Death Stranding 2: On the Beach hands-on review

If you're a seasoned porter, you'll be happy to know the narrative picks up right after the first game's finale. Sam is living out his days in the hills with Lou, his now all-grown-up (and utterly adorable, by the way) Bridge Baby. But, because this is Death Stranding, peace is about as stable as a stack of cargo. Something goes awry, and suddenly, you're tasked with connecting the entire continent of Australia to the Chiral network.

For the uninitiated, imagine a post-apocalyptic hiking simulator where your goal is to link isolated pockets of humanity via an invisible, supernatural internet. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. The story is anything but digestible. It's a concoction of the deeply philosophical and the utterly bonkers. We’re talking characters like George Miller as Tarman, and a fella called Dollman who has his "ka" (which, for the non-lore-hounds, is basically his spirit) stuck in a puppet. Oh, and did I mention Dollman is a talking puppet and there’s a talking mannequin (via a face projection, naturally)? This game is a masterclass in random quirkiness, and I'm genuinely excited to see what other wonderfully weird characters Kojima has stashed away in his cargo. Even if you haven't finished the first game, DS2 feels surprisingly standalone, though a quick YouTube recap of the first game’s plot might help you get your bearings in this brave new Australian world.

Your biggest adversary in Death Stranding 2? Forget Higgs, forget the BTs for a moment – it's the damn terrain. Gravity and the unforgiving landscape are your constant companions, and mostly, your enemies. Navigating rocky slopes, rushing rivers, and sheer cliffs is a puzzle in itself, requiring careful planning of routes and judicious use of your traversal tools.

One of the pleasant surprises is how quickly the game gets going. Unlike its predecessor's leisurely narrative pacing, DS2 doesn't linger with long, slow-burning cutscenes at the outset. You're swiftly in the thick of it, trying to connect those disparate locations. However, I have to admit, the act of connecting various places can, at times, veer into the slightly tedious. It's a lot of walking, after all.

But then, just as you might start feeling like a glorified delivery person on an extended route, the BTs make their terrifying appearance. These ethereal, invisible entities inject a much-needed jolt of tension into the proceedings. The music, in particular, is an absolute masterstroke here. It seamlessly blends with the gameplay and cutscenes, morphing from ambient background scores to genuinely chilling tracks that make you feel like you're constantly being stalked, or worse, chased. Getting caught by these shadowy figures is no picnic; they'll drag you down into a black tar pit, and escaping their grasp is a frantic struggle that often ends in a messy demise. This constant threat elevates the otherwise mundane task of traversal into a thrilling, sometimes genuinely fear-inducing experience.

The menu system, accessed via a rather endearing and silly gesture of holding up a thumb with a ring, is a tad complicated. It's not so convoluted as to make a veteran Koei Tecmo player blink, but it will take some getting used to. Still, once you get the hang of it, you'll be optimising your cargo and planning your routes like a pro.

Visually, Death Stranding 2 is a feast for the eyes. The graphics oscillate between stunning photorealism, especially in character models and environmental textures, and a more artistic, almost rendered quality in certain cutscenes and vistas. It creates a distinctive look that is both immersive and stylized. The desolate Australian landscapes are beautifully realised, from rugged mountains to vast, empty plains, making every step of your journey a visual spectacle.

So far, Death Stranding 2 is shaping up to be a compelling, if still deeply peculiar, experience. It smartly addresses some of the pacing issues of its predecessor while doubling down on the unique blend of open-world traversal, philosophical narrative, and unsettling horror that defines the series. The bizarre characters, the ever-present threat of the BTs, and the genuinely fantastic music keep things interesting, even when the core gameplay loop verges on repetitive.

With only ten hours under my belt, I'm itching to delve deeper into this bizarre, beautiful, and utterly captivating world. Will Sam finally find true peace? Will Australia ever be fully connected? And just how many more talking inanimate objects will we encounter? Stay tuned for the full review, where we'll unpack every last delivery!