Melancholy is everywhere in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. It’s an esoteric pilgrimage of human connection, incomparable grief, and the impossibility of building a new world without conflict. By joining hands across the globe, we are bound to see new 𝐆ideologies form and powers rise, destined to take everything for themselves.
On a more emotionally intimate level, this unconꩲventional sequel explores how terrifying it is to make something of yourself. To truly expose who you really are to those capable of making you feel most vulnerable and emerge unscathed. That is the personal and political mission Kojima Productions sends you on, and it does so with mesmerising efficiency.
Keep On Keeping On Down Under
Sam Porter Bri﷽dges is only one person. But by stepping into his shoes and seeking to bring two countries together over the course of more than 40 hours, you reunite with old allies and befriend new ones. You contend with previous adversaries whose motivations are altered with time much like your own, with Sam having spent several months off the grid raising Lou as their own child between games. No longer a fetus in a pod, but a toddler crawling about the place and causing all sorts of chaos. It’s heartwarming to see a hardened porter once terrified of touch now ready to raise a new life, even if it means throwing everything he once built away. This is where the 🃏journey begins, amidst the mountains of Mexico as you reunite with an old flame.
I’d be here for thousands of words trying to break down the bamboozling narrative of Death Stranding 2, so I’ll try to nail down the basics and weave my impressions of certain themes and characters throughout the rest of this review. After leaving America, Sam is approached by Fragile to complete one more job. She wants him to link up Mexico and open a plate gate that will link Mexico with Australia while simultaneously extending the chiral ꦛnetwork. Having left the UCA behind and now working for a civilian outfit known as Drawbridge, Fragile gives Sa🐼m her word that, once this is done, he can return to full-time fatherhood.
The main menu features a recap of the 🌌originalܫ Death Stranding, but this covers most of the broad strokes rather than going into any significant detail.
Unfortunately, returning villain Higgs has other plans, turnin🌌g up with a new look and a fresh lease on life to seemingly take Lou hostage and leave Sam scrambling for purpose. Thus begins a journey of revenge, grief, and personal discovery that is wrought with all the Kojima tropes you’ve come to expect from the legendary developer.
You’ve got a talking doll who exists to be a companion for the entire game while spouting exposition, a girl who can reverse aging by summoning spontaneous rainfall, or another from an unknown world who, with a touch of her fingers, can turn living things to dust. They all have silly names, like Rainy, Tomorrow, and Dollman, with irritatingly compartmentalized backstories that unfold in only a handful of very﷽ long cutscenes, but their origins are nonetheless compelling.
You can go from laughing at the absurdity of it all to tearing up over the fate of certain faces because, even when you cast aside the bizarre nature of this universe or Kojima’s adoration for predic🥂table cliché,ꦓ the emotional core still resonates more than any other triple-A game in recent memory.
By building a home with these characters on the DHV Magellan, a vessel 🍃capable of swimming through tar currents beneath the Earth’s surface, you come to care for and understand them, knowing that they are all lost souls living for purpose in a world that is equally lonely. It’s hopelessly sad yet brimming with hope, finding a means to carry on as you make connections that could arguably be this entire civilization’s downfall.
A Single-Player Body With A Multiplayer Soul
The moment-to-moment gameplay once aꦆgain serves to reinforce these narrative themes. In spite of making comprehensive additions to combat and stealth that make Death Stranding 2 far more Metal Gear Solid than its predecessor, this game is still about delivering parcels in a battered and broken world. Sam is a Porter by trade as well as by name, and by making deliveries and earn♏ing the trust of an incongruous network of communities, you slowly but surely make Mexico and Australia into a society worth caring about.
While it’s still incredibly dangerous for normal folks to ꦕgo outside thanks to the pre🔥sence of otherworldly ghosts known as BTs and rainfall that ages you in an instant, a means to share resources and communicate shows these places they are no longer alone. And while I'd struggle to describe combat against humans and BTs as smooth, it's undeniably satisfying.
Each encounter is punctuated by a slow-motion effect that ensures you have enough time to react to most threats, while the variety of weapons and equipment on offer is frankly staggering. I loved moving thro𒀰ugh fields of ghosts unnoticed or waltzing into an outpost ready to rip and tear like Rambo. Both approaches work with equal effectiveness, and the deliverie⛦s at Death Stranding 2's core remain masterful.
Sometimes you’ll be d🎐elivering life-saving medicine or building materials to a struggling city, while others simply have friends sharing films, music, or food as a means of expressing who they are to others. You can make it through the entire game by making main orders and little else, but the real beauty comes from abandoning the beaten path and taking time to talk with these people and learn what makes them tick, often earning new equipment and items as a consequence. It’s worth making these connections, but doing so is always going to be hard.
Before each order, you can seꩲt out a route, fabricate items, and make sure you are as prepared as humanly possible before embarking on your next mission.
Like the previous game, the open world is a cavalcade of differing climates, weather effects, and levels of elevation that turn the merꦍe act of walking into a challenge. You can hold both shoulder buttons to maintain balance, or make use of exoskeletons or consumable items to better navigate the environment without biting the dust down a random ravine. There are also vehicles to construct, ranging from motorcycles to trucks to coffin surfboards. Greater variety in the selection would have been appreciated to avoid repetition, but given what this society has to work with, efficiency is likely more important than going overboard.
Exploring the open world is made most enjoyable by the presence of other players – or, more specifically, the structures they build and amenities they lea♌ve behind. When you’ve connected a part of Mexico or Australia to the chiral network, the busywork of other players will become clear to see. This could materialise in shelters to hide in during a heavy storm or ladders to climb atop a steep mountain, making every step of your journey that much easier.
I adore how you are still physically on your own, but personal considerations were made by others to help you in the smallest of ways. Even if you ditch your vehicle during a delivery, it will be left behind by someone else to discover. The same goes for a generator or 🥂weapons I no longer had a use for. Whether I realise it or not, I’m feeding into an ecosystem defined by an invisible connection.
Dollman not only accompanies you throughout the game as a mechanical tool, but a narrator o😼f sorts who is happy to remind Sam of the current narrative situation and go over points you might not have understood. I would have preferred it if he didn’t talk so much...
Metal Gear Stranding
Despite staring down the barrel of a review embargo, I couldn’t resist spending several hours building roads and reconnecting monorails, knowing it would make my life easier and shower me with likes from other users who hap𒆙pened to use them.
This social currency, the moreish dopamine that comes from receiving virtual kudos f🦂rom another player, spurs you onward as much as the connection itself, with Kojima Productions deliberately weaponising and subverting what social media has come to represent in our daily lives, even once everythi🐭ng comes crashing down. At the time of hitting credits, I was at 200,000 likes and counting from NPCs and real life players alike. You can even open a nature reserve where alternate band Chvrches work as zookeepers and earn brownie points for delivering random wildlife.
There are myriad oth🥀er political themes at play in Death Stranding 2, with consistent mention made of the famous ‘stick and the rope’ metaphor and how, after the first game famous🏅ly saw prosperous connections made across America, society now risks hurting those who hoped to save it in the first place.
It’s unsubtle, and many other narrative touchstones from the fi💦rst game are repeated so clumsily, but you still walk away feeling like the storytelling truly had something to say. I could tell that the writers behind this awkwardly heartwarming story have been through real loss or share a genu♔ine concern for the state of our world, hoping to present a bizarre rendition of it without ever veering away from what makes us human. It’s powerful in the same ways as the first, spurred forth by an understated lead performance from Norman Reedus.
The rest of the cast a🐈lso does a great job, which includes big names like Lea Seydoux, Elle Fanning, Troy Baker, Debra Wilson, and many more. You also have some fun cameos.
Combat and stealth are more refined than they were in the original Deat🦋h Stranding, to the point where I could invade enemy outposts as a gun-toting maniac or sneak in undetected and feel truly capable of whatever I was doing. I was a little worried that this would become a shooter during the marketing cycle, but thankfully combat never infringes on the core loop of making deliveries and connecting the two countries. It’s complementary, and alongside several other quality of life improvements, these additions help to make it infinitely more fun to play.
Putting deliveries aside, lots of time is spent in Sam’s private room in which you can have a nice bit of sleep, partake in some Metal Gear Solid-esque VR missions or play around with a number of different customisation options and minute interactions. One notable foible is that the narrative is so often progressed by Fragile telling you to “go and have a rest” after orders are comple🥀te, with the story unfolding in the predictable rhythm of order - private room - long cutscene. A third act twist beautifully recontextualizes the reasoning for this, but that doesn’t make it any less tedious in the moment.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is a hard game to quantify, with Kojima Productions eager to question our expectations and hurl curveballs at every turn. At its heart, it’s an experience about delivering packages and forging c♑onnections across a post-apocalyptic world, but play it for just a few hours, and you’ll see it’s so much more than ꦡthat.
It’s a game defined by filling a nature reserve with teleporting emus as much as it is about a lonely man le🔥arning to accept help from the people who love him and avoid being consumed by grief whose sole purpose is to destroy him. It’s about human connection, losing loved ones, and stepping out into the wild regardless of the horrors that may await. Learning to go on that journey and accept a wilꦑlingness to grow is half the battle, and after reaching the end of this ordeal, you’ll never be the same again. Keep on keeping on.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 🍨Death Stranding 2𒈔: On the Beach
Reviewed On PlayStation 5
- Released
- June 26, 2025
- ESRB
- 🌱 Mat✃ure 17+ // Violence, Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Kojima Productions
- Publisher(s)
- ൲ 🐠 Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Engine
- Decima
- Franchise
- ꦛ Death Stranding
Embark on an inspiring missio𓄧n of human connection bey🌟ond the UCA. Sam—with companions by his side—sets out on a new journey to save humanity from extinction. Join them as they traverse a world beset by otherworldly enemies, obstacles and a haunting question: should we have connected?
- A profound mechanical improvement over the original game
- Mexico and Australia are vast, varied, and challenging to explore
- Embarking on deliveries and making connections is still hugely rewarding
- Characters are strong, unpredictable, and emotionally resonant
- It doesn?t know how to be subtle with its writing or exposition
- The main story is somewhat longer than it needs to be
- No Bring Me The Horizon
