Latest news with #DeathStranding
Daily Maverick
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding 2: A bold exploration of grief and redemption awaits
Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding 2: On the Beach successfully captures the magic promised by the original game, and it'll go down in history as one of the definitive games of the PS5 era. Death Stranding was an unusual proposition when it first launched. A post-apocalyptic courier sim was a hard sell in 2019, and its divisive structure — long cinematics punctuated by laborious treks — meant it didn't land for everyone. But there was an undeniable charm to it, a unique magic that helped it stand apart from the sea of third-person shooters and live-service games of its time, cementing its legacy as a flawed classic. Six years later, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach continues Sam Porter Bridges's story, this time across a new continent. Like most sequels, it expands on the original's ideas, but it's also bolder, more refined and proudly wears its sincere heart on its sleeve. It's not just one of legendary developer Hideo Kojima's best games; it's a love letter to life, connection, and meaning from a developer who has grown into one of the great elder statesmen of the games industry. That sentimentality is woven into every pixel, whether through sly glances at the camera or offhand lines loaded with deeper meaning. It's also a faster-paced experience, ditching the slow burn of the original's prologue. If you never played the original, the gist of it is that our weary protagonist has shut himself off from the world after the loss of a loved one, and he eventually embarks on a journey across the Australian continent to heal. Naturally, things get more complicated — this is a Kojima game, after all — and Sam's journey is fraught with peril and ghosts from the past. On that front, Death Stranding 2 is a major leap forward, building on the 2021 Death Stranding Director's Cut and layering in even more gameplay depth. At its core, this is still a hiking simulator mixed with puzzle elements, where plotting your path from Point A to B while carrying precious cargo takes planning, patience, and a good pair of boots. That extends to combat and stealth as well, as these two facets of the game have been significantly improved. While they felt like an afterthought in the original game, the action-packed side of Death Stranding 2 plays like a spiritual successor to Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series, resulting in snappier throwdowns with brigands from the land Down Under, or tense moments when you're holding your breath and sneaking into position so that you can take out BTs with a well-aimed blood-grenade. Yet the game's finest moments are often its quietest: scenes of Sam alone with the world, pushing forward one determined step at a time. These stretches of solitude, set to a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack by Ludvig Forssell and Woodkid, reinforce the game's themes with subtle power. If the first Death Stranding was about connection, this sequel deepens that message while exploring grief, isolation, and healing. These themes are thoroughly explored through an emotional storyline anchored by stellar performances from Kojima's cast of celebrity buddies. Norman Reedus is once again the world-weary Sam, and while he's as laconic as ever, the returning Fragile — played by the amazing Lea Seydoux — is a ray of sunshine and a perfect counterpart to him. The cast has also expanded, with even more characters brought to life through a combination of famous faces and voice actors helping to propel the story along by rattling off some of the most absurd yet delightful lines you've ever heard. Special mention has to go to Troy Baker as the villainous Higgs. As Sam's nemesis, he's a scene-stealing force of nature looking to bring about the downfall of humanity once and for all. Rocking a new Crow-inspired look — and a battle-axe guitar — Baker steals the show with a gleefully over-the-top performance and gripping moments of nuanced pain. Visually, Death Stranding 2 is staggering. There are moments so surreal and breathtaking that you'll instinctively pause just to absorb them. It's a triumph of design and artistic ambition: brilliantly weird, deeply earnest, and utterly unforgettable. This is a game that urges you to go outside and touch some grass, then dares you to dream about what might lie beyond it. DM
Otago Daily Times
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Beached as, bro
REVIEWED BY BEN ALLAN Is Hideo Kojima the world's last rock-star game developer? It's difficult to think of anyone else these days who would have the clout - and get the funding - to make a triple-A game as extremely idiosyncratic as Kojima Production's Death Stranding 2: On The Beach . To be fair, maybe the funding part was easy. The first Death Stranding (2019) sold 19 million copies, so plenty of people were on board to steer The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus (captured here again down to the minute details of the moles on his face) as he lugged packages across a post-apocalyptic United States. This reviewer missed out though, so coming into On the Beach , I had a bit to catch up on. Oh boy. So: the dead have returned to the world of the living as ghostly "BTs" (beached things); they brought with them a crystalline substance that has empowered new technologies but ruined others (like aeroplanes); you can see them with a bit of tech that requires you to carry around an unborn baby in a little pod; and if the BTs ever manage to consume a living being (which they seem keen to), something akin to a nuclear explosion goes off. As a result, there was a bit of an apocalypse, which ended up with the world's remaining population reduced to huddling in isolated bunkers and cities, cut off from one other and relying on porters, like Reedus' character Sam, to make lonely supply deliveries between them across a perilous landscape. In the first game Sam made his way one load at a time across the US, connecting these settlements to the "chiral network" (a sort of tech-magic internet) handily averting the extinction of humanity while he was at it. At the outset of the second, he's something of a fugitive (having run off to illegally raise his little pod-pal, Lou), but is soon brought back into the fold to continue the mission of spreading the chiral network, this time into Mexico - and then, thanks to some more Death Stranding -world magic - across the whole of Australia. So yes, in a way you could simulate the experience of playing this game by joining the exodus across The Ditch and getting a job with Australia Post - but you'd miss out on a lot. Much of the game is spent just navigating Sam by night and day across the graphically gorgeous wilderness of Australia (filled with what seem to be authentic Aussie voice actors, which is nice), which serves up hazards such as local earthquakes, storms, flash floods, bush fires, and just plain overbalancing on a scree slope due to your towering backpack, faceplanting, and sliding 30m downhill - likely one of the more wince-inducing experiences in gaming. (Oh, and there's the magic rain that rapidly ages things, too.) Sam has plenty of options to facilitate his journey, from ladders and climbing ropes up to more high-tech options like hovering cargo platforms and off-road vehicles, though everything he brings along with him must be managed as part of his overall load. It's gameplay of quiet satisfaction: planning your route, packing well, the often Zen-like quality of the journey itself, and the "job well done" of cargo delivered undamaged at the destination (uh, or maybe just a bit damaged - sorry, there were these ghosts). Your fellow porters are with you along the way, too. Though they never enter your game directly, you're able to share resources and supplies with other Beach players via the game's "Strand" system, which can include answering quests for aid, leaving signs or structures for others to find, completing your fellow players' deliveries, or collaborating on larger projects like road-building. There's a little buzz to the game letting you know that scores of people have used a bridge you built, but it's possibly even cooler to learn that a single player elsewhere in the world stumbled across and took shelter in the little hut you left halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Your travel vlogging, though, is interrupted by regular combat encounters out in the wilds, both with human banditry and the BTs. The former provide some fun, if standard, third-person melee / ranged / stealth encounters, with the wrinkle of occasionally finding yourself in a four-man brawl while wearing a backpack the size of a fridge. BTs though, while nicely terrifying, are a bit of a pain in the butt, employing a "tar" mechanic that often leaves Sam struggling to move, and are most heavily damaged by grenades that can be tricky to aim. They're also your opponents for most of the game's boss fights, which can be exercises in frustration until you adapt to the rhythm of managing your inventory on the go while fighting. Actual gameplay, though, is only so much of the On the Beach experience. If Kojima is a rock star, he's David Bowie - arty, outre and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, no matter how weird. Get ready for Hollywood directors galore, forensically motion captured, to drop in as actors, Lea Seydoux to keep crying a Single Tear of Emotion while wearing a scarf that's a spare pair of hands, and red-hooded cultists schlepping their evil leader around through phantom tar in a Gothic techno-sarcophagus. Careening from bizarre to moving and back, the story makes the most of the possibilities of a world in which the afterlife is real, technology is basically magic and people can come back from the dead, taking big swings at big themes of loss, the importance of human connection and the inevitability of our extinction - all while pulling moves like "so this character is called Dollman, he's a possessed ventriloquist's dummy. Just roll with it". While it is a lot (and you sometimes have cause to wonder if anyone ever tells Kojima he has had a bad idea), it just about all comes together as something that's often quite profound. Perhaps more striking than this though is that as a gaming experience, it's so very singular - the sort of different that's normally destined to be ironed out of games with giant budgets that need the broadest possible appeal. You're simply unlikely to play anything like Death Stranding 2 until, well, probably Death Stranding 3 . So hitch up your pack, head for the horizon and think heavy thoughts about how human connection is all we have as our species heads into terminal decline. Oh, and also, Norman Reedus' bladder meter is full; press circle to have him pee in a bush.
Otago Daily Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Review: Beached as, bro
Is Hideo Kojima the world's last rock-star game developer? It's difficult to think of anyone else these days who would have the clout — and get the funding — to make a triple-A game as extremely idiosyncratic as Kojima Production's Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. To be fair, maybe the funding part was easy. The first Death Stranding (2019) sold 19 million copies, so plenty of people were on board to steer The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus (captured here again down to the minute details of the moles on his face) as he lugged packages across a post-apocalyptic United States. This reviewer missed out though, so coming into On the Beach, I had a bit to catch up on. Oh boy. So: the dead have returned to the world of the living as ghostly "BTs" (beached things); they brought with them a crystalline substance that has empowered new technologies but ruined others (like aeroplanes); you can see them with a bit of tech that requires you to carry around an unborn baby in a little pod; and if the BTs ever manage to consume a living being (which they seem keen to), something akin to a nuclear explosion goes off. As a result, there was a bit of an apocalypse, which ended up with the world's remaining population reduced to huddling in isolated bunkers and cities, cut off from one other and relying on porters, like Reedus' character Sam, to make lonely supply deliveries between them across a perilous landscape. In the first game Sam made his way one load at a time across the US, connecting these settlements to the "chiral network" (a sort of tech-magic internet) handily averting the extinction of humanity while he was at it. At the outset of the second, he's something of a fugitive (having run off to illegally raise his little pod-pal, Lou), but is soon brought back into the fold to continue the mission of spreading the chiral network, this time into Mexico — and then, thanks to some more Death Stranding-world magic — across the whole of Australia. So yes, in a way you could simulate the experience of playing this game by joining the exodus across The Ditch and getting a job with Australia Post — but you'd miss out on a lot. Much of the game is spent just navigating Sam by night and day across the graphically gorgeous wilderness of Australia (filled with what seem to be authentic Aussie voice actors, which is nice), which serves up hazards such as local earthquakes, storms, flash floods, bush fires, and just plain overbalancing on a scree slope due to your towering backpack, faceplanting, and sliding 30m downhill — likely one of the more wince-inducing experiences in gaming. (Oh, and there's the magic rain that rapidly ages things, too.) Sam has plenty of options to facilitate his journey, from ladders and climbing ropes up to more high-tech options like hovering cargo platforms and off-road vehicles, though everything he brings along with him must be managed as part of his overall load. It's gameplay of quiet satisfaction: planning your route, packing well, the often Zen-like quality of the journey itself, and the "job well done" of cargo delivered undamaged at the destination (uh, or maybe just a bit damaged — sorry, there were these ghosts). Your fellow porters are with you along the way, too. Though they never enter your game directly, you're able to share resources and supplies with other Beach players via the game's "Strand" system, which can include answering quests for aid, leaving signs or structures for others to find, completing your fellow players' deliveries, or collaborating on larger projects like road-building. There's a little buzz to the game letting you know that scores of people have used a bridge you built, but it's possibly even cooler to learn that a single player elsewhere in the world stumbled across and took shelter in the little hut you left halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Your travel vlogging, though, is interrupted by regular combat encounters out in the wilds, both with human banditry and the BTs. The former provide some fun, if standard, third-person melee / ranged / stealth encounters, with the wrinkle of occasionally finding yourself in a four-man brawl while wearing a backpack the size of a fridge. BTs though, while nicely terrifying, are a bit of a pain in the butt, employing a "tar" mechanic that often leaves Sam struggling to move, and are most heavily damaged by grenades that can be tricky to aim. They're also your opponents for most of the game's boss fights, which can be exercises in frustration until you adapt to the rhythm of managing your inventory on the go while fighting. Actual gameplay, though, is only so much of the On the Beach experience. If Kojima is a rock star, he's David Bowie — arty, outre and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, no matter how weird. Get ready for Hollywood directors galore, forensically motion captured, to drop in as actors, Lea Seydoux to keep crying a Single Tear of Emotion while wearing a scarf that's a spare pair of hands, and red-hooded cultists schlepping their evil leader around through phantom tar in a Gothic techno-sarcophagus. Careening from bizarre to moving and back, the story makes the most of the possibilities of a world in which the afterlife is real, technology is basically magic and people can come back from the dead, taking big swings at big themes of loss, the importance of human connection and the inevitability of our extinction — all while pulling moves like "so this character is called Dollman, he's a possessed ventriloquist's dummy. Just roll with it". While it is a lot (and you sometimes have cause to wonder if anyone ever tells Kojima he has had a bad idea), it just about all comes together as something that's often quite profound. Perhaps more striking than this though is that as a gaming experience, it's so very singular — the sort of different that's normally destined to be ironed out of games with giant budgets that need the broadest possible appeal. You're simply unlikely to play anything like Death Stranding 2 until, well, probably Death Stranding 3. So hitch up your pack, head for the horizon and think heavy thoughts about how human connection is all we have as our species heads into terminal decline. Oh, and also, Norman Reedus' bladder meter is full; press circle to have him pee in a bush. By Ben Allan From: Sony / Kojima Productions
Metro
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Civilization 6 and all its DLC is free right now but you'll have to be quick
Death Stranding, Marvel's Spider-Man, Alan Wake 2, and others have been discounted in the Epic Games Store Summer Sale, which includes a notable freebie too. The Epic Games Store might not be as popular as its rival Steam, but it is surprisingly generous when it comes to free games. The platform has been dishing out free games every week for around five years now. Over this past month alone, it has given out the likes of Sable, Two Point Hospital, and Backpack Hero. For the latest freebie, Epic is targeting strategy fans, with Sid Meier's Civilization 6. Best of all, it comes with all the expansions and DLC. The platinum edition of Civilization 6 is completely free right now on the Epic Games Store until Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 4pm BST. This edition comes with both expansions, Rise And Fall and Gathering Storm, along with all six DLC packs. Developed by Firaxis Games, the 2016 sequel is widely considered one of the best entries in the series. If you're unfamiliar (and as the name implies), the game involves developing your own civilisation in a race to defeat opponents, whether through military prowess, technological superiority, or cultural influence. It's a good way to test your interest in its recent sequel, Civilization 7, which came out in February this year across PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and recently Nintendo Switch 2. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Although so far most fans would agree that Civilization 6 is still the better game, especially with all its DLC. Once this offer expires next week, the next free game on the Epic Games Store will be Legion TD 2, a multiplayer tower defense game. More Trending This isn't the only bargain currently on the store. Epic is hosting a summer sale right now, which runs until July 31, 2025. Some highlights include Alan Wake 2 for £15.99, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered for £24.99, and Death Stranding: Director's Cut for £14.39. Elsewhere, Assassin's Creed Shadows is 25% off at £44.99, while EA Sports FC 25 is a whopping 80% off at £11.99, ahead of the series' next entry. If you're in the market for a bargain in the console space, many deals from Amazon Prime Day are still ongoing and Sony is hosting a massive summer sale on the PlayStation Store. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Shadow Labyrinth review – Pac-Man meets Metroid MORE: Cyberpunk 2077 fans think new update secretly runs better on PS5 Pro MORE: Fans fear both EA Sports FC 26 cover stars have been hit by FIFA curse
Time of India
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach review: Storytelling at its finest
I didn't play the first Death Stranding, but Death Stranding 2 : On the Beach still managed to draw me in completely. The studio has done a great job with the prologue it gave me more than enough context to understand the world, characters, and stakes, without ever feeling lost. Set eleven months after the original game, the story follows Sam Porter Bridges , now living a quiet life in the southern UCA with his adopted daughter, Lou. That peace doesn't last long, as Fragile arrives with news of her new company, Drawbridge, which has been contracted by the UCA to expand the chiral network into Mexico. What starts as a straightforward mission soon expands globally. Sam's task to activate old BRIDGES terminals in Mexico leads to the discovery of 'plate gates' transcontinental portals that now link countries, including a direct connection between Mexico and Australia. The world remains unstable, with the extinction event still ongoing. BTs have evolved, natural disasters like 'gate quakes' are becoming more frequent, and human threats from bandits to terrorists haven't disappeared either. One of the most compelling twists for me came with the revelation around APAS 4000 a sentient delivery system formed from 4,000 human souls fused with AI. Its mission to 'save' humanity by turning all people into souls was both eerie and philosophically dense, the kind of high-concept sci-fi that works really well in Kojima's universe. Then there's Higgs back from the dead with a robotic body and a new goal: triggering the 'Last Stranding,' humanity's final extinction. His plan hinges on a mysterious young woman named Tomorrow, whom Sam rescues from the realm of the dead. As Sam, Fragile, and the crew of the DHV Magellan set out to connect Australia to the network and stop Higgs and APAS, the story really takes off. I particularly enjoyed how the game handles its revelations from Fragile's condition to emotional moments tied to Sam's past with Lucy and Neil. Despite not knowing the full backstory, those scenes still landed with weight and emotion. By the time Sam defeats Higgs and averts the Last Stranding, the sense of sacrifice and scale feels earned. Even for someone new to the world of Death Stranding, I found the narrative engaging, layered, and surprisingly accessible and the twists kept me hooked throughout. Game Play Review Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is my first experience with the series and honestly, I get the fandom now. Despite not having played the original, the game did a solid job easing me into its mechanics and world. What started off as curiosity quickly turned into genuine appreciation for its bold approach to gameplay, storytelling, and atmosphere. In fact, after finishing this, I'm now planning to go back and play the first one. The core of Death Stranding 2 still revolves around traversal and connection but it's far more layered and refined than I expected. As Sam Porter Bridges, you trek across beautifully rendered, often hostile landscapes spanning regions like Mexico and Australia. The visual detail powered by the Decima engine is breathtaking, but it's also functional; terrain, weather, and hazards like Timefall (rain that accelerates aging) constantly shape how you move and plan, making nature itself a formidable part of the experience. What surprised me most was how much the game has evolved in terms of combat and player agency. From what I've read, the first game had fairly basic combat. Here, you're given the flexibility to approach encounters your wa, whether through stealth, full-blown action, or avoiding conflict entirely. A new skill tree supports these choices, and the expanded arsenal, smarter enemy design, and quality-of-life features like a holster slot make combat feel smoother and more strategic. Traversal has also been thoughtfully upgraded. New vehicles like the Tri-Cruiser and a buildable monorail system make long-distance travel more efficient, especially when transporting heavy cargo. And the social strand system, where players can leave behind structures that show up in others' games really stood out to me. It's one of the most creative multiplayer systems I've seen, subtly reinforcing the game's central theme of connection without ever breaking immersion. Even the smaller improvements like faster cargo management and optional exposition show that the developers have listened to player feedback. The pacing remains deliberate, and the delivery-focused gameplay loop won't be for everyone, but I found myself leaning into its meditative rhythm and surprisingly emotional moments. Death Stranding 2 isn't just a sequel for me; it was an entry point into a world I now want to explore more of. The story, mechanics, and sense of scale all clicked in a way I didn't expect. And if this is what Kojima's vision looks like, I'm genuinely excited to see where it all began. Verdict This game is indeed a love letter for players who are enthusiastic about open world games. If you are not interested in the world of the game, I highly suggest checking it out for this aspect itself. We are certain even if you enter the game from this perspective you will stay back for the story as well.
