Death Stranding

Death Stranding is an authorial game by Hideo Kojima, a realistic walking and logistics simulator with elements of action, survival, and stealth, presented from a third-person perspective. The player travels in a post-apocalyptic world, finds survivors, restores fragmented society, and creates a unified network between cities.

The plot is delivered through numerous excellently directed scenes in a chamber thriller format. All cutscenes feature well-known Hollywood actors and are recorded using advanced motion capture technology. The philosophy of the game is to understand the true value of establishing relationships between people.

In the near future, a catastrophic event occurred — the "Death Stranding," which caused our dimension of living people to merge with the dimension of dead people and demons.

A grand apocalypse took place, the USA ceased to exist, people are fragmented and scattered across its territory, and what happens in other corners of the planet is unknown. The few survivors have taken refuge in cities deep underground.

In our world, chiral creatures have broken through — restless souls of people, as well as various demons (serving as bosses). When a chiral being absorbs a person, living or dead, a vortex forms, pulling all matter into another dimension, leaving a huge crater in our world.

Chiral rain poses a great danger, as its drops, like a time machine, accelerate the flow of biological life — a person caught in such rain quickly ages. It also causes corrosion of metals and degradation of plastics, gradually eating away everything it touches.

The story of Death Stranding is presented unusually. Initially, the player is dynamically immersed in the essence of events in the first two chapters, after which the script slowly introduces new characters and tells their backstories until the entire map is opened.

A strong point of the plot includes missions where the player travels to the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Vietnam War — but it's better to experience them firsthand.

Only after the middle does the plot unfold fully: the picture of what happened begins to fill with new details, characters develop story arcs, intrigues are revealed, several cool plot twists occur, and the number of dialogues and cutscenes, as well as their length, increases.

The main character, Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus), successfully masters the role of a courier, and his sensitivity to the dimension of the dead and ability to return to our world after death help him get out of the most hopeless situations.

Therefore, the President of the USA tasks Sam with transporting cargo between survivors, gaining their trust, and connecting them to the Chiral Network, the "spiritual successor of the internet." The network will unite all cities and settlements in the USA, allowing data transfer, experience exchange, and solving the problem of the merging worlds.

There are many characters, and it's interesting to talk to them, while the star cast and cool direction keep the player's attention until the very end. At the same time, the game is linear and actions will not affect the ending — Death Stranding is not a role-playing game.

Hiral rain literally wiped out human civilization — in cities, there are only mountains of rubble and garbage, and around are barren rocks, mountains, rivers, and snowy peaks. In this regard, Death Stranding has a dead game world — no simulation of life, static locations of dangerous and safe places, absence of side quests and NPCs.

Formally, the locations are small, but they consist entirely of rugged terrain of varying difficulty, making the game world simply huge. There are no direct routes or sprinting; you need to find paths for climbing and descending, detours and fords, descend by rope or climb by ladder.

The surface in Death Stranding itself is a playground, and the main gameplay mechanic is walking and controlling it. While Sam moves from point to point, the player constantly controls the direction, speed, and balance of the character. You can trip over a stone, lose balance from a push, and fall, breaking the cargo and failing the mission.

An excellent physics engine changes the character's position, taking into account the slope of the surface, whether it is flat or bumpy, what lies on it, grass and snow, whether the hero is going up or down, as well as the speed of the current and the depth of the water. A strong current can simply sweep Sam away, and the cargo will sink or be lost.

At the same time, the player needs to maintain a balance between mobility and the weight being carried. Carrying more is beneficial, but a character with a tower of cargo on their back slows down and has worse balance. They also need to sleep, eat, use the toilet, wash, and take care of their shoes.

Moving boxes from point "A" to point "B" makes up a large part of the 100-hour gameplay. The process becomes more diverse due to threats. The first is the insane couriers, MULEs, who will try to take the main character's cargo if they spot him. You can run away, knock them out in a fistfight, or stun them with a taser.

The second danger is the Hiral creatures, capable of sensing the player and dragging them into their dimension — then the player will end up in an otherworldly realm from which they will have to escape. You can either hide from the creatures or fight them with special weapons (grenades or firearms).

For delivering cargo and completing story missions, Sam receives likes, which accumulate into levels and points. The latter are spent on minor character upgrades. As you progress, more content becomes available — delivery robots, platforms levitating above the ground, motorcycles, and even cars. The ability to build structures in the open world appears.

The main development is provided for advancing through the story and connecting cities to the Network — for this, players are rewarded with resources, gameplay options and equipment, like a leg exoskeleton.

With the connection of this area to the network, asynchronous multiplayer is activated, where players help each other while each is in their own world. Gameplay options expand, for example, if you lose a cargo, another courier can deliver it. And you can build a path through the pass that other players will use in their world.

In return, likes that encourage the character — increase stamina, the amount of cargo carried, and improve movement-related stats.

In such asynchronous gameplay, it is much easier to build structures — bridges, roads, car charging stations, rest points, and generally improve the game world. The more of this there is, the easier it is to progress through the game — you can enter a world where wide roads are laid out, cars and charging stations are scattered. Under the influence of chiral rains, this also gets destroyed, but not very quickly.