Death Stranding 2: On the Beach PC Review – A Phenomenal Port

When the original Death Stranding made its way to PC back in 2020, it essentially became the definitive way to experience the unique open-world game. With Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Kojima Production, along with Nixxes, are looking for a similar achievement. This intent can be seen quite easily with all of the added bells and whistles that are coming to the PC release of the title, including thorough graphical options as well as compatibility with all major upscaling technologies out there, Nvidia’s DLSS, AMD’s FSR, and Intel’s XeSS.

"Death Stranding 2: On the Beach continues to be a phenomenal game."

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way: the PC port of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a fantastic one. I was able to test it on a mid-range system running on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, and experienced essentially no performance hitches whatsoever despite most of the graphics settings being cranked up to the max. I was able to maintain a steady frame rate of over 100 FPS for most of my time with the game at 1440p, with very rare dips to below 100, but still over 60, when things got particularly busy or I had entered a brand new area.

With performance out of the way, it is also well worth noting that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a gorgeous game. While I couldn’t make exact frame-by-frame comparisons, I thought it looked quite a bit better than it did on my base PS5. The only negative I have here is the implementation of FSR 3. There was a tendency for some environmental objects, primarily foliage, to look quite blurry due to the nature of upscaling. However, this is far from the game’s own fault, and largely comes down to how FSR 3 works.

"With performance out of the way, it is also well worth noting that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a gorgeous game."

Support for various control methods were also well implemented. While I did give keyboard and mouse a shot for some time, however, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach still feels like it was designed very much with controllers in mind. Despite this, the control layout for keyboard and mouse felt just fine, and I could find no moment where things got too awkward for me to accomplish what I was trying to do. Of course, for players who have more unique and less-supported controllers out there, Steam Input works flawlessly here, with the only caveat being that changing any keybindings will require you to do it through Steam rather than in-game. For everyone else, the in-game options will be plenty.

Generally speaking, PC is a fantastic platform to experience Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, thanks in large part to the effort Kojima Productions and Nixxes went through to ensure that it is a smooth port. Along with offering plenty of options, be it for graphics like volumetric lighting and terrain quality, or for keyboard and mouse controls, like switching between toggle and hold settings for various in-game actions, as well as fine-tuning options for camera sensitivity. If you would like to get more granular, there are also options to change the quality level of things like Volumetric Lighting, Translucency, Reflections, and Reflections, along with the usual suspects like Texture Quality and Ambient Occlusion.

As for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach as a whole, it feels like a sequel in just about every way possible. Now, don’t get me wrong. I mean this in an entirely positive way, since I loved the original Death Stranding when it first came out thanks to its unique take on the open-world genre and fun gameplay mechanics that revolved more around the simple act of walking from point to point, making essential deliveries. What I do mean by Death Stranding 2 feeling like a sequel is that it has basically built upon, and improved just about every aspect of its predecessor, from gameplay to presentation to story.

The plot of Death Stranding 2 starts off quite simple. Several months after the events of Death Stranding, protagonist Sam Bridges and his adopted daughter Lou are living off the grid, outside of the Chiral network as established by the United Cities of America. Sam is making a modest living by making simple deliveries, and generally being a good father to Lou. However, one day, an old friend manages to find him: Fragile. She tasks Sam with a major mission, to bring the Chiral network to Mexico. On doing so, Sam’s actions towards the end of the original Death Stranding will be forgiven, and he will be free to live his life wherever he wants.

"The plot of Death Stranding 2 starts off quite simple."

Along the way, Sam also learns about a mysterious new anomaly. While not too many details about this anomaly are revealed, at least for the time being, we do learn that it allows instantaneous travel to Australia. After having made the long, arduous treks back and forth to complete this delivery, however, Sam is faced with a new adversary. A month later, Sam is called on by Fragile once more to help lead an expedition to Australia, attempting to bring the continent into the Chiral network.

The prologue chapter is quite long, with the game only really opening up properly once you finally get to Australia. Despite this, however, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach never really feels like a slow game in terms of how it paces out its story. Sure, you’ll be spending several hours making dozens of deliveries between important plot beats. When you do hit those beats, however, the revelations and plot twists start coming in quite fast. This is further helped by the phenomenal cast of characters aboard your new home base, the DHV Magellan.

While several characters from the original Death Stranding return, like Fragile, we also get brand new characters like Tarman. A personal favorite of mine throughout the story was Dollman, as played by Fatih Akin and Jonathan Roumie, since his mannerisms are often quite funny, and the comedy is further compounded by the fact that his animations are always running at a slower framerate.

Beyond the minor live-action story additions, and the new nightmares Sam has to endure, PC players can look forward to a few extra touches worth mentioning. There’s full DualSense integration with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, which feels fitting, if also fairly expected for a major PlayStation release on PC, while ultrawide support extends to 21:9 during in-game cutscenes. On the content side, PC players can look forward to experiencing the “Trapped in a Strange Realm,” a new VR training area built around Sam’s battles with Neil, as well as “to the wilder” mode, a new challenge option designed to push porter skills to the limit in far more punishing conditions. As a side note, all of these updates are also coming to the PlayStation 5.

"Beyond the minor live-action story additions, and the new nightmares Sam has to endure, PC players can look forward to a few extra touches worth mentioning."

When it comes to gameplay, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach offers much of what its predecessor did: long treks through empty landscape where you have to plan out your routes to avoid steep mountains, deep rivers, and other environmental hazards. While the core gameplay hasn’t changed too much, there are some added twists thanks to the world itself. A day and night cycle can often change up the nature of deliveries altogether, bringing in major changes to visibility. There are also plenty of new environmental hazards to deal with, from earthquakes and sandstorms to wildfires and avalanches, which can further throw a wrench into your carefully-designed route across Australia’s many regions.

While the core traversal can be quite meditative at times, Death Stranding 2 also has more options than ever before for how you can deal with threats. Along with a variety of weapons that can be outfitted with non-lethal ammunition, you also have more tools to use if you would simply prefer to sneak away and avoid conflict altogether.

Death Stranding 2 offers a uniquely meditative experience for most of its runtime, punctuated by high-octane action thanks to its awesome boss fights, as well as emotional and epic moments alike with its fun story that revolves around whether or not connecting the world in the first game was altogether such a great idea.

This game was reviewed on PC.