This post contains zero story spoilers, but does discuss gameplay elements from all of Death Stranding and the first third of Death Stranding 2.

2019’s Death Stranding is one Of my favorite video games of the last decade. It wasn’t for everyone, but it really landed with some people, myself very much included. I’m about a third of the way through the sequel, and I’m loving it as well. DS2 is a sequel in all the ways you’d expect: it’s bigger, has more action, and has more gameplay systems to play with. As such, the game has been met with much more universal praise than the first game, and while I generally agree with the praise, I do think this is a fundamentally different experience than the first game, and that’s not immediately obvious from the outset.

Death Stranding

The first Death Stranding was a walking simulator at its core. I don’t mean that in the way people often use that term in the industry, I mean successfully walking, putting one foot in front of the other across the barren landscapes of America, was the core gameplay element in that game. With close to zero combat, controller buttons were mapped to things you didn’t even think about in other games, such as shifting your balance to get your center of gravity right for the terrain you were traversing. You’d be walking across what was effectively a flat surface in most games, but you would have to choose your steps carefully so as to avoid pesky undulations and troublesome rocks in your path. And you did this while carrying a sometimes comical amount of cargo on your back, making everything harder. Oh, and there are ghosts, human enemies you can’t really fight, and “poison” rain that forced you off the ideal path.

As the game went on, you would unlock a few features that made this process marginally easier, but it really wasn’t much. You eventually got a dinky motorcycle, but it was often more trouble than it was worth. You could build small (or occasionally large) structures to make things a little easier for yourself, but constructing them was such a pain since you had to schlep the raw materials on your back to build them.

The experience this created wasn’t for everyone, but if it clicked with you, it was remarkably satisfying. The main character, Sam, would sometimes do a special animation and say something like “phew, made it” when he got to a destination, and I was right there with him. This game’s simple act of walking made hiking from point A to B with no combat in between light up my brain more than most shooters do.

There’s a moment in the closing hours of the game where you unlock a zip line, and you’re able to use it immediately to navigate up a mountain in seconds, and it’s truly one of the most euphoric moments in games I’ve ever had. I had been hauling my ass around for 30 hours at that point and I knew the sort of challenge climbing a snowy mountainside would be, and suddenly being able to shoot up to the top in seconds felt so good.

This is all not to even mention the way the game was semi-online where you and anonymous other porters were working together to build up the infrastructure of this world. You could rarely afford to build something like a road by yourself, but you could contribute a portion of what was needed and other players would do the same. Then you'd be backtracking through a space later in the game, and other players would have completed the work and suddenly you had something nice that you had worked with others to create. Honestly, this was something that blew me away when I realized it was happening. The concept of working together and needing each other to achieve great things was such a powerful message that was executed brilliantly.

I know there are people scratching their heads right now wondering how I could possibly think this is fun. I would ask you to consider games such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring which also take things that are simple in most video games, makes you think about them, makes them challenging, and people adore those as well. Or horror games that intentionally make you go slow and disincentivize combat. Sure, you could sand off those edges and make those games more like every other action adventure game out there, but fans of Soulslikes and horror games wouldn't like that: the challenge and the struggle is part of the joy. This is largely how I feel about Death Stranding as well. This isn't to say I only think certain people should be able to play the game, just that part of the joy I got from it was that struggle and the thrill of success and surprise bursts of capabilities.

Death Stranding 2

Which brings us to Death Stranding 2, which I find fascinating and makes me feel complex feelings (again, without even touching on the story). From 30,000 feet, the games are very similar: transport cargo from one location to another, with complications and difficult terrain in between. All of the walking and balance mechanics are still here, and they continue to work nicely.

But once you zoom in to the way the game is played moment to moment, you can see it's actually something completely different. If the first game was a walking simulator, the second game is a driving simulator. If the first game made me cower in fear at the enemies when I came across them, the second game makes me rub my hands together and go "excellent, let's fight". If the first game made me carefully question what items I need to bring with me on a journey, the second game makes me go, "YOLO, I've got unlimited space in the back of the truck, I'm taking everything".

Death Stranding 2 is a game that wants to help you at every turn, and that's great, but it also makes it a different experience than the first.

As a basic example, you start by just walking similar to how you did in the first game, but almost immediately you're given bionic legs that let you carry much more with ease. Soon after you get a motorcycle that carries most of your goods for you and can't tip over. Then you get guns...lots of guns...and can find yourself in very Metal Gear Solid 5-style battles. Then you get a truck that can carry seemingly unlimited items (I've yet to hit a limit) and is battery powered, but there are so many recharge stations around that I've never come close to running out of juice. Then you get attachments for that truck that will automatically grab packages on the ground near to it and load them in the cargo bay for you without even needing to stop. And you can upgrade your backpack to add pouches for carrying grenades and blood bags as if they were nothing. And you can build out a monorail system that lets you hitch a ride on a cargo container (with your vehicle and cargo) and traverse kilometers in no time. And most of your items get upgrades to get even better as you go.

So now I've got all my materials, precious cargo, and random shit in the truck and I just carry a few guns, grenades, and blood bags (health packs) on my back, and I haven't worried about carefully walking across terrain since the opening hour of the game.

Let me put it this way, I've already unlocked the zip line, that thing that made me feel euphoric in the first game, and I haven't even used it yet because it isn't the best way to move around. Leave my truck and all the cargo behind? No thank you! Besides, it'll just take like 15 seconds to drive the same distance.

This is probably a good place to remind you that I do really enjoy this game. Honestly, I probably enjoy it more because it's empowering me so much. The first game was a new and wholly original experience that explored its gameplay loop to its fullest extent. I don't know how much I'd enjoy a game with that same loop again, and I wonder if it's a situation where you can only play that trick once. Would getting the zip line cause the euphoric feeling again in the second game? Probably not. From that perspective, I do enjoy that I'm not going through the same slog as before, even if I did enjoy the slog. This isn't a sequel that resets all the advances you made in the first game, which is also refreshing in its own way.

I guess what I'm saying is that Death Stranding 2 is a meaningfully different game to the original, even if they seem identical at first blush. You're still a delivery man, but you're a super delivery man with a rack of guns and a big old truck that'll take you anywhere. It's still a hell of a lot of fun, but it's scratching a different itch than the first game for me.