➤ Death Stranding, the review for PC 🎮

A couple of weeks ago we went back to talking about Death Stranding, giving some little taste of what it meant for us to re-immerse ourselves fully in Kojma's imagination. With the passing of the days we went deeper, we also dug into those PCist details so dear to the category and put the game under pressure from a technical point of view. As for this last aspect, we refer you to an upcoming dedicated special; in the meantime we try to sum up this highly anticipated port, perhaps the most awaited in recent years, through the Death Stranding review for PC.

We recommend that you also retrieve the analysis of the PlayStation 4 version for an even more complete overview of the title, while we try to tell you why Death Stranding is really a great experience.

A story of death, a story of life

Death Stranding is about death. Death Stranding is about life. Two opposites, two irreconcilable realities, but also two ineluctable truths. Last November we told you how the hope contained in the tragedy of this story represents a great declaration of love for humanity by Kojima. Able to make and undo, create and destroy. But it is certainly also an accusation, which puts on the plate our faults and the lack of attention towards others as well as the world in which we live. It was our community that ran aground and in this cold and aseptic environment it was the figure of the gods couriers, derided for years and then confirmed, to represent the only glimmer of humanity in a divided and irreconcilable world.

What really surprises is the irony with which the real world then hit anyone who had a big laugh, putting us after a few minutes from the exit in front of a reality fortunately not so tragic, but absurdly damn close to that narrated in Death Stranding. The psycho-physical need to return to connect ourselves with others has been a prevailing sensation in the past months of our lives and, precisely those couriers that we took for granted in everyday life, have turned for many into an anchor of salvation, even if only from a psychological point of view.

It makes you smile to analyze the Sam's journey, the protagonist played by N, because a few months after the first release and after sterile and insubstantial controversies, the world itself has confronted us with the great need for the role of the courier, for the connection it is able to bring. On the other hand, it is also true that what the work of Kojima Productions tries to do is precisely to make us reflect on what we take for granted, on a communicability that has reached its peak today but which, to see it well, is not reflected. in the right sharing of intentions.

We want to avoid ruining narrative implications for those who will experience their journey for the first time, but if you intend to really deepen some of the themes and symbolisms of Death Stranding, we refer you to the special that we had dedicated precisely to this purpose. Sam's journey is studded with despair, fleeting encounters, death and a number of questions certainly higher than the number of answers. It is not a perfect narrative and, even today, it does not transform Kojima into the perfect film scriptwriter, but it is undeniable that it is one of the most powerful experiences of recent years and, as such, it is right to treat it.

If what you are looking for is a profound, philosophical reflection, almost abstract in some details, but damn true of what we have been and are becoming as humanity, Death Stranding is for you. If you are able, after months, to grasp the elements that have brought the imaginary of Death Stranding even closer to our everyday life, just as powerful will be the perception of reflection and of the message, that note of warning and hope that is the spark that moves the whole work.

I Piacina

Death Stranding, in full Kojimian style, also brings with it some ingenious touches that have always characterized the work of the Japanese game designer and that for an equally long time have divided users for the tones and dissonance they create in the gameplay. The last work is no exception and, among the various particular elements, certainly the mechanics of asynchronous multiplayer inserted into the game world. Connecting Knot Cities, logistics centers and various preppers around America also means increasing your reputation and collecting "likes". The social yardstick of the twenty-first century becomes the great currency of Death Stranding, allowing you to raise your feats and get talked about both among NPCs and among other players. Traveling to the game map it means crossing an inordinate amount of structures, furnishings, signs, roads, etc. built by other players and to whom we could leave our liking, as well as receive it in turn. The increase in likes translates into the growth of our reputation and the increase of our "courier level", details, however, for their own sake. If this would normally be considered an evil, it is evident that the will is precisely to avoid giving the impression of a progression to objectives. The like is a small token of thanks within something much bigger: your help to reconnection of the human race.

Simulation

Too often the term simulator it is used with a negative meaning. Especially from a slice of the public, that console, not very used to the genre and easily attacked by the boredom of inaction. Death Stranding has always been a perfect title for the PC because it refers to that type of user and manages to digest, in addition to its crazy story, a widely criticized gameplay.

What is true and incontrovertible is that Death Stranding is a delivery simulator. Not extremely realistic, not paying attention to every single detail, not of those who want to make you feel ready to start your own shipping company. The whole idea of game design starts from the concept of putting ourselves in the shoes of a lonely man, unable to communicate, physically unable to contact and with a hazy and dark past. Although these elements may represent the prerequisite for a negative character, on the contrary Sam dedicates his life to good of humanity, to ideally connect people through his hand deliveries, taking risks as few others could. From here extend dozens and dozens of hours of staid gameplay, declined in long walks through wastelands and few encounters, characterized by the growth of one's skills and the discovery of new technologies that can facilitate our travels but which, at the same time, lead us to collide with an increasingly impervious American territory.

To collect loads and bringing them to their destination, between small logistics centers and what remains of the large cities of the western continent, is also and above all equivalent to allowing us to reactivate the chiral network: an instrument halfway between the technology of our world and something unknowable, the only energetic instrument at our disposal and tied hand in glove with the appearance of the dead. The union of the two worlds meant that the chiralium took over everything else, initially only as a threat and then, thanks to its great energy load, known and exploited by man to his own advantage.

This is how we are able to print any object in a few moments, or to reconstruct suspended roads where the old highways connected people and places in record time. Death Stranding is totally attributable to a great metaphor and the gameplay that emerges, managed with obsessive attention to detail, is constantly developing in the service of this metaphor declined in Sam's journey.

Alongside the outings on foot or aboard a few low-energy vehicles, there are a few (fortunately) moments of action that undoubtedly do not shine for realization. During Sam's journey you will be called to confront different factions, which are the Muli (people suffering from a particular pathology, based on dependence on delivery, which pushes them to theft of loads), or unlike terrorists led by one of the main (and among the best) characters in history or even within the most imaginations of production and which we will not tell you about. Certainly the CA (Stranded Creatures) cannot be missing, the physical and tangible manifestation of the union of our world with that of the dead. The clashes with them pass from stealth sections which require not to be identified, up to the open-faced skirmish, which however never convinces in its simple and shallow structure.

In light of their presence, it is impossible not to highlight even their smallness. While it is true that fortunately we are talking about rare and sporadic moments, some of these represent narrative junctions so important that it is anger to see the listlessness with which they were made, left aside with will and stuffed with TPS mechanics really too basic not to consider them mediocre. Exactly as we said last November, we are talking about a few minutes in a journey capable of lasting between 35 and 70 hours only on its first passage. What we recommend is to take your time and investigate, as we have been allowed to do on a few other occasions. On the other hand the rain time it is there, to remind us how time passes very fast and we should make the most of it.

Unpublished content

The wait was long, but Kojima Production tried to repay the trust and patience of PC users with some interesting additions. The collaboration with Valve, which led to the creation of six new quests dedicated to Half-Life and Portal, certainly does not revolutionize a structure that remains mostly the same but which, alongside the new cosmetic items, also includes some gadgets and certainly interesting means of transport. We do not want to reveal what it is and maybe the most savvy could get there thinking about the reference franchises, but even if we are talking about small trifles, we appreciated the choice and we recognize its goodness.

Death Stranding on PC

We have already told you and we reconfirm it: Death Stranding on PC it is splendid. The possibility of seeing the devastated and natural world that characterizes the imaginary of the game with an even higher level of detail and the unlocked frame rate, is truly a feast for the eyes. The graphic options that can be changed are not many, but this does not mean that the title is not very scalable. The awareness of already having an extraordinary console base - thanks also to a Decima Engine crazy and that bodes well for the port of Horizon: Zero Dawn - has pushed the Japanese developer not to dare on the increase of detail, but rather to push on post processing, on general cleaning, on the increase of the visual horizon and on the fluidity, all details that will allow a vast array of configurations to enjoy the game to its full potential.

Confirming the excellent work carried out on the conversion, we cannot fail to mention the support a mouse and keyboard, which are confirmed as the best control tool for a title based on the management of menu and the arrangement of various objects and elements. The reworked mapping as regards the weight of the load, this time delegated to the two main mouse buttons, does not allow you to make the sensitivity of the stroke of a trigger your own, but it remains functional and well elaborated, also avoiding to tire the player too much.

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam, PlayStation Store Resources4Gaming.com

9.2

Readers (84)

8.4

Your vote

Death Stranding arrives on PC to delight even the most savvy gamers. Whether you are a supporter of Kojima's work or not, the least you should do is give the benefit of the doubt to a work that will leave its mark, like it or not. We will talk about it again for the next few years, both for what it means in a broad sense, and for the fortuitous implications of the precise historical moment of release. It is certainly not a perfect video game, it lacks in several respects and is not suitable for the general public, but it is elevated by really interesting themes, narration and simulation mechanics. We have said it several times and we will never tire of repeating it, Death Stranding is the apotheosis of the authorial and productive freedom of a triple A project.