With Death Stranding, developer Kojima Productions, the studio of Hideo Kojima, the legendary creator of Metal Gear Solid, presents its latest game and transports you to a post-apocalyptic America populated by strange characters. As in other games by this manufacturer, exposition takes up a lot of space here and the background story is told through cutscenes. It is the quiet game moments in the rough and evocative wilderness that make Death Stranding a unique experience that you have not experienced in this form before.
Background information
You control Sam Porter Bridges, played in the game by Norman Reedus, known from The Walking Dead, a courier who delivers shipments across the entire North American continent, which here represents the destroyed remains of the former United States. An supernatural disaster has driven the survivors of humanity into underground cities, while on the surface, among other things, the BTs, called ghosts, and rain, which rapidly ages anything it touches, can be found.
The goal of the game
Your mission is to roam the North American continent from east to west, connecting scattered settlements with the Chiral Network, which is a successor to the Internet. Sam was chosen for this task because he is reputed to deliver everything within the set time frame and be able to perceive the usually invisible BTs with the help of a creepy baby strapped to his chest. The fact of Sam's immortality makes him the ideal candidate in the eyes of his superiors to restore America to its former strength.
Most of the time in the game you spend outdoors between the different places that need to be supplied. The environment offers some challenges for you and makes it desirable to survive your travels. The game world is reminiscent of a beautiful Scandinavian landscape and creates a fascinating atmosphere with its huge dimensions. Your paths through the landscape take you past snow-capped mountains, steaming cracks in the earth, raging rivers, dense forests and wide plains, all of which are stunningly depicted in graphics and sound.
Game principle
Death Stranding is a brilliant simulator for hiking and mountaineering, because each section of the rough terrain is a puzzle that you have to solve. If you go too fast, Sam may stumble, stagger, lose his balance and fall into raging rivers or slide down steep slopes and damage or even lose his cargo. In addition, there are sometimes extreme weather conditions, so Death Stranding requires a slow approach, where every step needs to be well thought out. To fulfill your task, you have ladders and ropes at your disposal at first, to which many more tools are added as the game progresses. With increasing game time you get access to an exoskeleton that lets Sam run faster and carry more as well as vehicles. Since the amount of cargo is always limited, the strategic decision of the equipment choice is at the beginning of each mission.
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