Death Stranding

Where to start with this game?

Before release we followed all the trailers closely and we were perpetually confused. The trailers explained nothing, said nothing, and yet we were both intrigued by what we saw.

The game released for PS4 and seemed to be an exclusive, and with me being as bad with controllers as I am, I resigned myself to not play it myself but watch Toni play it. I watched him play through a lot of it, although not everything, and halfway through his playthrough the announcement came that it would release for PC. I stopped watching anything story-related in the game, but from time to time came to watch his gameplay.

He talked a lot about the little annoying things. Little annoying mechanics that were there to give the game a sense of reality, but only served to make it annoying. We usually don't find the same things annoying in games and so I figured that most of those things he mentioned wouldn't bother me. Because we don't think the same way when it comes to games and gameplay. 

Then I got it and started playing it. I was excited to get started. But the story failed to pull me in and all the little annoying things Toni had mentioned annoyed me too. All that and much more. I got to the point where I got fast-travel and felt cheated because I couldn't bring anything with me. The game explains the whole thing that he can't take anything with him apart from himself. Then why does he have clothes?!

Anyway I got super annoyed by my constantly breaking boots, by him constantly dropping all the stuff he was carrying, and by the JRPG-ish mechanic of getting attacked every 10 meters (that annoys me in every JRPG tbh - just let me go where I'm going ffs).

The characters failed to be engaging. The story failed to pull me in. The gameplay annoyed me to no end. It's like one of those artsy things that are weird just for the sake of being weird. 

After I got to the first big city, the point where the rest of the game kind of opens up I decided to take a break and play other things, but with every intention of coming back to it. That was mid-October 2020. 

Then I didn't play it for all of 2021 and I decided to just drop it.

I loved the soundtrack, the vibe, the atmosphere... But none of the things I loved about it could outweigh the things that annoyed me. 

It's the little things that can make or break a game. And for me, the little things broke Death Stranding. 

There are some games where you play 10 hours and it feels like no time has passed. Then there are games where 10 hours feels like an eterenity. Unfortunately, for me Death Stranding ended up in the latter category. 

Showing off some of the vibes/atmosphere and soundtrack that I loved about it.