Death Stranding 2 Review: Distinctly samey
When the sequel to Hideo Kojima's weird strand-type video game was first announced, I was skeptical. This felt like a one-and-done experiment and I was not exactly excited to drop back into the world of Death Stranding... I felt like the conclusion we reached in the first one was adaquately satisfying and sufficient.
Nevertheless, when Kojima-san puts out a game, you play it; at least to pay your respects to one of gaming's greatest and longest-running creative visionaries.
Gameplay
In general, if you played the previous game you kinda know what to expect in this one. Delivering packages across rough terrain, all the while avoiding a wide variety of enemies, both humanoid and spectral.
As with the previous iteration, most of your time is spent quietly trudging along snowy mountain peaks and shaded valleys, trying to find the optimal way to reach your destination. Making use of player-placed structures feels like a bigger part of this game, with larger distances and more common obstructions. The "connection" aspect of the game is also more strongly emphasized, partially leading to you feeling less lonely, which is a bit antithetical to the isolation theme of the game. The game exibits a bit of a push-and-pull dynamic in this regard, which makes it seem undecided.
In terms of overall feel, one cannot banish the comparisons to Kojimas Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Even Kojima himself introduced several nods to his long-lost Metal Gear franchise, which now rests latently in Konami's hands. The game has frequent "infiltrate the base" quests, and significantly more combat encounters than the first game, which I also feel contributed to the disjointed feeling I got from this. Previously we had a more passive approach to combat: you would fight only as a last resort, whereas this time it feels like you're the aggressor.
Story
In terms of narrative, the sequel exibits a lot more set pieces than its predecessor, and it's a lot more confident in their execution. I feel the Japanese developers really let go of their inhibitions and just went full creative. The result is something that is occasionally akin to the Yakuza series of games, at least as far as accepting non-conformity goes. The game is not afraid to pull weird pizza men, strangly out-of-place dancing sequences and all-around quirkyness consistently.
This style of expression was also present in the first game, but I felt it was a little more subdued. I prefer a more serious video game to a funky one, but this is significantly into personal-preference territory.
On the topic of the narrative thread itself, I feel this was created first and foremost to give Sam (our protagonist) a different, and more acceptable, outlook on society. He goes through a lot and discovers the power of friendship along the way, but it ends up feeling rather tacked-on if I'm honest.
The first game felt like it wanted to say something meaningful, and placed the apropriate enemies and friends along the way in a consistent and thoughtful manner, whereas this felt a lot more like figuring out what to do along the way. The return of Higgs is pretty dissapointingly simple and his motivations are rather weak and flimsy. His only drive switches abruptly at the end when he basically realizes he can try the same move he did in the first game again, only to be anticlimactically stopped before he got to do anything interesting.
There's not much else to be said here, I was dissapointed with the narrative direction, with a similar disparity between Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2 as we had between Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5. The predecessor is clearly better in terms of storytelling than its follow-up, but considerably less engaging in terms of gameplay.
There are nearly no new developments of the Stranding phenomenon throughout the game, no explination on the new BT types (the explination of what BTs are is too long to tackle here. Think of them as danger-ghosts). It's mostly just rehashed conflicts and plot points.
World
Undoubtedly the highlight of this game. Featuring photorealistic enviroments of arid deserts, snowy mountain peaks, lush forests and barren plains, this is once again a triumph of Guerilla's Decima engine, along with the soft touch of Kojima Production's technical expertise and eye for detail.
My only complaint in this regard is that the game does not really let you breathe as much as the predecessor. Most treks are 1-2km in length and are over in a few minutes, with the longer ones only being present to have you trodding previously-explored terrain. You no longer have those long stretches of quiet explorations, peppered with a couple fantastic songs by Low Roar. The basic elements are still there, but significantly downgraded in execution.
I felt very strongly about the brilliant use of music throughout Death Stranding 1, and I am very dissapointed at its implementation in this one. They tried to recreate it, but forgot what made it special in the first place. The moody tracks by Low Roar are mostly replaced with a series of multicultural and sometimes inapropriate pieces that almost always start playing when you are 500m away from the target location. If this sounds like it may be too close to enjoy anything that results from this attempt at atmosphere, you are absolutely right!
Most of the time, I got to my destination after 30s from the song's start and almost never got to experience the same awe that I had in the first game. This may be due to the placement of enemy encampments along the way, but I see this as a sign that fewer enemy camps/BT zones were needed.
Conclusion
My words may seem like I had a bad time with the game, but I truly did not. This is a fun video game, with a relatively low skill entry-threshold. It's satisfying to make deliveries and the set pieces and story are overall fun. It's just not in any way Game of the Year contender, and I feel anyone comparing it to Clair Obscur must not be serious. It's an entertaining game, but it is not one that will remain in my memory for long after finishing it, and its certainly not a Playstation console seller.