By Kimari Rennis

I needed this. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is an incredibly fun and engaging game produced with a movie-like quality that, because it’s a game, extends far beyond the hour and 45 minute standard.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach begins 11 months after the events of the first game. Sam, our protagonist, lives in isolation with Lou, a Bridge Baby, BB for short, who against all odds survives being removed from their pod and thrives as a bubbly toddler under the warm care of their pseudo-father. We get a glimpse of a peaceful life, a found family, in a world on the brink of extinction. Society has crumbled to pockets of small communities living deep underground.

What follows after the first serene hours of the game, peacefully secluded in the low rocky mountains near the Mexican border, is the unexpected, gut-wrenching death of Lou, and the start of a long story steeped in pain, the division and unity of people, ulterior motives and corporate red tape, discovering the nuances of the space between life and death and how it can be defied, and the phenomenon of the Death Stranding that continues to bend reality. As I played, that fiction felt real to me. 

All the while, Sam, grieving, dons his porter suit once again in an attempt to connect all of Australia to the UCA’s chiral network, under the guidance of Drawbridge, an initiative led by Fragile ( and a friend from the first game), and sponsored by someone–or something–cloaked in mystery.

Although I have not quite finished the game at the time of this review, I know, definitely, that Death Strand 2 On the Beach will be a dominating AAA title for 2025. Its narrative and messages, implicit and explicit, deserve to be savored and its impact will be felt for many years to come. Again, the analogy I have is to film, a movie that rattles you to your core and brings you to tears.

There’s more to the story than I’m letting on, and my hesitance is a strategy to get readers to experience this mind-bending story for themselves because my words will never be enough. But I will share two things. First, the work that Sam had done connecting all of the UCA with the chiral network as the first step to combatting the Death Stranding created an entirely new phenomenon; the plate gate. The plate gate is more than an anomaly that seemed to form out of aggravation to the chiral network. It’s a towering portal that connects Mexico to the continent of Australia. Such a phenomenon begs to be studied by the few bright minds society has left. Its utility and the possibility of more plate gates appearing as the world becomes more connected through Sam’s efforts. It also means that it has garnered the attention of many organizations who are tight-lipped about what they really want out of all of this.

Second, the death of poor baby Lou was caused by Higgs, the nemesis of Sam and Fragile from the first game. Higgs has seemingly returned from the dead, backed by a group of faceless, idols-carrying individuals clad in red. With Sam’s physical inability to die, Higgs’ devotion is latched onto making Sam suffer as much as possible and to interfere with the process of connecting all of Australia to the chiral network by any means necessary. Higgs wants a world ruled by violence and cruelty, and his return sheds light on the nuances of the space between life and death in this fictional world. If Higgs, the crew at his beck and call, and his technology can rise for the tar that has only been linked to impending doom, imagine what else he can do.

Everything is bigger and badder in Australia. Blanketing their final resting spots in the bads with a thick crimson fog, the Beached Things here are larger, harder to kill, and have evolved to have eyes, befitting them of the name Watcher. Just like the Gazer, their eyeless and more easily dispatched counterparts, Watchers have an unrelenting aggression once detecting a human, siccing Hunters that envelop your surroundings in tar and drag you under currents of black until a Catcher consumes you, leaving a crater in your annihilation. BT’s have the same hook, line, and sinker, as the first game when it comes to their attacking style. But they’re much more dangerous.

The core loop of Death Stranding 2 is simple. Accept an order from a terminal at a facility, collect the cargo, plot your route to the destination, gear up with the supplies you need, travel to the destination, deliver the package, rinse and repeat. There are many verbs to describe the gameplay of Death Stranding 2, but by far the most paramount verbs are ‘travel’ and ‘organize.’ Both have the polished game mechanics to back it up. 

Walking from point A to point B isn’t as easy as you think when you have to cross difficult terrain, combat cargo-hungry marauders, and monitor the integrity of your cargo as timefall corrodes everything carried on your person. Beyond thinking about time running out, I was consumed by the possibility of tripping and falling, rising rivers, sheer cliffs, BT areas, and earthquakes caused by activity from the plate gate. Your shoes also deteriorate over time as you walk. So it’s wise to consider other means of travel like construction vehicles to load your cargo to alleviate the stress on Sam’s shoulders, and construction of bridges and other helpful structures to aid your journey.

Backpack customization is by far the most tantalizing of game mechanics to me because it adds to the satisfaction of organizing the cargo on your back with proper weight distribution by allowing you the freedom add additional ammo to your weapons, having pouches for extra grenades, or armor for protecting your cargo from raiders who careless attacks put you and the goodies you’re carrying at risk. And without that balanced weight, you’re much more liable to fall over. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I had to whip out my glasses and do a double take during the opening cinematics because I genuinely could not distinguish if the environments and plants shown were real-life recorded videos. I felt this way until that cinematic camera seamlessly transitioned to gameplay where the figures of Sam and a still living Lou came into view and nearly bled into reality.

Death Stranding 2’s environments and graphics are marvels to behold. The realistic details in biome make me feel like I can pick up each pebble around towering rock formations, touch each delicate and pristine leaf of a tree, and drive my hands into the hot sand of the beach and feel the grains slip through my fingers. That almost-reality seems powerful in a world where humans have fled undergrounds and small mammals that are few and far between, the sunsets, swaying trees, and the ambiance of each landscape breathes endless life into every moment you are with Sam with cargo on his back. When the official Death Stranding 2 soundtrack is released on Spotify, the entire album will be in my rotation while I hike my nearby trails.

Any game developer worth their salt recognises that environmental design and fidelity is a grounding pillar for this title, the overpowering waves of immersion that pillar provides, and the creative diligence and talent needed to define and deliver such flawless visual direction. Kojima Productions crosses their ‘T’s’ and dots their ‘I’s’ with precision. Unless there is a behind the scenes documentary that proves me otherwise, Kojima Productions had a vision that was 100% realized and delivered.

My first fight with a giant BT was an experience unlike any boss fight I’ve tackled before. What was once a dry and barren valley had transformed into a viscous black lake and a torrent of timefall darkened the sky in an instant. From the center of the void arose a massive charcoal head whose moist skins melted away to reveal a grotesque black skull agonizingly split into quadrants and tendrils writhing from each orifice. What ensued was an intense fight with waves of viscous fluid limiting Sam’s fluids, while more, taking on the shape of SUVs and buses, were launched from the head and crashed down around Sam in an attempt to crush and subdue him. When the fight that felt like a freakish natural disaster came to an end, I was left stunned. That was the first boss fight.

Death Stranding 2 On the Beach is a game whose story is unmistakably human and its gameplay is as eclectic as it is unique. Hours of walking, taking in beautiful landscapes, noting my indifference to void outs leaving scars on the earth, and frantically trudging through currents of tar from misplaced steps around BTs, is far from boring. It’s transformative. 

Kojima Productions has excelled in delivering an engaging third-person, action-adventure game set in a world that’s divided and isolated not because of hate, but out of fear of a phenomenon that threatens their very existence. There’s so much at stake in this isolated world complemented with a story about taking on the tall order of restoring unity and hope no matter how large or minor, found family and fatherhood, allowing oneself to break down and feel the real weight of a desolate world, revenge and undying hate that persists beyond the grave, and people in world that’s a dystopia yet grounded in something that makes us ultimately soulful and human.

I experience new moments of note to write about every 15 minutes. Take my word for it. As a newly independent, hardworking adult, overstimulated by the current state of games and the messy landscape of the games industry, play Death Stranding 2. Play it, savor it, internalize it, rightfully nominate it for game of the year, and most importantly, have fun.

Circle Member and former intern Kimari Rennis, who has been with the NYVGCC for many years, is now working at Lucasfilm Games as an Assistant Producer.

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