Month: December 2025

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025)

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Death Stranding has always been a bit of an odd duck in the gaming community. While many such as myself love the game for its bizarre world and unique gameplay, many players mock the “strand-type” game for sidelining action to focus on traversal. I fell in love with the isolated hikes interspersed with tense action, and the theme of connection was so masterfully woven into every aspect of the game. I spent dozens of hours making optional deliveries and building roads for other players to use. For my full thoughts on the original Death Stranding, read my review. When Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was announced, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to dive back into the world. 

Death Stranding 2 picks up with Sam and Lou surviving in hiding near the border of Mexico. After being tracked down by an old colleague, Sam gets roped into another grand mission to connect Mexico to the Chiral Network. During this expedition, a mysterious “plate-gate” opens up, acting as a portal between North America and Australia. Sam traverses the plate-gate and sets out to connect Australia to the network as well. 

Where the original game focused on connection, Death Stranding 2 asks whether it was worth connecting all. Connecting The United States together via the Chiral Network has destabilized other portions of the world, causing rivers of tar to swallow large swathes of the planet. Ghostly BTs have become more common, and terroristic organizations have been emboldened to threaten the last pockets of humanity. This theme of questioning connection extends into personal relationships. Sam was always a loner before the events of Death Stranding, but opened his heart as he connected the continent. Now, Sam has to grapple with the repercussions of connections: grief, loss, and betrayal. 

I really love the idea behind the story and themes of Death Stranding 2. It’s a sophisticated tale of interpersonal conflict and real adult feelings disguised within a wacky sci-fi setting. But I felt the execution was often lacking. Death Stranding 2 is a massive game, having the player traverse dozens of settlements, and it feels like the story often meanders without much purpose. The game falls into a formulaic pattern where you make a deliveries to non-important side characters, and important cutscenes are reserved for when you board your mobile base of operations: the DHV Magellan. But those moments of real narrative progression are excellent, filled with emotional turmoil and heartbreaking reveals.

Part of the reason why the cutscenes are so compelling is due to the state-of-the-art technology used for motion capture and visual spectacle. Kojima Productions is at the top of the industry when it comes to graphical fidelity and animation, only competing with other heavy hitters like Naughty Dog. The amount of emotion that can be read through facial expressions and minute movements is so critical to the game. And having accomplished actors such as Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, and Elle Fanning playing these characters further brings them to life.

By now, everybody knows that Hideo Kojima has a penchant for the bizarre. The stories that he writes often have many moving parts and nonsensical elements. There’s a level of campiness that can often feel out of place in a serious story. But I’ve come to love the goofiness that comes with Kojima’s games. They don’t take themselves too seriously. One of the key deliveries in the mid game is to bring special yeast to a Pizza Chef and then deliver his pizzas to nearby survivors to get them to trust you. And the chef is a master of martial arts who teaches you to use pizza dough to incapacitate terrorists. 

When it comes to gameplay, Death Stranding 2 deemphasized the hiking traversal that its predecessor was known for. Making deliveries is still the core gameplay loop, but the sequel introduces vehicles very early on and features far more combat. I think for players that were skeptical about how little traditional gameplay was in the original game, these changes are probably a good thing. But personally, I was disappointed in how easy it was to always use a vehicle to reach your destination. Even when completing story missions, meaning there would be no roads or additional structures, there was never a place where I felt like I had to get on foot and navigate difficult terrain.

The reason I think this is a negative is because I really loved the unique aspect of being a human mule. Every package or piece of equipment you carried contributed to your weight and person. Carrying too much would slow you down, but more critically it shifts your center of balance, making it easier to fall over and damage the goods. You had to carefully consider which route you would take, streams and rivers were massive obstacles, and you always needed to bring ladders and climbing anchors to deal with sheer cliffs. This slow-paced, contemplative gameplay was utterly unique. Managing your inventory, planning a route, and then carefully trudging across the beautiful landscapes made the game almost meditative.

On paper, Death Stranding 2 still has all of the above aspects. It even adds new environmental obstacles such as floods, sandstorms, earthquakes, and landslides to increase the danger. I was really looking forward to these new threats, as my biggest issue with the original game was that it became too easy as the game progressed. But these weather effects are rarely more than an inconvenience. And the world of Death Stranding 2 feels like it was conveniently designed for vehicles. There’s almost always a path for a truck, even in places that should be craggy or steep, there’s always a convenient path to drive on. Using trucks trivializes so much of the challenge of the game. Inventory management becomes a breeze as trucks can carry massive loads, you don’t have to worry about falling over and damaging cargo, and you can zip past many of the game’s threats.

An argument could be made to just not use vehicles, but there’s no reason not to. Vehicles are fairly cheap to fabricate, make every aspect of deliveries easier, and have no downsides whatsoever. The world is massive, making traveling on foot more tedious than challenging. Players are always going to go with the path of least resistance, and vehicles are just too good to ignore. The traversal aspects of Death Stranding 2 are even easier than the original game, which is the opposite direction that I wanted the scales to tip. I wish that there were more sections in which using a truck was completely infeasible. For instance, when traveling to a new location for the first time there should be more obstacles making vehicle use impossible, but afterwards you could build roads to make backtracking with a vehicle possible. 

Instead of traversal, Death Stranding 2 places more emphasis on combat. There are far more camps of enemies as well as boss fights scattered throughout the game. This is by far the most improved aspect of the sequel, as combat was fairly rare in the original game. Having more combat scenarios sprinkled in with the classic traversal missions is fantastic. It increases the tension, knowing that at any moment you could be battling terrorists, robots, or ghostly BTs.

 Kojima clearly took inspiration from one of his previous games, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain when designing the combat of Death Stranding 2. Stealth is encouraged to protect your cargo, but you’re welcome to take whatever approach you want. The game quickly introduces a multitude of different tools for the player to utilize. From assault rifles and shotguns to holograms and catchable monsters, there’s many ways to approach combat. I appreciate the variety, playing around with all the different options is great.

Combat in Death Stranding 2 packs quite a punch because of the game’s focus on real consequences. You aren’t a superhero sprinting and jumping with no regard for anything. You’re a regular guy who trips over boulders, gets weighed down in the mud, and feels the full impact of any damage. This is especially clear in the game’s handful of boss fights. Battling giant autonomous robots while trying to find your footing in a tar pit is a frantic experience. And watching Sam double over with exhaustion, covered in black muck and blood after dispatching a monster is relieving.

Visually, Death Stranding 2 is stunning. Part of what makes traversal-driven gameplay so appealing is just being able to take in the environments. The constant change in elevations gives you ample opportunity to stop and take in the sights of towering mountains, low-lying flood plains, and wind-whipped deserts. Kojima also has a penchant for excellent set pieces and explosive action sequences. One of my favorites being scrambling through the underbrush during a forest fire to rescue a wild kangaroo as hellfire rains from above. The soundtrack is equally great; there’s a fantastic collection of tunes to jam out to while making deliveries. From old timey easy-listening songs to indie folk to modern Japanese pop songs, I loved the variety as I drove across Australia.

Part of the magic of both Death Stranding games is how they drive the player to slow down and enjoy the process. With so many fantastic games being released yearly, it’s tempting to blast through them as fast as possible to have time to play everything. But while playing these games I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to take my time, build up the world full of structures and roads, complete some of the five-hundred optional deliveries. There’s a sense of satisfaction watching the harsh environment be transformed into a network of safe paths and bases. And reaping the rewards of those building efforts by driving your truck miles across the world to deliver some packages is so addictive.

Bigger isn’t always better. I think Death Stranding 2 would have benefited from being scaled down a tad bit. I think the story and the gameplay suffer from having to accommodate for such a massive world. The story meanders for long stretches of time between major outposts. And the large map forces the use of vehicles to minimize tedium. By the time I reached the final third of the game, I was starting to get a bit worn out and just wanted to see the game through to its conclusion. I think cutting back on some of the more unnecessary missions and refining the remaining ones to be more interesting would have gone a long way.

It’s hard to explain what makes the Death Stranding games so enjoyable to play. To an outsider, it may sound like I’m describing the life of a post-apocalyptic Amazon delivery driver. But these games are so much more than that. They’re about connection, meditation, beauty, and grief, with a healthy sprinkling of Kojima’s weirdness to keep you on your toes. Death Stranding 2 doesn’t quite deliver everything I wanted out of the sequel. But it does have its own strengths that I’m sure many will prefer over the original. It is for these reasons I give Death Stranding 2: On the Beach an 8/10. It may not be for everyone, but I spent countless hours roaming the gorgeous and bizarre world that Kojima and his team crafted.

Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025)

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No game may have been more highly anticipated than Hollow Knight: Silksong. Team Cherry surprised the world in 2017 with the debut of Hollow Knight, and one of their Kickstarter funding goals promised a second playable character: Hornet. That promised DLC expanded in scope until it eventually became its own standalone game. It’s been over 6 years since the game was first revealed and after the long wait I wondered if the lightning-in-a-bottle of the original could be recreated. But after playing the game, I can confidently say that Silksong picks up right where Hollow Knight left off. For my thoughts on Hollow Knight, check out my review from when the original was released.

The brilliance of Silksong begins with its world. Kidnapped by religious zealots, Hornet arrives in the land known as Pharloom. It’s inhabited by numerous varieties of bugs, but the common thread connecting them is religious devoutness. It’s clear that Pharloom is a kingdom that has crumbled into dust, only whispers and tradition carry the travelers to summit the peaks where the holy Citadel stands.

As a metroidvania, Silksong frees its players to explore and discover organically. With nothing but the nebulous goal of reaching the Citadel as your guide, you set out on a blind journey. Silksong takes inspiration from the storytelling of FromSoftware’s games such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Taking in the dying world around you, piecing together the puzzle of what happened through vague texts and environmental storytelling. Nothing is directly told to you, but the world and its artistry wonderfully communicate what kind of place Pharloom once was.

Take for instance the Underworks, a mechanical nightmare of pipes, gears, and valves beneath the Citadel. The opulence of the Citadel is powered by these dingy chambers. It is here where workers tirelessly labor to maintain the holy grounds that they never see. When they attack you for your intrusion, they only drop a pittance of rosaries, the currency of Pharloom. As you’ve progressed through the game you’ve gained increasingly more rosaries in each area from tougher foes, but the Underworks represent the poor dregs of the Citadel. There’s even a hidden room in which you can run on a treadmill to generate power, only to be rewarded with a single rosary for the effort. And it is here in the Underworks where the benches which have been the universal sign of rest and have acted as your checkpoints of safety incur a cost of 15 rosaries for a single use. Without any dialogue or text, Silksong portrays a dystopian society where a class is exploited and drained to fuel the grandiosity of an empty cathedral.

It’s these vignettes and partial truths of the past that make exploring Pharloom so compelling. The art and sound design of Silksong is also top-notch. An enormous amount of care was put into making each area distinct and filled with details. It’s from these details where the hidden stories are filled with life. The music is equally compelling, often harboring somber moods as you explore this crumbling kingdom. Yet frantic melodies make an appearance when engaging with any of the numerous bosses of Silksong.

The gameplay of Silksong is that of traditional 2D metroidvania. You explore massive areas, fighting enemies, platforming across dangerous pits, and collecting hidden boons to increase your power. The major upgrades that you find act as keys that unlock new paths in the world, as well as being purposeful in combat. What I love about Silksong is its non-linearity and its reluctance to guide the player. It is up to you to figure out where to go, often you have to choose at random between forks in the road. When you enter a new area, you are blind, there is no map until you find the mapmaker. You’re forced to rely on instinct and curiosity. I find this more compelling than being given explicit directions. Each path has something to be discovered, but the further you wander from a resting place, the more risk you incur.

Pharloom is a harsh place, filled with enemies, obstacles, and traps. Resting at a bench acts as a checkpoint, restoring your health and letting you respawn there if you die. And if you die, you lose all the currency you are holding, and you only get a single chance to reclaim it. The game design makes the world incredibly dangerous, and you can take nothing for granted. Every time you hit an enemy, you generate a single pip of silk, and nine pips of silk are required to heal. Getting hit at all is costly, and extreme caution is warranted when traversing Pharloom. I personally love this feeling of playing on a knife’s edge. You can never let your guard down or brute force your way through obstacles. You have to master your movement and your arsenal.

What makes Silksong stand out from its predecessor is the number of tools available to the player. Hornet is a much nimbler protagonist than Ghost from the first Hollow Knight. She acquires many different tools to dodge and evade. But this agility comes at a cost, as she is also much more fragile than Ghost. As the game progresses, many enemies and traps deal two ticks of damage rather than one. This happens fairly early on in the game. While there has been an uproar online about this steep spike in difficulty, I wasn’t offput by this at all. I thought the difficulty was well-balanced to provide an adequate level of challenge. Silksong is the sequel to Hollow Knight, and it was originally intended as DLC. It makes sense that it picks up where Hollow Knight left off. Furthermore, Hornet is swift and has so many more tools at her disposal to make encounters easier. Making use of these tools makes the game so much more approachable.

Not only do you unlock various movement options, but spells, crests, and tools also can be found to customize your moveset. Spells are powerful abilities that cost silk to use. Tools come in the form of both equipped passive bonuses and accessories that you can deploy in combat such as throwing needles or caltrops. And crests are complete game-changers as they entirely alter Hornet’s attacks and innate abilities. For example, the Beast crest modifies the basic heal to instead be a life-stealing effect when you claw at enemies. I found that tinkering with the different options and finding combinations that I liked was immensely enjoyable.

The boss fights of Silksong are the cherry on top of the already excellent gameplay. They all have distinct attack patterns and arenas that make them stand out from one another. But I was most impressed by the lack of restraint shown by Team Cherry. Most bosses only have 3 or 4 attacks, limiting the number of tells and timings that you have to memorize. I was able to easily find openings and gain confidence on the tougher foes, transforming the fights into a dance as Hornet nimbly evades blows and returns damage with her needle. The design of these fights has a knack to seem intimidating at first, but quickly become manageable once you learn the patterns.

As a metroidvania, discovery is a key aspect of the gameplay loop. Finding secrets, uncovering new areas, and remembering where to use your new abilities are part of the fun. For the most part, Silksong nails this. The lack of guidance makes these discoveries more organic and rewarding. But I do have a minor gripe with some of these well-kept secrets. I don’t mind when minor rewards such as health upgrades or tools are well-hidden, they are bonuses for having a keen eye. But I was disappointed by how many major areas were so incredibly concealed. I missed a handful of these areas initially, and only found them when I was aiming for 100% completion. One or two of these areas being secret is fine, but Silksong is a massive game and finding the fake walls leading into these secret zones is like finding a needle in a haystack.

My other minor issue with Silksong is its propensity for dull fetch quests. There are dozens of quests in the game, many of them being fun journeys that result in a boss fight or extra bit of lore. But there are also many repetitive fetch quests that have you slay some number of nearby enemies. The majority of the time these enemies are the same ones you’ve been fighting for hours at this point. These kinds of quests are just dull and act as padding, which the game doesn’t need at all since it is already so huge.

After such a long wait, I was a bit nervous that Silksong wasn’t going to live up to its sky-high expectations. But I was thoroughly impressed with the immersive world and tight gameplay. It is a continuation of Hollow Knight, but it doesn’t feel totally derivative because Hornet plays so differently from Ghost. The ability for the artistry of the world to tell a wordless story is truly special. It is for these reasons that I give Hollow Knight: Silksong a 9.5/10. If you haven’t played either of the Hollow Knight games, do yourself a favor and play the best metroidvanias of the last couple decades.