only way to truly experience it and know firsthand what it is like is to touch it and to try and be one with it. In games, it is to play the game yourself. If you loved the first one, you will absolutely lose yourself in the second. When I’m playing something that I love, I don’t want it to end, but of course, it always does. I feel so sad that this… thing is over and cannot be experienced again for the first time… but that’s life. Like the first game, this one too has become one of the most special games I have played. I will always cherish its memory, in this life, on my Beach, and in the hereafter. See the sunset… The day is ending… Let that yawn out… There's no pretending…

Allright heres a small review of mine. Death Stranding 2 is a great sequel. It builds up from the first one. If you liked the first game, you will like this. Yes its quite surprising, i know. This game here is more "fast paced" than the original, you are given a lot of gadgets and vehicles very quickly, maybe even too fast? Anyway i personally liked the slower pace from Death Stranding 1 more but of course you get to choose what you use and when you use so it doesnt really matter that much. Nevertheless i feel like the sequel was made to be easier than DS1 and at the same time it lost some of its charm. I played on the hardest difficulty (to the wilder) and only challenges i found were giant BT fights where i was almost one shotted if i was too slow to dodge. Allright i admit some normal mech fights were also pretty hard because of overwhelming numbers, mix of melee and ranged units. Will i be writing more about these mechs? Nope. There is also a lot of variety to weapons and gadgets in this game, have you ever wanted to throw rubber pizza at someones face so hard that they go unconcious? Well you are in luck because here you can do that. You can throw robot dogs at enemies, you can deliver packages while surfing on a coffin, there is also martial arts involving...uhm...pizza making skills? I have to say this somewhere, this game having so much gadgets and weapons managed to remove "spooky" aspect from BTs. Walking around with an arsenal on your back and you can blast your way throught everything. You could basically do it in DS1 too yes, but with a very limited weaponry. In first game you had to choose if you would take lethal or non lethal weapons with you. Some weapons worked against only BT's and some only against humans. In the sequel 95% of your weapons are non lethal and they work against pretty much anything, human, bt or mechs....No need to plan your approach regarding weapons. Its surprisingly hard to kill people by accident in this game. Sam the man has hit like at least 20 bandits with his mail truck and they all have lost just their consciousness and maybe some teeth? (Though im not sure what happened in DS1 when you did that.) There is a bigger map than the last time, more buildings for you to make. New additions are mines and monorails. You can restore 9 mines, you can also upgrade them to produce a loads of materials for you. And you are going to need them while you are rebuilding everything. Monorails are also a great addition because with them you can transport your huge load of materials from the mine to somewhere else with no problems. If you loved the snowy mountain from DS1, you are also in luck because there is a mountain here bigger and badder than the first one. I still have fond memories while travelling that mountain on foot, zero battery, zero stamina, zero speed, zero chlorobiotes in my pockets, floating carrier behind me filled with 600kg of stuff and things. Oh right and because the mountain is so tall, the air is thin there and if you run out of oxygen youre going to pass out. Ahh yes...best hours of my life... (You can get an oxygen mask if you get some stars with one of the residents living in that mountain.) BTs BTs BTs...There are new BT's in this game yes. New BT type is called gazer and they uhm...gaze at you. I really like the sounds that they make, they are kinda unsettling, and when they die the sound is pretty eerie and memorable. I feel like DS2 underutilizes BT's and gives the spotlight to the mechs. Then there are couple of giants BTs and then there are even bigger BT's. The word bigger doesnt really make them justice. I should probably mention here that at one point of the game you get an item that lets you capture big BT's and then you can summon them to fight against each other. Like some sort of pokemon battle. Story wise i dont really know what i can write here. Its a great story, has peak cinema moments, weird kojima moments, great soundtrack, it has pretty much everything. This games story is a bit predictable which is weird to say about kojima game. Im sure that this story resonates more with people who have family and kids. Death Stranding 1 focused on the isolation and loneliness and this sequel focuses more on the connections that we create and how they last. Ending of the DS1 lives rent free in my head and now this games ending is going to live there too. Getting pretty crowded. Very epic and memorable ending, worth the journey. For me it took like 150 hours to compleate but i was also trying to 100% the game. When i was embarking on the final mission i noticed that i had compleated only about 197/400 deliveries. So now that the story is over, im heading back to upgrade all of the roads, monorails, mines, well everything. "Why?" you may ask, well its because i just like the game and its gameplay loop. If you are reading this it means that you somehow got though all of my yapping. Because of that i hope that you will have a wonderful rest of your day.

The central themes of connection, isolation, grief, and humanity's relationship with technology feel even more relevant today. The game's emotional climax is widely regarded as one of [i]Kojima[/i]'s strongest endings in years. The core loop remains familiar: transporting cargo across dangerous terrain while reconnecting isolated communities. However, nearly every mechanic has been expanded and refined. The traversal mechanics remain the heart of the experience, but the additional action and stealth options prevent gameplay from becoming repetitive. Players who found the original too slow may find the sequel significantly more approachable. Visually, the game is stunning. Powered by the [i]Decima Engine[/i], it delivers some of the most impressive environmental detail seen on current-generation hardware. Vast deserts, rugged mountains, violent storms, and surreal supernatural landscapes create a world that is both beautiful and unsettling. The soundtrack is equally memorable, blending atmospheric music with emotional story moments in classic [i]Kojima[/i] fashion. Strong performances from the cast help elevate even the strangest narrative sequences. [b]Death Stranding 2: On the Beach[/b] is a remarkable sequel and one of [i]Hideo Kojima[/i]'s strongest works outside the [i]Metal Gear[/i] era. It refines the original's bold ideas rather than replacing them, delivering a more polished, more emotional, and more entertaining experience from beginning to end. If you enjoyed the first [i]Death Stranding[/i], this is essential. If you were intrigued by the original but struggled with its pacing, the sequel offers a much more refined version of [i]Kojima[/i]'s unique vision. [h1]9.5/10[/h1] DISASTER | BAD | MEDIOCRE | OKAY | GOOD | GREAT | [b][u]AMAZING [/u][/b]| MASTERPIECE [quote] Reviewed on: Win11 Home 64-bit, Intel i5-11600K, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB PRIME, 32GB DDR4-3600 RAM, 2 x Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, Internet Broadband 1000/1000 Mbit[/quote] [quote] If you like this review, then please consider giving it a thumbs up. I've also reviewed other games that you might find interesting. If so please follow [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27418263/] Top of the Chart.[/url][/u]