Death Stranding 2: On the beach is a touching story on love and loss | Video games

In 2019, the video game The author Hideo Kojima and his studio, Kojima Productions, published their highly anticipated game, “Death Stranding”. It was a very divine game, with certain criticisms praising his science fiction universe while others castigated his glorified gameplay of “delivery simulator”. His history concepts were completely out of the box, and probably alone Kojima would have the courage to create such laborious game mechanisms to challenge players.

Its suite, “Death Stranding 2: On The Beach”, is roughly the same melody. He develops the post-apocalyptic framework and tells a touching story about the protagonist, Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus), dealing with love and loss. It also offers new gameplay improvements to make freight transport much less frustrating than in its predecessor.

Due to an event called death that merged the world of living and dead, fatal explosions have occurred that destroyed the environments of the world and collapsed modern society. Its citizens now live in isolated underground bunkers and avoid as many human contacts as possible. “Death Stranding 2” takes place 11 months after the events of the first game, in which Sam connected all of North America to the Chiral network, a system of nodes that connects the different bunkers through the continent and allows the transfer of data and its inhabitants to reconnect again.

This time, Sam takes his talents to Australia, where he has to go through the same process and bring the country to the world chiral network. Along the way, Sam will have to prevent another extinction event from materializing. He is almost beaten for the same conspiracy as the first game, but focuses much more on the origins of Lou, the adoptive baby of Sam.

Lou’s past has been masked in the shadows, but this suite finally helps to establish where it comes from and how it finally got to know Sam. It adds a much more personal touch to the history of Sam than before.

As for the gameplay, the players will have to deliver goods and articles in a large world open in different places – the way in which natural barriers such as mountains, rivers and tundras. Delivery itself is the gameplay. Sam can transport a limited quantity of freight, each article producing its own weight and dimensions, and it is up to you to understand how to balance them on your body. There is a quality of puzzle in the process to ensure you optimize the amount of space you have. By traveling through the field, you will have to be aware of your environment, and not to slip and fall, potentially badly damaging the cargo.

There is a lot of reflection that goes in each delivery, including the costume to wear to camouflage you enemies, as well as the types of boots to wear so that your feet do not bleed and do not empty your HP. There is a huge satisfaction to finish a long trek through the mountains to your destination. Each delivery is different, which maintains the fresh trip despite doing the same thing every time.

What also helps each delivery is the number of builder structures you can build, ranging from Tyrolean roads. The construction of these structures can help facilitate the transport of goods and create a giant network between the different cities is very fulfilling. There is nothing like seeing Sam which takes place easily in the mountains in minutes which could potentially take hours to go on foot. “Death Stranding 2” also incorporates new structures, such as an instant transporter that allows you to quickly return to any city, although your cargo does not come with you, of course, because it would be too easy. You must always do manual work. These new additions are just sufficient for the gameplay of the suite to feel a little more evolved than that of its predecessor, even if it is largely unchanged.

“Death Stranding 2” also has more action and cinematographic moments than before. Sam has a variety of weapons from pistols, machine guns and rockets to fight the freight thieves and the BTs, the latter are dark supernatural entities which move away from life and death. In particular, BTS requires a much more stealthy approach, because getting into contact with a can slide your cargo into a tar swimming pool. These shootings and its meetings provide moments of excitation and tension between monotonous delivery tasks.

However, shooting orders are incredibly fragile. The menu weapons equipment process is bulky, and there have been many cases where I tried to push the left trigger to target views, and my controller was not reactive. These are problems in the first game, and it is disappointing that they were not adequately discussed here, which makes the fight awkward. On the other hand, the game makes a great use of the haptic feedback features of the DualSense controller. You can hear the rain, called timefall, tap slightly through the controller speakers and feel the small bumps while Sam is wrong on a rocky land. The fall in time is a special type of rain that ages quickly and degrades everything it touches. I will receive a notification that my articles deteriorate, while feeling it simultaneously via the controller. The level of immersion increases the atmosphere of the post-apocalyptic world, making you feel a stronger link with its elements of science fiction.

“Death Stranding 2: On the beach” is more or more the same thing, so if you have not appreciated the first game, this suite does not change your mind. The narration and the atmosphere are unrivaled, and the game will be just as divisor as its predecessor. Various improvements help to mitigate some of the most frustrating elements of the cargo delivery gameplay, but the fight is still out of date at times. It is a game in which you will have to put a lot of work to feel satisfaction. If you keep an open mind, you will discover one of the best science fiction universes ever designed.

The publisher provided a review of this title. It is available exclusively for the PS5.