Two years ago, I awarded Death Stranding the first 5/5 score I had ever given in my career as a journalist and critic. Since then, I’ve only assigned this score to two other games – Hades and Persona 5 Strikers. The sentiment towards the former was echoed across sites all over the world, whereas the rather polarising response to the latter stunned me. Of all three games, however, Death Stranding is still the only one that truly epitomises what I think full marks means – it is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most impressively original titles ever developed in this industry.
Kojima Productions unveiled a brand new look at Death Stranding Director’s Cut at Gamescom 2021 last night. While additions like the cargo catapult and buddy bot were already revealed earlier this year, I was elated to see the game’s integration of a jetpack-like stabiliser and all-new missions. Admittedly, I think combat is Death Stranding’s weakest point, and so the introduction of new guns initially came across as strange to me. The more I think about it, however, the more I realise how emphatic and intentional every single element of this brilliantly cohesive text is – if KojiPro thinks Death Stranding needs more combat sequences, I am inclined to believe it is correct.
Related: Death Stranding Is The First Game To Convince Me I Need A PS5
2021 has been a weird year for games. I recently wrote about why I think calling it a bad year is disingenuous – while certain blockbusters were delayed until 2022, plenty of excellent titles have launched in their stead. Still, I can’t in good conscience say that there are any games past or present that have captivated me as potential game of the year candidates quite like Death Stranding Director’s Cut has – when I say it’s my most anticipated game of the year, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
Death Stranding is a special game. Yes, it is often memed as a FedEx simulator, or a Deliveroo simulator, or an insert-other-courier-because-you-are-extremely-original simulator. There’s so much more to Death Stranding than walking around though – in fact, there is so much more to walking around than simply putting one foot in front of the other over and over again. It is not the verb of walking that makes traversing this world special. It is the unconscious, metaphysical response to movement that makes it something that is truly worth celebrating.
To this day, no other game has made me experience wonder or the sublime in the same way as Death Stranding. I know it teems with weird and wacky shit, whopping whales walloping around the wild blue yonder like numbered balls in a lottery machine (I Googled this and learned it is, in fact, called a gravity pick machine – you learn something new every day, eh?). Despite the noise of its absurdity, Death Stranding excels when it is at its most quiet – not necessarily in terms of volume, but atmosphere. The gradual cadence of Low Roar’s I’ll Keep Coming coupled with venturing along unpeopled plains is absorbing in the kind of way that can only be achieved by a video game. Yes, Kojima and his team certainly indulge – and occasionally overindulge – in cinematic techniques. This is a liberty I think they have earned, however, because of how well integrated said techniques are with mechanics, interactivity, and the core of what makes a video game its own unique artistic form.
“You wanky little pretentious bollocks!” I hear you scream, lambasting me for talking about the ethereal experience of Death Stranding in airy-fairy terms that too often appear meaningless. In this case they are not. The only proper way to discuss Death Stranding is to talk about it as a coherent entity designed to be experienced, not just played. Never have I ever been so thoroughly enthralled by a virtual world. It transcends its own lines of code to offer a textured and tremendous setting of immense atmospheric weight. It is simultaneously excruciatingly overbearing and subtly relaxing, a perfect juxtaposition of stress and stresslessness that mirrors its own unbalanced combination of absurdity and the mundane. This is what qualifies the best books as great, and so it’s no wonder that it too is what qualifies Death Stranding as one of the most important and authentically brilliant games in recent memory.
I mean, you can also talk about this piss mushrooms, but… shhh. We're being serious grown ups here, okay? I know at least five words with more than two syllables.
2021 still has more than a few aces in the hole – we’ve got Halo Infinite to look forward to, and Kena and Deathloop and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. Really, though, the most exciting game of 2021 is a game that came out in 2019. Nothing else holds a candle to Death Stranding, and the flame enkindled by the director’s cut will no doubt cause it to burn brighter and bolder than ever.
Next: Deathloop Preview: No Manual Saving Means Tense Stealth And White Knuckle Action
