Evan Urquhart

The game is extremely uneven. There's good, there's bad, and there's so-bad-it's-kinda-good. The gameplay is very solid, as expected- if it hadn't been I wouldn't have stuck with it so long.

The core fetch quests have a soothingly repetitive quality, w/ variety and difficulty to keep them interesting (mostly- a few later runs became too easy). There are also pure shooter sections and BT escapes/fights, which are ok. (If you like shooters you'll probably like those.)

Now, to the story. I'm probably going to spoil some stuff, because I don't care. If you're wondering "Is Death Stranding pro-life?" The answer is yes. Politically that's probably the most consistent element, tbh.

Your "BB" (the weird fetus in a jar from the trailer) is needed equipment, and also represents the original sin of your whole operation. Sam coming to care for BB as a baby is fundamental to his character arc, freeing BB from the jar so it can grow up is the last thing you do.

I'd probably have found the extreme pro-life message more annoying, though, if I'd cared for the characters at all. Sam is a boring cardboard hero, I never got over the weirdo-freakout aspect of BB and saw it as more than a messed up, kinda cool game element.

The other characters are not much better- wooden, cardboard, stereotypical, with occasional aspects of weirdness that's kinda cool but doesn't really cohere. It would have really benefited from better dialogue writing. Just laughable. Sometimes terrible in a fun way, but still.

The one exception was Deadman, who I kinda liked. That's the character modeled on Guilermo del Tormo, voiced by Jesse Corti. Deadman has some very funny scenes, and is a lot more lively and fun to interact with than the rest.

Everyone's name is a word that's telling you how to feel about them, in a very cringey way. There are plot twists, but they're extremely easy to guess by paying attention to the names. The politics- even ignoring the pro-life stuff- are similarly heavy handed and crude.

All that said, I found I really came to like and even sort of care about the world as a whole.

After the apocalypse, humanity's few survivors are left in a world of death magic which is both their best means of survival and their greatest threat. Sounds like it'd be as corny as the rest, but I came to really feel I was there through the settings and game play.