Review Game ‘Death Stranding 2: On The Beach’ on PlayStation 5

A mail deliverer walks in silence through a moon landscape, his backpack full of packages. He left an underground bunker and goes to the following: hiding places for humanity that fears the outside world. The game Death Stranding came in unexpectedly hard during the Coronalockdowns of 2020. It seemed as if Hideo Kojima, one of the few ‘author’ gaming directors, had again predicted the future-just like in his influential Metal Gear-SpionaGames.

That was accidental, but Kojima clearly had something to say. He preached in narrative films about the importance of connection, a theme that was beautifully extended in the game. Now, five years later, the successor is coming. A game that looks more backwards, formed by the coronalockdowns. Kojima is shocked, he says in interviews. Is this what all that digital connection has led to?

His shock is palpable. Death Stranding Was clear, purely in his thematic precision. The feeling of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Is more confused, even alarmed. It is a game full of questions, without convincing answers.

Malignant spirits ghosts through the world of Death Strandingbut thanks to the network that Sam Porter (Norman Reedus) installed in part one, the population of the United States can freely communicate digitally and exchange goods. Mailvergoer Sam is now a happy father. He left the US government agency ‘Bridges’ and lives in voluntary exile. His old colleague Fragile (Léa Seydoux, who plays her role with convincing weight in both the Motion Capture for Fragiles movements and her voice) knows how to find him. She is now head of an NGO who tries to make the rest of the world part of the network. But is this connection always good, or is it also a form of colonialism? Is this digital bridge not just a hollow imitation of human connections? Sam wonders, struggling with personal tragedy.

Big ideas

The narrative videos are written as always Kojiman: full of great ideas, explanatory sentences and sudden comic side jumps. With the addition of strong female characters, the mysterious Tomorrow (Elle Fanning) and the cheerful Rainy (Shioli Kutsuna), you get the impression that Kojima craves his own Mad Max: Fury Road. He even uses the face of his hero, Mad Max director George Miller, for the character Tarman. But unlike Miller, he is unable to let go of the perspective of his male main character. You constantly have the feeling that the real story, the interesting story, takes place in the periphery: Tomorrow and Rainy and Fragile. They giggle, learn, go on their own adventure. Sam sees it only from his corners of the eye. He was eaten too much by his own melancholy.

Zoom in

The game itself is also eaten too much, due to its own systems. In part one, violence was something sparing, it is catastrophic when someone dies; Here the game stacks weapon on weapon to clear dangerous criminals. They are ‘non-deadly’, the game says quickly. And where in the first game the emphasis was still on walking, keeping your packages stable, and holding on stiffly, gives Death Stranding 2 Soon so many opportunities to take shorter roads that it dizzy. It is still Death Stranding If you can just take a monorail, then get in a car, and are safe at destination five minutes later?

And yet there is beauty in this game, quietly, just hidden under these screaming systems. Because you don’t find a kojima game through simple explanations. This is a sometimes surrealistic, sometimes painfully beautiful atmospheric experience, which I can only catch in fragmentary moments:

I have a lost hug in my luggage, a platypus. I’ve been walking back and forth through the same wasteland for hours. Boring, I can go to the next mission, this is not a crucial freight. Yet I turn around, defeated by sentiment. For hours I forgot that I had the hug, he is almost broken. I have to take him to his destination. Before he falls apart.

I race through the lunar landscape with a warm pizza. The recipient thanks me warmly. I drive back. The pizza farmer – Oh, I didn’t want to tell that piece of game. But I rarely laughed so hard.

I climb a mountain. The easiest race is left, but I go right. I see a black beach over the mountain top. Black jellyfish fly like balloons in the air. I am quiet.

I am in a warm bath. The doll on my belt – based on director Fatih Akin – swims in the bath. He sings ‘Ban-Ban-Ban’, and Sam cheerfully sings along.

I have to go to the other side. There is a clear route, via monorails and cars. But I have had enough of the shorter road, I am not yet choosing trailed paths. The battery of my car runs empty, the light of the headlights blinks on the dark snow, songwriter Woodkid sings’So far away, I’ll Reach You. ‘ I get tired, Sam falls forward, he has to recover. He drags control from my playing hands. His shoes fall apart. I get up, I’m going on. A stream flows through slow highland, the sun goes down. The light, orange and pink, seeps through the waves.

My destination. I (Sam?) Fall on my knees just before my destination. Sam mumbles, I mutter. A mantra. It’s worth it. It’s worth it. It’s worth it.

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