Death Stranding review: One of the top contenders for Game of the Year

On the third day of reviewing Death Stranding, I packed two cans of coffee ahead of time.

Because in the next day's experience, that is, about 7 to 14 hours of progress, the content of Death Stranding is extremely slow. Or as the Internet is now saying, it is extremely "people-picking" - so much so that it makes me sleepy when I play. And I'm pretty sure it has to do with the content of the game.

Overall, Death Stranding is excellent, I give it a 9. Although it is a "takeaway simulator", the main exciting part is still full of island style "ten minutes to start, half an hour to broadcast" movie experience. Crossbow brother, Uncle Michael and other stars are very heavy, the use of cameras and performances are not inferior to Hollywood standards. In addition, its worldview is as grand and ambitious as the plot, with foreshadowing, twists and conflicts fierce. Although it does not have multiple works endorsing the characters like Metal Gear Solid, the characters created in Death Stranding are still quite deep and their manners are moving, and it is worth the player to digest and interpret them slowly during the game.

But in chapters 3, 4, and 5, the slow-burning parts of Death Stranding are too focused and span too long.

First of all, the core gameplay of Death Stranding is indeed a "takeaway simulator." Players to control the crossbow brother first rushed to point A to receive goods, and then to point B to complete the delivery. However, the crossbow brother's waist is not omnipotent, and the weight of the goods can be carried is limited each time, and the movement will be hampered by obvious inertia.

For example, if the crossbow brother turns to the right when running, a few piles of heavy objects on his back will have a high probability of leaning to the left, and the player must timely push the button to hold the balance. Or crossbow brother running at high speed did not avoid the raised stones on the ground, it is possible to be tripped, the goods scattered on the ground, with damage to the cargo box.

Moreover, in Death Stranding, the number and density of stones on the ground is still high, even in a plain landscape with grassy rivers. In order to ensure the safety of the goods as much as possible, even if it is "rushing" and "running map", the player still needs to concentrate and adjust the balance through buttons constantly. The process is not boring. When vehicles such as locomotives are unlocked, the speed of the player's journey will be further increased.

But the applications of these vehicles are quite limited. The truck would stop at full speed when it hit a rock in everything, no higher than Crossbow's knee. Therefore, even with the vehicle, the player still has to turn from time to time to avoid the impact, maintain a very high operating frequency while driving, and the spirit can not relax for a moment.

Crossing the river is no exception. The player scans the terrain beforehand to determine the depth of the riverbed, rather than going straight through it. Wading will also consume physical strength, if the physical strength is exhausted, crossbow brother can not support, the goods will be scattered, floating away.

So I'd like to start with a comment on one of the hottest topics on the Internet about Death Stranding: It's a much better game to play than it looks or sounds. Maybe all you saw was Ballista running, and the operator was scrambling.

But these obstacles can be avoided. The way is to build roads, build cableways, and stride into infrastructure. In addition, when the player travels on the built road, the equipment does not need to use power -- yes, the aforementioned vehicles, as well as the exoskeleton, which is crucial to the player's ability to transport goods in the later part of the game, also consumes power when running.

Therefore, when planning the delivery route, the player should also take into account the power reserve. Only when you are on the road can you be free of these worries.

In addition to large infrastructure such as roads and ropeways, small structures such as charging points, safe houses, and tools such as ladders and climbing ropes can help players overcome the terrain.

Also interfering with Ballista's delivery are BT and the Miers. The former is a black creation that invades the human world in response to the Death Stranding worldview and appears in the game along with time Rain. The division of the United States has something to do with it. To a certain extent, the player is unable to visually capture BT, can only lower the footsteps, timely hold breath, according to the instructions of the detector, try to avoid BT, the gameplay is equivalent to stealth. When the BT approaches, its low roar sound and the detector color deepening, the performance of extreme speed will put psychological pressure on the player.

But aside from the essential battles of the main line, and those very cinematic chapters, none of the battles in Death Stranding are necessary. In other words, these battles have no effect on the player's progression through the main line.

Kojima Hideo also did not give players a hard time. The difficulty of getting rid of BitTorrent, as well as the difficulty of sneaking and fighting inside the Mir camp, is much easier than Hideo Kojima's previous Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Even said, when the player mastered the skill of getting rid of BT, even if in the time rain accidentally disturbed BT, it is easy to get away. At least I myself, except in the first one or two attempts to explore the technique failed to get rid of, the subsequent will be able to get rid of nine out of ten.

When the player knocks down an opponent in the game, there is also a short bullet time. Also, the speed at which the player moves the muzzle during this time has no effect. In other words, after shooting down an enemy, the player will be able to move the gun to the next enemy within the time of the bullet, the combat experience will be very smooth, and the feedback to the player will be stronger.

And more importantly, the difficulty is reduced. So even though the game doesn't seem to have the aim aid turned on by default on PS4 (or to a very small degree), and my gamepad shooting was pretty embarrassing, the main lines of those battles were pretty much dead to me.

That's the roughly open world offline content of Death Stranding. And they will be presented very intensively in chapters 3, 4, and 5.

So, what was the part that bored me? The gameplay of "delivery" is quite commendable. But in the task design, perhaps in order to reflect the crossbow brother's loneliness and hardships across the United States, many of the main line "delivery" tasks of "Death Stranding" are a bit "tormenting" people. In other words, the quality of the "delivery" gameplay is too "pick people".

The torture point, for one, is the electricity. Players have, or do not have, power to run the exoskeleton armor, and the difference in experience when delivering is enormous.

One of the details of the game is that the player needs to adjust the position of the cargo on the crossbow to achieve balance. For example, crossbow brother hung a piece of goods on the left arm, if the right arm did not hang, it is easier to lose balance when running. Of course, in the game, the system will help you deal with the position of the cargo on the crossbow man's body, but from this you can see how persistent and careful the balance of Death Stranding is. Without the support of the exoskeleton armor, the Balo can move the goods almost two or three steps to a backward rhythm. And some main line delivery tasks, it is easy to trigger this situation of power depletion.

The second problem is task design. Death Stranding will place some terrain such as cliffs and snowy mountains on the way to the player to obstruct the progress of the player. But more slowly, the task often has the first player from point A to point B, then back to point A to take the task, go to point C, and then back to point A to take the task, go to point D design. And every step in between is time-consuming and difficult. And, strictly speaking, the experience of these successive tasks occurring in the same landscape area is more or less repetitive.

Therefore, it is not that delivery is not fun, but for some players, it is repeated, continuous occupation time is too long.

But on the other hand, this "torture", with the open world of the "Death Stranding" scenery and music, immersion is also excellent. The maps of Death Stranding do not have as many deliberately planned terraforms as other open worlds to add "exploration points". In addition to the player infrastructure emerging from the surface in online mode, the terrain of this "Death Stranding" is very empty, the field of vision is extremely open, and there are almost no man-made carved traces in the map, it is very lonely, and cold.

In stark contrast to this cold, is the networking mode of human touch.

The online content of Death Stranding is that some of the buildings that players have built in the map, such as Bridges, roads and safe houses, will appear in your map. It takes resources to build a stretch of road, and then players can contribute resources together to build it and make it available to more players. Therefore, if you are drawn into a group of players who are interested in building socialism, you will find that the game will run much easier.

This fits in well with Death Stranding's worldview. In the game, America is divided, people no longer trust each other, no longer contact. Players must travel across the United States, reconnect each location to the Khyrol network, awaken people's sense of belonging, and rebuild the United States. When I trek in the wild and finally see the charging pile built by other players when the resources are about to run out, or the safe house, the feeling is like seeing a few fuzzy lights in the distance on a cold and dark rainy night, which is worth a long sigh of relief and renewed hope.

That said, in Death Stranding, a lot of the incentives Hideo Kojima gives players are purely psychological. In addition to the main story arrangement, it rarely gives the player "stats", "weapon upgrades" and other rewards. What players can gain is more "likes" from NPCS and other players.

Yes, it's "like". For example, if you deliver goods to an NPC, they will give you a thumbs up. If you get a question right in a conversation, they'll give you a thumbs up, or if a facility you built is used by another player, they'll give you a thumbs up. The "like" here is equivalent to the reputation and resources in online games, and belongs to the collectible. But unlike reputation and resources, it has no effect on the content of the game.

So again, this is a "pick people" design. You can ignore it completely until you get through. But like one of my colleagues, you can also enjoy the process of its growth by remembering the number of "likes" you receive every time you log down.

In addition to the facilities, you can also see signs put up by other players online. For example, some players will put up a red warning sign in front of the BT area to remind you to be careful ahead. Some players put up a sign at a fork in the road to guide you. Sometimes when you've just finished a tough BOSS fight, there may be a "thumbs up" sign in front of you from another player to let you know that you're not alone.

Basically, that's the core gameplay of Death Stranding. Prior to the release of the game, Kojima Studios released more than one promotional CG for Death Stranding, but each one made the player see the clouds. Hideo Kojima also kept quiet about the actual gameplay of the game before its release. Now, the gameplay of "Death Stranding" is indeed very innovative and unique. But if you want to force it into a certain genre, it can only be said that it is a "delivery" gameplay, more commonly is a "takeaway simulator" - in the production of "Death Stranding" resources investment, such words are absolutely unattractive, or gimmicks and selling points.

In the metacritic review of Death Stranding, one of the foreign media reviews that gave it a passing score of 60 said that Konami was a shackle for Hideo Kojima, but that this shackle also limited Hideo Kojima's more crazy and self-expressive impulses to a certain extent.

The rating of this review is a little extreme, and I disagree. But as far as the reference to Hideo Kojima's "crazy and self-expression" goes, my understanding to some extent is that if Kojima Studios were under the ownership of big game companies like Konami and EA, then at least the long and repetitive delivery line I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I think it might be cut in half - not that it's bad, but that some players really find it hard to accept.

For example, in the chapters near the final battle, such big games like to ask the player to do a meaningful thing, along with the preparation of the war. Death Stranding does the same thing, but to be honest, the thing it sets up is very meaningful and romantic, but it still contains a bit of "torture" in it. The positive and negative feedback it gives to the player is equally stark.

Conclusion

But writing here, in fact, I still have not expressed the core charm of Death Stranding. Because it's really hard to convey the shock of Death Stranding without talking about the plot and the details of the performance. In some combat chapters, the performance is full of creativity and pressure, you can feel it is in line with Metal Gear Solid 5's Hideo Kojima's extremely dark style, and the design is also very recognizable.

Foreshadowing the script can be found everywhere. For example, in this game, the player will be transported to the beach after death, swim back to the body can be returned to the world, that is, after death, resurrection - but this is actually the "World of Warcraft" running corpse, no different. Once the protagonist dies in the early and middle chapters, this setting actually does not give the player much freshness. However, in the later, the compact film - the popular point is the broadcast, the chapter of the death by the resurrection of the Beach is brilliant, and the player will understand the plot and world view more deeply.

But you can also see from this example that there was too much time between the first time the foreshadowing appeared and when it finally shocked the player. Just like in Hideo Kojima's previous Metal Gear Solid 5, the biggest foreshadows of the whole game occurred in the opening two or three minutes, and the result was the hidden true ending, about 50 hours of the main line before the foreshadows were really revealed. In this "Death Stranding", a similar technique was used again and again by Hideo Kojima.

It is therefore predictable that Death Stranding has received mixed reviews from players. It's also hard for me to predict how much players will change their attitude toward the relatively new gameplay of "delivery" in a few years. But at least outside of the "delivery," its Hideo Kojima, or Metal Gear Solid, stuff is still excellent -- and will make Death Stranding a serious contender for Game of the Year this year.