Death Stranding

Death Stranding is perhaps the most mysterious and discussed project among all the games of the outgoing generation of consoles. And so mysterious that at times it seemed that no one really understood what it was all about. So let’s get straight to the point – I will answer two of the most frequently asked questions. Did Hideo Kojima revolutionize the gaming industry? No. Although the attempt was ambitious and, admittedly, interesting.

Did Death Stranding justify all the noise, the wave of expectations and tons of conspiracy theories that accompanied it? Probably yes. Not one hundred percent, as Sony would obviously like, having invested bags of money in the game, according to rumors, but still – yes, the game deserves attention. In the end, it is difficult to imagine someone else besides Kojima who would have thought of adding QTE to a banal walk down the slope. Only a true visionary can do this.

Death Stranding Free Steam Account

Those who made the trailers for Death Stranding deserve a BAFTA for their mastery of intrigue. They built up the suspense so well that no one would have suspected that Kojima Productions’ debut game was actually Hideo Kojima’s simplest and most straightforward work. And there was a lot of noise! ​​After the first gameplay video, where the hero played by Norman Reedus sedately drags boxes along green hills, fans began to build theories and look for hidden meanings. Well, that can’t be all, right? Kojima is definitely hiding something, like, where Snake suddenly gave way to a newcomer.

And here’s the paradox: this time, there are no tricks. Death Stranding is really about walking. And not in a figurative sense, but in the most literal sense. This is a kind of “walking courier simulator” that approaches the process of walking with the same seriousness with which Microsoft Flight Simulator approaches flying. Surprisingly, transport is almost useless here. Two types – and both, to put it mildly, are not designed for off-road. Although in this world there are simply no other roads left.

The plot unfolds in the future, where the world experienced something called “Death Stranding”. The border between life and the afterlife was erased, and sinister entities poured into our world – Creatures, capable of destroying cities with one appearance. In addition, temporal rain appeared, from which everything around ages in a matter of seconds. The United States, as we knew it, no longer exists – only the fragments of civilization and a few survivors hiding in underground shelters remain.

The organization “Bridges” helps these people survive: it delivers provisions, medicine and everything necessary. The main character, Sam Porter Bridges, is one of the company’s best couriers. He is also the adopted son of Bridget Strand, the president of the United Cities of America, a new entity trying to restore disparate communities. Sometimes it feels like Norman Reedus was invited to the project just for fun. In the break room alone, he does all sorts of things: grimaces in front of the mirror, poses, makes faces. Why? Just like that. Because he can.

Shortly before the events of the game, Bridget’s daughter, Amelia, went to the west of the country to connect cities to the chiral network, an analogue of the Internet of the future. Only this network works through the other world, where the Creatures live. The expedition failed, Amelia was captured by terrorists. And now the entire burden of responsibility falls on Sam. His task is to go all the way again, establish communication between the outposts and, if possible, save Amelia.

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Why Death Stranding Is Called Kojima’s Most Monotonous Game

Death Stranding doesn’t even try to embellish the courier’s work – there is no romance or heroism here. Sam’s path lies through two huge regions, and both are completed according to the same scheme: you go down to the nearest terminal, take an order, load up the boxes and trudge somewhere for 5-15 minutes. You hand over the cargo, take the next one – and start over. Everything is repeated over and over again until the game decides to show a cutscene … and then on the road again. And so – until the very credits. Sometimes, however, they give you a break at the splash screen. The interface is a separate pain. About the same as in MGS V: a bunch of tables, numbers, icons, parameters … At some point it seems like you accidentally opened Excel and can’t find the “close” button.

If you’ve ever gone hiking with a heavy backpack, then the main gameplay cycle will seem eerily familiar – and, frankly, dull. And it’s intentionally dull. It seems that the developers deliberately decided to make the game the complete opposite of other large open-world projects. Instead of a rich world – emptiness, instead of adventures – monotonous delivery of boxes.

There are almost no events that could somehow dilute the process. What exactly is missing? Here is a list:

• Random encounters and events
• Side quests
• NPC conversations
• Points of interest on the map
• Collectibles
• Changes in pacing or mechanics

There’s not much to even explore. Locations are revealed strictly according to the plot, and if you suddenly wander into an unfilled area ahead of time, you’ll get a silent refusal. No activity – just turn around and go back. Before each trip, you’ll be shown the route in advance, they’ll point out possible threats, and you can secure the boxes manually. However, if you overdo it with the weight or place the cargo poorly, Sam will start to sway from side to side. And now you have to keep pressing buttons so that he doesn’t fall over and scatter the packages down the slope.

This could be forgiven if the delivery (or, more accurately, the walk) required quick decisions, attentiveness, strategy… But no. Almost always, there are only two threats on your way – MULEs and Creatures. The former are former couriers who went crazy after being fired: now they run around the area and take cargo from others. The second ones are ghostly creatures that drag careless travelers “to the other side”. There’s not much to say about the MULEs and “terrorists” (the second ones are the same MULEs, only with weapons). Kojima seemed to give them an explanation in the plot, but in fact they are only needed as a reason for the combat. And it, alas, is boring and monotonous.

Sometimes the world of Death Stranding looks gorgeous – it’s breathtaking. And sometimes – flat and dull. It’s all about the lighting: when there is none, the picture becomes faded and gray, as if you are looking at the world through dusty glass.

But the Creatures are a really strong element of the game. The first encounters with them are captivating: you walk along calmly, and suddenly – an inverted rainbow, rain, the grass grows and immediately withers. Invisible silhouettes creep somewhere nearby, and your walk suddenly turns into a tense game of hide and seek. You need to hide, walk quietly, navigate by the odradek – a detector device that trembles when danger approaches. At such moments, the game shows how creepy and unfriendly this world has become. But even here, everything is spoiled by predictability. The habitats of the Creatures and the MULE camps do not change – they are always in the same place. As a result, the routes become safe and easy to calculate. You can simply bypass dangerous areas if you are not too lazy to make a detour. And if there is no rain, you do not need to be afraid of the Creatures at all.

At the same time, the Creatures themselves are perhaps the best thing in the game. Their design is a separate art. It is clear that the team was inspired by communication with Junji Ito, and this was beneficial. But the developers managed to spoil even this atmosphere. At some point, Sam gets a weapon that allows you to kill Creatures. That’s it, the fear is gone. You’re supposed to feel vulnerable in the face of the unknown… but here they just give you a gun and say, “don’t be afraid, shoot.” Another concession to the rules of the genre: like, a AAA game must have combat, even if it’s just for show.

And in general, despite the philosophical themes – especially the theme of death – Death Stranding is too lenient on the player. MULEs use non-lethal weapons, the Creatures attack somehow sluggishly, with misses. And if you suddenly die – no big deal: in a couple of seconds you’re back in the game, as if nothing happened. No “explosion”, no damage, except for lost packages. Then why threaten the player at all? Sometimes Sam carries so much junk on himself that you can’t even see the scanner behind the boxes. You have to switch to first-person view to see anything. At this moment, you feel more than ever that you are not playing a hero simulator, but a laborer simulator in a post-apocalyptic world.

Gameplay Comparison: Metal Gear Solid V vs Death Stranding

To put it simply, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain didn’t teach Kojima anything. Yes, the open world was more of an arena for stealth experiments than a full-fledged “sandbox”, but even the harsh, deserted Afghanistan lived its own life. You turn a corner – and now a patrol is approaching, you have to urgently hang on to the side of your horse so as not to be spotted. You want to quietly pass by a checkpoint – but no, the enemy has some rare skills, and now instead of passing by, the plan changes abruptly: you need to knock out, pack and evacuate a valuable employee to your base. Everything worked organically, did not interfere with your initiatives, but on the contrary – in every possible way encouraged a creative approach and bold decisions. Sometimes you even just wanted to freeze and listen to the water murmur. The contrast between the harsh nature and the rare traces of human presence created an atmosphere in which you wanted to be.

Death Stranding is a completely different story. It feels like the word “reward” doesn’t even exist in its dictionary. Bridges couriers don’t get money, equipment, or bonuses, but… “likes.” Seriously. They’re rated the same way as posts on social networks. And the final rating is affected by everything from the condition of the package to the length and difficulty of the route. Accumulate enough likes — and you get microscopic upgrades to your endurance or carrying capacity. And that’s it. No sense of progress, no real benefit. Where’s the motivation? What’s the point of trying? For a polite hologram-style “thank you” and five stars in the local version of Uber Eats?

Okay, okay, I’m being a bit dramatic. There is some sense in it after all. Each shelter has its own “connection” with Sam, or, in other words, a level of trust. The higher it is, the cooler the gear you can get: from trinkets to truly useful exoskeletons. The only problem is that in order to pump up this connection, you need to deliver packages to the same person dozens of times. And doing this is not always exciting, to put it mildly.

Sometimes the game seems to be asking to become a meme on purpose. The scenes are staged in such a way that you want to add a caption like: “the last thing a bottle of beer sees before it dies.” But even in this regard, Death Stranding fails. The player gets everything that is really needed within the framework of the main storyline. And the “optional” rewards? The time and effort spent with them do not pay off. Standard orders are no different from story ones – only without cutscenes and motivation. So the desire to complete them quickly disappears. On the one hand, it’s honest: Sam is not a hero, not the Chosen One, he’s just a guy with a backpack. And his work is work, not a feat. But here’s the problem: we don’t launch games in order to work again. There is enough of this routine in life.

Exploring the World of Death Stranding: A Challenge or a Meditation?

You’ve probably already caught the irony. Death Stranding is an open-world game that doesn’t seem happy to be an open-world game. Exploration isn’t encouraged, and the gameplay, deliberately monotonous, doesn’t try to entertain the player or reward them for their time. And this paradox raises the main question that the game never bothers to clearly clarify: why do you need all this? Guillermo del Toro plays Deadman, a character clearly inspired by Otacon from Metal Gear Solid, or rather, his appearance. The character is voiced, alas, by a different actor. This is a bit of a shame, because Deadman’s image is a mixture of eccentricity, a scientific mind, and a tragic fate.

In short, you play here for the process itself. Despite everything that might scare you off at first, I spent about forty hours in it and… didn’t get bored even once. Seriously. There’s something about the daily grind in this almost meditative gameplay that somehow feels satisfying: like putting things away on shelves, clearing out old files from your desktop, or tidying up your garage. You can find this kind of experience in Euro Truck Simulator, Elite: Dangerous, or EVE Online — projects where “doing nothing” becomes a way to relax. Of course, this is an acquired taste. Many will find Death Stranding painfully dull, and they have every right to do so. But this is exactly the niche Kojima is aiming for — a niche where it’s not what you do that matters, but how you live it.

The world in Death Stranding is downright unwelcoming. It doesn’t invite general it pretends in every way that it’s better to avoid it. But this is precisely why you want to challenge yourself — to plot a route, find a loophole, go where in another game there would have long been an invisible wall. Before each order, you study the map: where to cut, how to bypass the river, not fall into a ravine. You need to take into account the terrain, the type of soil, even the water level. It would seem like a small thing — but fording a turbulent river for some reason causes real pleasure. And such details are often ignored even by famous developers.

Sam — your hero — is called the Great Delivery Man. It sounds pompous, but in fact: he can deliver cargo almost anywhere. The steeper the slope — the sweeter the victory when you finally climb to the top. The game does not tell you how to get to the goal: no mini-map, no GPS, no magic arrows. Moreover, your arsenal is modest, but each thing in it is worth its weight in gold. For example, folding ladders are a real find. With their help, you can overcome almost any obstacle: climb a cliff or build a bridge across a river.

And now the most interesting part: everything you build can help other players. This is how the “link system” works, which Kojima positioned as a revolution in multiplayer. Yes, if you played Dark Souls, the idea will seem familiar – but in Death Stranding it works differently. You can leave messages, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real essence is in the infrastructure. Your ladder, your generator, your canopy from the rain – all this can appear in the worlds of other players and make their path easier.

Here is just a part of what you can leave behind in the game:

• ladders and ropes to overcome difficult areas;
• bridges over rivers and ravines;
• shelter from temporary precipitation (typhoons and rain);
• charging stations for vehicles and spacesuits;
• road sections that reduce delivery time;
• fast travel points and supply depots.

Let’s say you’ve built a path across a difficult pass. Someone else, finding themselves there for the first time, will gratefully follow your route — and give it a like. And you, in turn, will also stumble upon traces of other “deliverers”: well-placed bridges, temporary shelters, teleportation points. They seem like small things, but together they transform a hostile landscape into something habitable.

And here comes the feeling that you are part of something bigger. You are not just building ladders and throwing cables across ravines. You are creating infrastructure. You are making the path more convenient — not only for yourself, but for others as well. And this is surprisingly pleasant. You can be proud of the fact that you spent five hours on a cable car network that really helped someone. And then you log into the game the next day — and see that someone has paved the place where you used to suffer.

Death Stranding is a game about a ruined, dead world, but something truly human comes to life in it: the desire to help. Even if silently. Even if invisible. But together – and this is incredibly touching.

Is Death Stranding Worth Playing: Pros, Cons, and Opinion on the Project

Death Stranding is a real experiment, a daring attempt to go beyond the usual, and certainly one of the most unconventional exclusives ever released on PS4. However, all the hype around the game played a cruel joke on it: despite the impressive budget and big names on the cover, it is still not for a wide audience. The project has many controversial points for which Hideo Kojima has been criticized for more than one year. It is difficult to recommend Death Stranding as simply a “cool game”. But in the context of the entire industry, it is a powerful authorial statement that stands out against the background of the stamped mainstream. In some sense, it is a sad, but brilliant masterpiece.

Pros:

• An unconventional approach to game mechanics, especially for a large project
• Scrupulous attention to detail
• Atmospheric and emotional soundtrack
• Unusual, but memorable visual style

Cons:

• Empty, uninteresting open world
• Weak and inexpressive presentation of the plot
• Predictability in the development of the story
• Monotonous gameplay, quickly boring
• Boring and lacking drive combat scenes

Death Stranding System Requirements

How to play Death Stranding for free on Steam via VpeSports

When you’re alone for a long time, you start to hear things that aren’t there. Footsteps, echoes, the breath of the world. It all merges into a strange cacophony that’s impossible to forget. That’s how Death Stranding begins – not as a game, but as an inner journey. A journey that I, like you, once didn’t dare take. Not because of fear. Because of money. Stupid, right? But then I found a way. Without paying for anything, to step onto dead land and feel again what it means to be part of something bigger.

I found what I was looking for on the VpeSports website – as if someone had left a mark for me, a route in the void. I registered, found a section with free steam account, and among them – Death Stranding. I clicked on the cover, as if on frozen glass – and it cracked. The instructions opened. Simple, as if someone understood how hard it can be to take the first step. Everything turned out to be without unnecessary noise. No crutches, no magic. Just you, access, and the opportunity to regain what was long lost — contact.

The first hours in the game are like walking through your own memories. Rain that erases faces. Emptiness where hope still lives. This world is broken, but every step you take is like an attempt to fix it. I couldn’t resist — I left a review on the site, wrote what I felt when I first carried a load over a pass. These are not just words. This is a trace. Like a boot print on a wet stone. If you write, you will do the same. Yes, sometimes moderation asks to rewrite — but in the game we don’t give up, even when the path crumbles under our feet. After approval, a letter arrives. And with it — a login, password, and again the opportunity to continue.

To avoid getting lost in this world — keep in touch. We have Telegram. There are other couriers there. There are answers, instructions, help — like points of contact between the survivors. And if you want more details, if you are interested in how to launch Death Stranding and other games for free – there is already a whole guide on the site, cut out as if from memories. We also have a channel chat!