On Nov. 8, 2019, after three years of nebulous trailers and confusing gameplay demos, Kojima Productions released Death Stranding, its first project as an independent studio. I played it for 15 hours and didn’t enjoy a single one of them. I played the role of an exhausted man transporting boxes to a bunch of jerks scattered across a decimated U.S.; it was a plodding, preachy, indulgent mess. I promptly deleted it from my PlayStation 4. Stay connected with other players around the globe. Donate valuable resources to rebuild structures in your world and others’, and offer likes in support of player structures that appear in yours to reward them for their contributions. And so much more! Some art will, given time, morph alongside us. Some art will wait calmly, even stubbornly, for us to return with a new perspective. Death Stranding, by my estimation, has done a bit of both. It has sat patiently, confident in its mechanisms and gargantuan in its ideas, but it has also shifted — just a little bit — while we all did our best to grow. But in its ability to tell a story through your actions, Death Stranding is — I might as well admit it — brilliant. It’s languid until it’s terrifying. It conjures up fear before it cleanses with relief. It’s mundane until shit suddenly hits the fan, and it’s all you can do to escape the pouring timefall and make it to the nearest base, with a crowd of holograms erupting into applause — just as my neighbors and I did every night last summer, all but hanging out of our windows as the ER nurse who lives below me returned from a long shift.

Death Stranding is replete with questions of whether any of this is worth it — the solidarity and togetherness of it all. If catastrophes will keep piling up, and humans will continue to isolate, and communities will continue to fracture, then what’s the point of ever coming together? For all of its preaching, the game doesn’t end with tidy answers. To tie a bow on these questions in a final cutscene would undercut all of the work its gameplay has already done more elegantly than its thousands of words. From legendary game creator Hideo Kojima comes a critically acclaimed, genre-defying open world action adventure for PC, starring Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux and Lindsay Wagner.The much-touted “strand” system is a form of collaborative online play, where you can share items with other players, leave pre-set warning signs, and contribute resources to construction projects. You never see your fellow porters, but their items and cargo litter your world. Building your first bridge sparks mild euphoria at never having to tiptoe across a wild river again. Later in the game, players can pool materials to form motorways, and reward players’ philanthropy with likes. As Sam Bridges, your mission is to deliver hope to humanity by connecting the last survivors of a decimated America.

In addition to DS2, we are also preparing a completely new game as well as some visual projects. I am hoping to bring you more information on all of these next year." In the future, a mysterious event known as the Death Stranding has opened a doorway between the living and the dead, leading to grotesque creatures from the afterlife roaming the fallen world marred by a desolate society. From legendary game creator Hideo Kojima comes a genre-defying experience, now expanded in this definitive DIRECTOR’S CUT. DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT on PC includes HIGH FRAME RATE, PHOTO MODE and ULTRA-WIDE MONITOR SUPPORT. Also includes cross-over content from Valve Corporation’s HALF-LIFE series and CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. Stay connected with players around the globe with the Social Strand System™.But someone had placed a ladder across the ravine, and I escaped the ambush. That player will never know how much that ladder helped, but that’s beside the point. They made the game that much easier for me. I left a ladder of my own up a steep slope just a few hundred yards ahead — what else could I do? On Sept. 24, 2021, Kojima Productions will release Death Stranding: Director’s Cut. I have been playing it for weeks. This time, I saw the closing credits. As mentioned, Death Stranding 2 was announced at The Game Awards earlier in December and will act as a sequel to Kojima Productions' first game that was released in 2019.

So: Is Death Stranding: Director’s Cut worth playing? Absolutely. Especially now. Was Death Stranding also worth playing in 2019? I’d say so. I just wasn’t ready for it yet.I’ve heard people call Death Stranding meditative, and I don’t disagree. But more than that, I’ve found it to be hypnotic.