Sam trudges through snow stained in coagulated dirt. It’s grim, gritty, and viscerally defeatist. At the same time, though, it’s strangely slow and tranquil – a kind of Romantic sublimity that juxtaposes extreme difficulty with the conscious recognition of your place in nature. These are the best parts of Death Stranding: the walks, the treks, and the many, many stumbles. Thankfully, Director’s Cut seems to understand that.
During this week’s State of Play, we got yet another look at Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, which is now confirmed to be launching for PS5 on September 24. It’s still a little unclear as to what kind of extra content we can expect in this new iteration of Kojima Productions’ behemoth delivery sim, although I’d like to think we’re in for a treat.
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When I first watched the trailer, I was a bit weirded out. The worst thing about Death Stranding is the MULE fights – after all, this is a game that’s at its absolute best when you’re alone, solitarily listening to the harmonies between an excellently curated soundtrack and the ambient hums of nature it’s designed to texture. Slugging people who hang out in weird camps is pretty at odds with that – approximately 100 percent of my least favourite moments in Death Stranding are directly related to combat.
I liked the BT combat much more, for what it’s worth, because it was a carefully crafted combination of slick stealth and tactical traversal. We’re not getting another golden umbilical cord snips though – we’re getting more guns. ‘What’s the point in that?’ I shouted at my monitor last night, which had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be berated for a trailer I asked it to show. The thing is, ‘the point in that’ is a lot, actually.
I mean, it’s right there above, isn’t it – Death Stranding’s shooter combat leaves a lot to be desired. This is a director’s cut, which means it’s the whole game again except with more content this time around. It’s got save transfer support, so you don’t have to play through the 60-hour campaign again just to see the new stuff, but I for one am absolutely starting from the beginning and engaging with the additional story beats as they come. The single thing deterring me from a full replay was the fact I’d have to shoot lads in weird hazmat suits again, or Mad Mads’ silly little skeleton armies in World War 2 bunkers that are actually a beach, apparently. I love Dad Mads and Sad Mads, mind, but the militaristic, parallel universe Mikkelsen was a bit of a pain in the arse. Why did he keep hiding underwater in swamps? What was with the hand gestures? How has he convinced reanimated corpses to do his bidding? Kojima is convoluted at the best of times, but Mads’ warzone was a step too far, I think.
It’s not as if guns are the only new thing, either. We’re getting cargo catapults – which, I feel obliged to say, sound incredible – as well as a new buddy bot to help us with deliveries. The delivery system itself is apparently being revamped, while a whole host of additional story beats are being implemented as part of the director’s cut. That’s only based on what we know so far, too – knowing Kojima, there will probably be quite a lot of content in Director’s Cut that we’ll have no idea exists until we see it for ourselves. It will probably be the weirdest, most unique content of the lot, too.
I’ve already written about how Death Stranding is the only game around town that can justify a director’s cut – unlike Ghost of Tsushima, which doesn’t appear to know what a director’s cut is – as well as how Death Stranding is the first game to convince me I need to buy a PS5. I gave this game 10/10 when it launched in November 2019, so it would be easy to claim that this argument is coming from a position of bias. I don’t think it’s overly biased, though, to suggest that Death Stranding adding more varied combat after being specifically criticized for being lackluster in that area is a good idea. Yes, I want more deliveries. Yes, I want new story beats. Yes, I want changes to how much we can influence the world by building structures, connecting otherwise detached areas in order to bridge gaps for fledgling and veteran porters alike.
But do you know what? I also don’t want to go “ugh” every single time I get to a mandatory combat sequence. The Bola Gun was alright, but aside from that they were all rubbish – well, the piss grenades were funny, at least, but they were mostly used in the already decent BT combat. Death Stranding adding both new weapons and new delivery features to the director’s cut is not a bad thing – if anything, it’s an attempt to rectify what it did poorly and build on what it did well. The more I see about Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, the more firmly on board I become – roll on September 24, eh?
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