Introduction
The original Death Stranding (released 2019) introduced the world to Hideo Kojima’s vision without corporate shackles holding him back. Back2Gaming’s original review of Death Stranding criticized the game for its droning plot delivery and repetitive nature. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach refines the same loop but has more improved story writing as well as faster pacing overall, making it a more distinct action-adventure that you have to slog through from one place to the other. And you have to do it over and over again.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach releases today for early access, and in this review, I’ll talk about how I feel about the game and share important considerations for people holding out on launch reviews.
Made by Kojima Productions, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach officially launches on June 26, 2025, and is exclusive to PlayStation 5. The game features a star-studded cast with Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, and Troy Baker reprising their roles together with some surprises later in-game along with new pivotal characters joining, primarily Shioli Kutsuna and Elle Fanning.
This review is spoiler-free for this game as well as the first Death Stranding if you’re just jumping into the series. Some key (obvious) plot points that carry over from the first game to the next cannot be avoided.
Gameplay
If you’re new to Death Stranding and want to know if you need to play the original before jumping into Death Stranding 2, my personal take is to play Death Stranding 2 first especially for PlayStation players, then play the Death Stranding Director’s Cut. The original gameplay loop carries over to Death Stranding 2, but nowa heavier emphasis is made to tell players their options in combat missions.
This is also the same for traversal, but it’s only up until late game where this is somewhat alluded to the player so first-timers following primary paths or those who haven’t built up their structures might feel surprised of the variety available to them.
When I played the first Death Stranding, I always felt it was a sneaking game, and I felt sorry for the BTs, so most of my initial playthrough was me avoiding them. In cases where they do catch up, I try my best to shake them off. Much of the criticism on Death Stranding 1 was its heavy-handed approach in teaching players the game’s principles, which often falls on deaf ears for most players, just skipping through cut scenes.
Death Stranding 2 avoids this pitfall altogether by completely removing the harness on the player, completely unleashing them to the world with active voice instructions to reinforce some key in-game concepts. The initial section of the game is a full tutorial on the basic traversal and movement of the game, which then moves on to delivery fulfillment and then the option of combat or stealth.
Death Stranding 2 is smart enough to cue players on what they can do if they end up stalling to guide them into taking action, especially in the first combat situation of the game, in a border location. Players have multiple stealth options to go past this area, but there are direct combat encounter options, although since your weapon loadout is still poor at the start, it’ll require you to resort to melee attacks before you can grab the enemy weapons.
This is all in the first 30 minutes of the game, so it’s a good pace for getting players ready for what they’re about to dive into. A massive change from the original game’s intro with BTs as its opening bit. Death Stranding 2 thrusts you into full delivery mode for the first section of the game, easily ingraining the concepts of shelters and facilities. The game doesn’t do much handholding from this point on, and we’d be introduced to the now varied enemies of the game until the last destination of the first area section.
All in all, players should be able to grasp the key gameplay mechanics of Death Stranding 2 in the first hour, but some notable changes need to be mentioned. First off: voidouts – in the original Death Stranding, you needed to dispose of bodies, otherwise they’d cause a voidout. Death Stranding 2 does have this from what I can tell but with MP bullets needing to go lethal mode before inflicting sure kill status to enemies, most attacks result in knockouts. I chose to go stealth for the majority of the game, but 55 hours and I want to change it up.
The game never prompted me to come back for bodies that I did not dispose of… EDIT: 2 hours after this review went live, I came back to an enemy base and methodically off’d a few of them, I was not promptly asked to dispose of the bodies nor the Corpus (in-game knowledgebase had anything to say about it) but having nearly sunk in a tarpit, I had threw them there so the white BTs (these are the considerate BTs you in prompt, i guess) could do their thing.
But in a more general overview, the game feels faster and more action-oriented. Thanks to various quality of life improvements as well as new in-game mechanics like being able to unload your backpack for faster movement and the new day and night cycle, which allows Sam to wait for nighttime for the cover of the darkness. This, plus new exoskeleton option,s will complement player actions as they progress through the game.
It’s still the same Death Stranding loop but now improved with more quest variety, infiltration/combat, but the structure building and online world have also changed much and will make players feel it’s a faster game versus the original.
Visual and Audio
♫Raindrops are falling on my head…
Graphics Mode
Fidelity Mode
I played the game on the original release PlayStation 5, and the footage above shows the 2 graphics modes available in-game. Despite the smoother visuals of Fidelity mode, I feel it cuts too much on the details of Graphics mod,e which in itself doesn’t really drop below my acceptable threshold so I only played the game on Graphics mode.
Running on Guerrilla Games’ Decima Engine (Horizon series, Death Stranding), Death Stranding 2 is not weighed down by the need to maintain PS4 compatibility, so it uses the PS5 hardware capabilities to the max. Utilizing past learnings in maximizing scene complexity without sacrificing performance, Death Stranding 2 is much sharper and detailed than the original.
Signature Yoji Shinkawa stylings can be found on facilities, vehicles, mechas, and tools, and it’s a treat to see them more detailed than before. Of course, this doesn’t add much in terms of gameplay, but now the game won’t suddenly have a 30FPS drop when you’re in alert mode.
The world is now crisper and much more detailed, and PC-only players are sure going to be excited about the PC release. And this new visual treat is a great way to engage players who take the time to take in the narrative drama that unfolds in the game.
The game has an excellent OST, but it’s mostly chill music with a few rock anthems and orchestra pieces reserved for boss fights. Elle Fanning has worked with WOODKID previously, and their special re-recording of To The Wilder resonates with Elle’s cold vocals
Mocap and Voice Acting
With Death Stranding assembling a memorable cast of artists to play the characters, it’s worth taking time to praise their on-screen performances that add depth to the storytelling and narrative of the game. The game is heavily anchored on Sam for the story, but Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s characters are all mostly damaged. A part of their life is taken in one way or another.
It is only until Fragile becomes part of their lives that they can at least find meaning. Lea Seydoux’s performance as Fragile in Death Stranding 2 is phenomenal and as much of a scene stealer as Elle Fanning is as Tomorrow. By the end of the game, you will realize how vital she has always been.
This part of the game may elude many casual player,s but I wanted to highlight this important bit of the game and serve as a catalyst for much of the event in-game. Death Stranding 2 is sure to get some major game award nods, but I vote for Lea Seydoux as Fragile for an immense job of stirring emotions in this game while still being the captain of the DHV Magellan.
Shioli Kutsuna as Rainy brings her famous kawaii charm to the series but shows a full range of emotion as the emotional support of the group despite her own condition and uncontrollable power.
The rest of the game features a wide array of guests already rumored to join as well as some surprise ones in full mocap and voice acting roles to show their support to Kojima.
Still, much like the first game, we still haven’t gotten a good fleshing out of Higgs and as a returning character, he still goes on his villain monologues with no real depth and meaning. The game takes its time to let Higgs drawl over and over and Troy Baker delivers each line with the breadth of a seasoned veteran but lacks the emotional connection to the player. Its hard to relate to and its even harder to understand but Kojima gave him 15 minutes to say it so it has to be important, right? Not really.
Final Thoughts and Should You Play It
If you played the original game and loved it, then you’re probably already playing the game right now. If you’ve ever had any curiosity about the game but felt the walking simulator meme feels too real, then Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is still a walking simulator.
As big as the changes area to the overall feel of the game, you still need to traverse from one area or the other, and that takes time. Terrain and enemy encounters will hinder your progress, and it’s up to you how you build up your world structure to make traversal faster the second way around. If you’re going for story only, you can probably just tough it out, but the game’s higher achievements are most likely going to be locked behind Brutal difficulty so Platinum hunters take note.
But this is a Hideo Kojima game, and Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is Hideo Kojima with no restraints, company-wise and hardware-wise. Death Stranding 1 has its fair share of surprise bits and gags and Death Stranding 2 continues that but keeps it all as a surprise as a one-time gift that you need to replay the game to see. Its a nice touch of keeping the game grounded and positive in what feels like an atmosphere of doom and gloom.
Overall, those who played Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain would feel a bit more at home in this game, thanks to the pacing, but the larger expanse means we also lose out on some niceties we got from the Director’s Cut. But overall, it’s a more accessible title that pulls back on the technicalities that Death Stranding 1 wanted to do and offers a more approachable gameplay experience that is more inviting to more players.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is now available on Early Access for pre-order buyers and will release to the rest of the world on June 26, 2025.
