3.5/5 ★ – Mank's review of Death Stranding.

There's a lot of good about Death Stranding, from its themes to the performances, i found the game to be one of the rarer examples of Triple A artsy gaming. And for the record I eat that shit up (mostly) TLOUS2 & RDR2 are both the only games I've given a 10 to. I'll admit I haven't played many indie games so idk if that'll stick but I love when a writer has a focused approach to storytelling. So why 7/10? Well for one, that's a good score (this isn't IGN), and two the gameplay is a one trick pony. It's an amazing beautiful & mesmerising pony, mind you but the game doesn't offer anything else for hours & hours. Which is because of its pacing. Looking back at RDR2 (i have 130 hours into it) you could say that the game has the same problem, the thing is that not only are there very many stories to find in that world, the gameplay IS more expansive. Storytelling in Death Stranding is the complete opposite as at first the game has too many Cutscenes and after that it has none for (possibly) dozens of hours. Nothing except just walking, walking, walking. And here's the other thing the game's message is of unity & making connections but it becomes contrary to itself by making the game a single player 300 hour long experience. That's 300 hours I spent not making connections with anyone. Going in I really wanted to love death stranding, leaving it I wanted to get out of my house. So I guess it achieved its intended goal?