Streamlined Opening Chapters
Death Stranding can be a monotonous experience, to say the least, but that’s especially true in the opening three or so chapters. During this time you’re coming to grips with the gameplay loop and eccentricities of the game, but the real problem is that all of your deliveries are basically made on foot.
The real novelty of Death Stranding opens up later as you get access to things like bridges, roads, better vehicles, and ziplines. Needless to say, things get a lot more engaging and diverse later on, but boy is it a slog to get there.
There’s simply so much to distract you during the opening chapters, that you could spend tens of hours without even knowing these later options exist.
It’s a barrier that can, frankly, turn off a lot of players who aren’t willing to stick around for things to get good.
It would have been nice to see Death Stranding expedite that opening experience, for players that wanted to progress faster, even if that’s just by letting you know what you’ll gain access to later on.
Refined Shooting and Stealth
Death Stranding does its main gameplay loop of delivering incredibly well, but there are a few other systems that simply don’t feel as well developed.
Both shooting and stealth aren’t used quite as much as the delivery gameplay, and because of that they feel half-baked.
Stealth is the most surprising of the two, considering it’s a Kojima game, but it all just feels too basic with slow sneaking and few options. The same can be said for the shooting, especially since the guns and weapons you carry also factor into your cargo weight.
Sam’s cumbersome movement makes shooting feel more imprecise, which already feels like a pretty standard third-person shooter. You don’t have a ton of options when it comes to weapons, and enemy AI doesn’t do a great job at engaging you either.
While neither of these things are a huge deal initially, the game switches things up to focus more on shooting and stealth later on, making the flaws of the two systems even more apparent.
Even-Paced Storytelling
Just like the Metal Gear Solid series, storytelling is a major aspect of Death Stranding, both in terms of character development and overall narrative. Kojima still has a tendency to use overly long dramatic cutscenes and on-the-nose metaphors, but the pacing feels seriously off.
Death Stranding basically front and back loads its content with story and cutscenes, meaning you’ll get a bunch at the beginning and a bunch at the end, but not much in the middle. It’s the same exact problem Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain suffered from.
Things are super interesting at the start, but then the delivery system almost entirely takes things over, except for when you connect a new system to the Chiral Network, which then basically gives you a dialogue exposition dump.
Then once you start reaching the end things really pick up to reach a crescendo, propped up by the absolutely fantastic acting performances.
Yes, Death Stranding’s story can be ham-fisted, but it’s still interesting at many many point. It would just have been better to see that storytelling more evenly spread out across the entire experience, rather than book-ended.
More Interesting Open-World
Somehow, Death Stranding managed to make completing fetch quests interesting with its core gameplay loop. What can’t be said, however, is that it manages to do the same for open world design. Again, here’s a problem that Metal Gear Solid V also suffered from, an empty open-world.
While the terrain and world itself serve as obstacles in your journey, and that’s fascinating, there’s simply not much there outside of the settlements and outposts you travel to.
Yes there are side quests, but everything essentially boils down to that same delivery system. On top of this, you hardly ever see other characters in person, but rather through Chiral holograms. This helps strengthen that sense of loneliness, but can almost be overkill as it makes the world feel even more empty.
Like I said before, the game’s main delivery loop is so so satisfying, but the world around it could have been more engaging with more activities, or things to see and do. It’s ultimately not a deal-breaker, but still there nonetheless.
For even more on Death Stranding, make sure to check out our official review of the game, or our guide wiki for all the help you might need.
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