Even though I had watched several of the trailers that appeared whenever Death Stranding was mentioned, I still had no idea what the game was about. I perhaps could have dug deeper to find out, but I was plenty content with waiting until the game came out, whenever that was.

Then, suddenly, I had the game in hand, and I still had no idea what it was about, other than me immediately screaming:

“Yes! Norman Reedus and his Funky Fetus!” To which, luckily received a good laugh.

But what really is Death Stranding? And is the game all that it was hyped up to be?

First of all, I don’t know how anyone can hype up a game that we know nothing about, but the creator, Hideo Kojima with his shiny solo work after splitting with Konami back in 2016, managed to do it. I wanted to get my hands on this game even though I had no idea what to expect. But, the game looked amazing and incredibly high concept and artistic, so I was all about it from its conception.

Death Stranding stars Norman Reedus as Sam, a porter whose job is to deliver packages safely too different locations under very high-stress conditions. That is a very layman’s way of putting it, considering “high-stress conditions” include things like constant recurring rain that rapidly ages anything it touches, futuristic highwaymen who try and steal all of your packages from you via taser-spears, oh, and of course, the invisible handprint-leaving monster-ghosts that are constantly trying to kill you.

What makes a terrible situation for Sam, however, makes great gameplay for you! Now, I’ve played about 25 hours or so and I’m barely into the game. I want to repeat this. I’ve seen reports that this game is only 40 – 50 hours long. So how is it that I’ve played 25 hours and I’m only on the second section? I think this is where we hit what I’ve heard complaints about and what either makes Death Stranding the game for you… or absolutely not.

The beginning of the game has you pick the difficulty level (Very Easy to Hard), with ‘Hard’ reading as ‘recommended for those who are good at action games’. With both ‘good’ and ‘action games’ being subjective, especially since I had no idea what this game was about, I wussed out and picked ‘Normal’. However…
I’m not sure I would call Death Stranding an action game.

Now, this is what I mean by action being subjective. I recently played Borderlands 3 and Outer Worlds, both which are FPS and let me tell you I, to put it lightly, suck centipede legs at FPSers. But games like Dragon Age or the Zelda series, I’m totally down to mess bad guys up. I consider all of those action games.

In the 25 hours I spent playing Death Stranding… Well, most of it was running around and hoping I didn’t get hit by rain, or me repeatedly saying, ‘I’ll come back for that package later!” as I ran towards my next destination. I’ve only run into BTs a handful of times, and, even though you wind up with grenades and such to combat them, I can just sneak past them. The only time I’m really doing any “action” gaming is when I’m fighting off MULEs (aka: package-stealing punks), but that can be taken care of in a few minutes with some well-timed punches, and then you don’t have to deal with them for awhile. I’ve also stolen their trucks and piled it full off all their stolen goods, built a bunch of roads, nearly drowned a couple of times crossing a river…

What I enjoy about Death Stranding is the traveling. I rather like just going back and forth and taking care of small things like delivering someone’s character figurine waifus or a pizza. I enjoy it when I don’t run into trouble. I like rocking BB (the baby that’s attached to you) and soothing him, or contemplating how Monster energy drinks survived the apocalypse (ah, capitalism!). And the storytelling? Well, most would say its clumsy, but I find it perfectly understandable. And while you may not get all the answers you want, I feel like that is a big different between Eastern and Western storytelling. We like things tied up in neat packages. We don’t like open-endedness, and, when asked to theorize, we don’t like being wrong and looking foolish. But I think guessing what could be going on is most of the fun in Death Stranding. How do BBs really work? Why is my urine able to irritate BTs? Why am I single-handedly restoring the United States of America (or, I’m sorry, the United Cities of America, now)?

Personally, I love this game. The story is interesting, the pacing is casual and can go as fast or slow as you want it, and it’s just so… strange. And, Norman Reedus is an amazing character in this. I’ve never seen anything he’s been in personally, but I’m a huge fan of him as Sam. The game puts interesting personal touches into it that are both funny and creepy when necessary. Have I played better games? Sure, but that doesn’t mean that Death Stranding is a bad game, either. In fact, it’s pretty damn good. I’ve been delivering packages for 25 hours and haven’t even gotten halfway through the storyline.

If you’re looking for a game that is packed full of your typical beat-em-up or shoot-em-up action, look beyond Kojima’s newest work. You might view it as Side Quest the Game, otherwise, as you make Sam travel back and forth delivering package after package with no end in sight.

But, if you think you’d like to try a strange tale with interesting mechanics, with a gorgeous soundtrack for your background music as you travel across detailed scenery, the occasional run-in with thugs and viscerally scary monsters that will throw all of your plans off course, and a weird, creepy-cute baby… you should give it a go.

In all honesty, you will either be lost, or lost in it.

No in-between.