Death Stranding 2 wants you to slow all the way down
Kojima made another walking sim and dared you to call it boring. I think it’s the best thing he’s done.
Within the first hour, Death Stranding 2 will lose a lot of people, and Kojima knows it. There is a tutorial about balancing cargo. There is a long, quiet walk where nothing shoots at you and the only enemy is a river and the slope of a hill. If your reaction is “when does it start,” this game is going to be a fight. If your reaction is to slow your breathing and pick a route — welcome, it’s the best thing he’s made.
A game about weight
The first one was about connection, sometimes embarrassingly literally. The sequel is about weight — the stuff you carry, the people you carry it for, and the cost of every kilo on a bad ankle. The traversal is still the whole game, and it’s been deepened in a hundred small, unglamorous ways: better tools, smarter terrain, a monorail you build with strangers who will never know your name.
It is a walking sim, and it has the confidence to make that the point rather than the apology.
When it does pick up a controller and remember it can be an action game, it’s shakier. The combat is more competent than the original and less interesting for it; a couple of boss set-pieces feel like they wandered in from a louder series. But the spine — the deliveries, the routes, the quiet — is unimpeachable.
Who it’s for
- Anyone who built a single road in the first game and felt something.
- People who think “relaxing” and “tense” can be the same sentence.
- Not anyone who needs a game to start in the first ten minutes.
I finished it slowly, on purpose, and missed it the second the credits rolled. An 8 that will be a 10 for about a tenth of you, and that’s exactly how Kojima wants it.
A slow, strange, deeply confident sequel that doubles down on everything people argued about.
Plus
Sublime traversal; the build-the-world co-op; pure, unhurried atmosphere.
Minus
Combat is competent-not-compelling; one boss too many; the first hour is a filter.
Comments (5)
built a zip-line network across an entire region and a stranger left a sign that just said “thank you” at the end of it. no other game does this to me.
the first hour IS a filter and that’s a feature. if the cargo balancing tutorial loses you, the next 60 hours would have too.
combat is the weakest part again. when it forces a boss fight i just want to get back to walking. 8 is fair, maybe generous.
the combat being boring is INTENTIONAL, it’s punishing you for not finding the route around. you’re supposed to feel that friction.
a 10 for me, a 3 for my brother, both of us are right and that’s the most kojima sentence i’ve ever typed.
genuinely the most relaxed i’ve been with a controller in years. it’s a hiking podcast you can fall off of.