Spoiler-free thoughts after 50ish hours. (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Wednesday, July 09, 2025, 17:39 (13 hours, 20 minutes ago) @ CyberKN
edited by cheapLEY, Wednesday, July 09, 2025, 17:49

I'm right at the 50 hour mark, in Chapter 9 with like 75% of the map connected.

I've never had more mixed feelings about a game that I absolutely think is a 10/10 experience. At the end of the day, it's more Death Stranding, and that's incredible. That might also be it's biggest detriment as well.

As I said in my previous post, it's far too easy, and that has not changed, and it's still my biggest complaint. The first Death Stranding was not a difficult game, but what little challenge and tension there was has been completely eroded in the sequel. The first one at least had some interesting delivery challenges, even if they were minor. A cliff to climb, a deep ravine to cross. That's all completely gone--it feels like there is pretty much always a perfect path to get around any obstacle within 50 yards of the optimal path. I stopped carrying ladders with me before I even made it out of Mexico because they are literally never necessary, and they're only barely useful. Vehicles are even better than they were in the first game--you can drive a truck that hasn't been upgraded at all over basically anything. The environmental and weather effects are all amazing to look at, but don't affect the actual gameplay like I would have wished. None of the enemies pose any threat at all, although the mechs are at least kinda fun to fight. It was nearly 40 hours before I even saw a normal BT instead of the new style ones (and the classic ones are just so much more interesting). Even connecting the Chiral Network is easier--I think I've encountered like two people that didn't connect immediately after reaching their shelter. No one asks for anything extra, there's no effort to any of it.

I can't really comment much on the story until I finish it, but so far I do find it pretty lacking. It's certainly more straight forward, but that's mostly because I feel like there actually isn't much of a story happening so far. Higgs has shown up a couple of times, but doesn't really have anything to say or do and it honestly doesn't feel all that relevant. The actual thing I would have expected the game to be about after how the Mexico section ended is almost entirely unremarked upon. It just does not feel like anything is actually happening. There were definitely some stretches of the first where there wasn't much story momentum, and maybe it just felt better because it was all new so every tidbit that I got about that universe felt like it was driving things forward more. DS2 just feels sort of aimless in that regard so far.

With all of that said, I have absolutely loved every single second of actually playing Death Stranding 2. It's still just a joy to wonder the world they created and deliver packages and build infrastructure, and it's an absolutely beautiful world to explore. I like the characters, both old and new, even if I don't feel like they've really been given much to do so far. I have no doubt I'll have 100+ hours in the game by the time I'm done. I really love this game, and I do think it's better than the first in many ways, but it just sort of feels like some of the magic was lost somehow.