The Death Stranding Director’s Cut trailer sold me on the game – and no, it wasn’t for the Metal Gear Solid missions.
As the adage goes, there are two types of gamers, and I’m the type that bounced off Hideo Kojima’s oeuvre and didn’t pick up his long-awaited opus, Death Stranding, when it finally released in late 2019. When I read reviews detailing the extensive length of the game, much of which is spent simply walking and meditating on the world, I felt reaffirmed in skipping it. But the changes coming in the Death Stranding Director’s Cut are just the things to get me to finally play the game. We all got an in-depth look at the new features coming in the Director’s Cut during the Gamescom 2021 Opening Night Live showcase. While the ‘various updates’ include indisputably positive additions like 4K support and a 60fps performance mode in the game’s PS5 version, I’m focused on the extras that make the lengthy travel easier and faster. Before you say anything – yes, I know I’ll be robbing myself of how the game is intended to be played as Sam Bridges, the lonely everyman tasked with connecting the world one parcel delivery at a time. I know that walking the long, unpeopled expanse of the world is the point, giving players time for their minds to wander just like they would during a real-world jaunt outside civilization. As our reviewer Cian Maher put it, the game opens with the player “travers[ing] harsh terrain while keeping delicate cargo intact. As you cross impassable abysses and sinuous rivers, the involuntary descent into loneliness is juxtaposed with a solemnity that is, despite itself, quite warm.
