Death Stranding is the anti-open-world game, and it contains some valuable lessons about what to simulate that open-world games can learn from.
Death Stranding continues to spark conversation years later as its impact and relevance grow beyond its original release ahead of the upcoming sequel.
That's not proof, it's your opinion
which means you are lying, or you are a writer for a living who doesn't know what "prove" means
which is it?
On n4g, I frequently get so annoyed by comments that I take the time to login so I can downvote someone. Today is such a day. What a pointless comment…
March 31st, 2025 – KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS is proud to announce that DEATH STRANDING has connected over 20 million porters across PlayStation®4, PlayStation®5, PC, XBox, iOS platforms, and Amazon Luna.
I have been slowly working my way though this game for months. I keep playing other games in between but I want to finish it before DS2.
I ended up with over 140 hours on it, but I wasn't exactly rushing. Ended up seeing to it that all roads were rebuilt too.
There are still a few Half Life missions left that I think I'll do.
Man I love this game. Platinumed it and played through it a 2nd time just for fun. I'm day 1 with bells on for the sequel
In still drop in this world from time to time. I just played it yesterday.
Plenty of games have made a name for themselves as being proud of the fact they’re not to everyone’s taste over the years.
I mean I can do without nintendo games if given the choice. They are not nearly as mature rated as the average.
Yeah but I use my Switch OLED primarily for anime booba style games (visual novels and JRPG's) and ultra violent FPS's. Far from kid friendly, lol
The problem with that line of though is that games have never been as much "for everyone" as in 2025.
The only thing that's not for everyone in gaming lately is the gatekeeping. Devs will try to appeal to as many people as they can, but if you dare have your own tastes and prefer something a bit more obscure, then you have "L takes" because at the moment, popular opinion equals right opinion.
So devs should simply own the fact they water down their games and go Hollywood to please everybody. Then indies will go back to being trendsetters that are different from AAAs, instead of being roguelike and gacha copycats.
Okay, but "games I'm not meant to love" means I won't play them.
Games are for fun. They're their own art, it's a disservice to reduce them to interactive stories. You can focus on making your audience entertained on a positive way and still stand out.
No game is for everyone. Some games are more mainstream or casual friendly but there is always someone who won’t like it. Same with anything else
Real talk I'm in chapter 6 DeadMan.... just reached the mountaineer.... and it's time to admit this game is boring as all hell. The story is the only thing pushing me through. Time to move back to Days Gone and give that game a shot again. I'll beat them both eventually
I don't think that's solving a problem when that is the entire basis for its gameplay. In those other open world games, traversal is mostly contextual, location establishing, world building, and if done well maybe great exploration through its well established world and lore. Those other games also have many other priority gameplay pillars. FOr eg. If Witcher 3 had zero travelling, it would still have a solid game to play. If you remove the traversal tension of Death Stranding, then its just walking on flat land from A to B till the next cutscene.
Now yes, Death Stranding's traversal could be implemented in other games, and I'm certain developers have thought about it, but that would take away and maybe affect pacing of those other games whose priority could be combat, loot, puzzles, micro management of loot/power etc etc
A game that mixes traversal with gameplay very well would be Red Dead Redemption 2 and even then people have complained about its slow pacing. The solution has always been there but no game needed it for its entirety except Death Stranding.
In Breath of the Wild, the traversal is for exploration with always the hope for a surprise around the corner. I played BOTW around 45hrs without even doing 30% of the campaign maybe. You could easily call that a solution to open worlds over Death Stranding. In Death Stranding you are not going out there to explore as there isn't much to explore, and you already have to accept going in that there isn't going to be any interesting surprises in the world in terms of a special new loot, special encounters etc. You are just going to find the optimum A to B, so you are already forced to role play along and accept it for what it is. As soon as you stop role playing/look away and deny it, the game starts falling flat. The intrigue of the craziness of Death Stranding keeps most going through the grind.
Personally, Journey takes the cake. Most balanced in that department.
Death Stranding is brilliant. Implementing gameplay systems into crossing water, climbing and walking feels fresh.
I haven't played many games like it and I've played many games
I completely agree. Traversal often just acts as a buffer between the actual gameplay. In the worst cases you're just mindlessly beelining between the action sequences until you unlock fast-travel, at which point you're basically skipping the open world for the most part. While games that make traversal a bigger focus of the gameplay itself (e.g. Batman Arkham, Infamous, Spider-Man) require a bit more interaction by the player, there rarely are any consequences for messing up. Traversal ends up being fun and stylish, but ultimately it's an effortless excercise.
Death Stranding turns this concept on it's head by making traversal the essential part of the gameplay. Here you need to plan your routes carefully ahead of time, understand what equipment you'll need and constantly look for obstacles in your way. Especially in the beginning part of the game this it's a constant struggle because you are trying to figure out the gameplay mechanics. In one of my early journeys My trike slipped from a ladder into the river and I got washed away. Trying to recollect my cargo I kept slipping up (cause I've used up my endurance) until I washed up at the estuary. My Trike despawned, I wasted my boots, and completely depleeted my stamina just because I forgot to take a PCC with me to build a bridge. This early incident taught me so many lessons when it comes to Death Stranding. After that I was more careful but I had to finish the rest of chapter 2 without having a trike.
The great thing about Death Strandings game design is that the struggle is only the first part of the gameplay loop though. After you've successfully arrived at your destination and connect it to the chiral network you'll be rewarded with other people's structures that make this part of the map much easier to traverse. You'll also be able to build your own structures after connecting. Standard orders unlock a variety of tools that make it easier to traverse certain obstacles, but as you'll get more proficient and better equipped to deal with certain obstacles, the game challenges you with new and harder obstacles in the untraveled part of the world. It's extremely rewarding to come back to a place where you've previously struggled to get through and build an infrastructure that allows you to traverse it with ease.
I put over 90 plus hours in and thoroughly enjoyed the game and I've since watched a few playthrough of other people's play style and at the end of the day even though DS is open world everyone I have watched so far takes the same routes as me and each other so how open world is it really?