Review for Death Stranding. Game for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 08/11/2019 The version for PC came out on 14/07/2020
“Once there was an explosion, an explosion that gave rise to time and space. At one time there was an explosion, a blast that caused a planet to rotate in that space. There was once an explosion, a blast that spawned life as we know it. And then another explosion came ... "
Another explosion happened a little while ago, within the gamer community, when Death Stranding was also announced for the glorious Master Race. An explosion that was already in the air before the release of the title for PlayStation 4, but which was announced only after the publication of the game on the Sony platform. After eight months from its launch, we are here to talk again about Death Stranding, the last epic of the master Kojima that finally, to the delight of many, but also to the desperation of others, arrives on PC; and in addition to Death Stranding, which was supposed to be Sony exclusive, Horizon Zero Dawn is coming to the PC stores. These two titles have one thing in common, namely they share the same graphics engine, the Decima Engine developed by Guerrilla Games. Could it be Sony's opening turn towards the PC market or two isolated episodes? Only time will give us the answer to this question.
By now Death Stranding we know it by heart, but for those who do not know the title is set in a post-apocalyptic future, in an America now divided and destroyed. The Death Stranding, or the phenomenon that devastated the United States of America, now called United Cities of America, UCA, brought a connection with the Beach, a mystical place connected with the afterlife and the Stranded Creatures, the fearsome CA. The UCAs are now disconnected from each other and the last survivors are holed up safely at home because the world has now become a hostile world, an accomplice in addition to the CA, also the chrono rain that will lead to a rapid aging of everything that will wet . The only daredevils able to face all the bad weather that this post-apocalyptic world offers are the couriers and the cadavers.
We will play the role of Sam Porter Bridges, a courier extremely known for its reliability and speed. Our task during this epic will be to reconnect and reconnect all the UCAs because doing so will ensure the survival of mankind. During our journey we will be joined by BB, a Bridges Baby, that is, a fetus extrapolated from a lifeless mother able to see the AC and warn us of their presence. The CAs will not be the only enemy present within Death Stranding, in fact we will have to be careful of MULES, or one of the predators who will try to steal the loot in any way. During the early stages of the game it is good to stay away from them, even if inside their camps we will find a lot of goods and packages to deliver.
We all know the gameplay and therefore we find it useless to repeat the same things we wrote in the review phase regarding the version for PlayStation 4. We will have to complete several tasks, which consist in the delivery of packages, and reconnect the UCAs through territory of the United States of America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. To face the enemies during the course of the game we will be assigned different weapons, both to remove the ACs and to neutralize the MULES. The best choice to enter the world of Death Stranding is to move cautiously when we find ourselves in front of the enemies and use the armament only in case of extreme necessity.
The game map, although vast, is very sparse in details, a deliberate choice to give the idea of a post-apocalyptic world. Despite this it offers a excellent level design, with a very varied morphology of the land and which will often represent a huge obstacle for us. To overcome the steepest hills or to go down a ravine, we will have different accessories, such as the rope or the ladder. In order to carry an even greater load, during the game we will be provided with different means, even if it is more fun and satisfying to face our journey on foot.
The task of Death Stranding is to connect in addition to the UCAs, even the players shooting around the globe: during our journey we can leave signs in order to inform other players of an imminent danger, or of a refuge. The ropes and ladders that we will use can also be used by others so as to facilitate them in the journey and also our creations made with the Chirale printer can be used by other players. If during our adventure we lose a package, it can be collected by another and completed and we can do the same. If we carry too much load or are unable to make a delivery, we can hand it over to the first post office so that we can leave it to someone else. This atypical multiplayer is definitely a nice addition to the title because, although we cannot see other players, see, use and expand their constructions it gives us a strong sense of connection within a devastated way and makes us feel even less alone during our adventure. Within Death Stranding, as we all know, a like system has been introduced to evaluate the activities of other players.
The control system, excellently implemented on the PS4 pad, is equally well implemented on the PC. The movement commands are the classic WASD, while the mouse buttons are relegated to the balance of our alter ego, while if we have a mouse with the side buttons, these will be used for attacks with weapons otherwise we will have to use the button on the keyboard. Death Stranding is compatible with the Pads, but don't be alarmed if you find the typical PlayStation buttons on the interface. If we use a Dualshock 4, as well as on PlayStation, we can use the controller to reproduce the sounds emitted by BB.
The question you all ask yourself is one, but how does this port on PC behave? We would like to clarify that we tried Death Stranding on a high-end PC consisting of a CPU AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, nvidia geforce RTX 2080 Ti, 32 GB of DDR4 RAM and a top-of-the-range Nvme SSD. Obviously we played Death Stranding at 4K resolution with the maximum graphic detail available and without the latest Nvidia drivers optimized for the aforementioned title. We ended up with an extremely defined game with excellent image cleaning and an average frame rate of around 93 FPS.
The PlayStation 4 version offers high-level textures, and here we find them even more beautiful than ever. The polygonal models of the characters are really impressive and during the cutscenes we often forget that we are in front of a game.
As we already told you during the preview, the PC version of Death Stranding offers a Unlocked frame rate capable of reaching a maximum of 240 FPS so as to have a crazy fluidity that the PlayStation 4 version dreams of. We have the support not only for 16: 9 aspect ratio monitors, but also 21: 9 ones so as to have greater immersion during the delivery phases of our packages.
Death Stranding turns out to be well optimized, extremely fluid and able to adapt to many PCs. Accomplice of this is also the game map, which contains a very sparse vegetation, but which at the same time manages to be extremely suggestive, especially when accompanied by the inspired soundtrack in the background.
Depending on the video card that we have installed on our PC, the game will offer us various improvements both visually and in terms of performance. With Nvidia GPU of the RTX family we will be able to enable the DLSS 2.0, instead with an AMD Radeon video card we will be able to enable the Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) and the FidelityFX Upsampling.
DLSS 2.0 (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is a rendering technology based on the use of artificial intelligence that will allow us to have greater fluidity without sacrificing visual quality. To use it we must necessarily have a GPU from the RTX family on board because DLSS will use the tensor cores that are normally used for Ray Tracing.
Contrast Adaptive Sharpening and FidelityFX Upsampling are two technologies from AMD capable of increasing the visual detail of textures and increasing contrasts, so as to make the image quality even more beautiful to see. As already mentioned a few lines above, Death Stranding is an extremely fluid title, capable of reaching a mind-boggling average frame rate in 4K resolution. This is all about the DLSS 2.0 of Nvidia, without it the FPS drops to about 75, a still excellent and mind-blowing result.
Death Stranding, Kojima's latest effort finally lands on PC with a truly amazing graphic result and with a crazy fluidity. We have a truly exceptional port in our hands, capable of running on many PCs. A virtually flawless port, good to look at, good to hear, good to play and with a well thought out default key configuration. The only defects to be attributed to the title are the same ones we found on the PS4 version, which is an unconvincing means guide.
Death Stranding represents a journey that must be faced at least once in a lifetime. If you haven't already, you can play its final version on PC.
► Death Stranding is an Adventure-type game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 08/11/2019 The version for PC came out on 14/07/2020
