SVG REVIEW Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach on the So Videogames Podcast, Episode 447.

For further coverage leading up to this review, please listen to Episode 445 and Episode 444.

The post SVG REVIEW Death Stranding 2: On The Beach appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

admin August 21, 2025 6 min read

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach on the So Videogames Podcast, Episode 447.

For further coverage leading up to this review, please listen to Episode 445 and Episode 444.

BRAD: Let’s do a score.

CARLOS: Wait wait wait wait. Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. No. You’re fine. Let’s do a score. Let’s do a score. Can we do a score?

B: We’ll do the score. Carlos, now that we have, like, basically said everything. We’ve said everything about this game. You and I both played it. Both of us, like 50 or 60 hours. Whatever. Tell us, what’s your. What’s your final score for Death Stranding? Two?

C: Oh, I’m going first. I thought you were. Okay.

B: You’re the guest.

C: I haven’t even thought about it until just now. You just brought it up.

B: I know, I know.

C: You want me. To go because I thought you were going to go. Because I knew you had to do it for the thing. Okay? No. Let me. I’ll go first. Okay. I’m just, like, taking apart all the things I just said. If. If what did you give DS1? Do you know?

B: I want to say that I, Hold on. I gotta look it up, I don’t know. Hold on. I’m looking it up. I want to say that I gave it…. no, I’m not gonna. I want to say you give it an eight. I feel like I gave it an eight. Real time googling. I feel like we both gave it an eight.

C: Did we talk? We must have talked about it on the show.

B: Maybe I didn’t even review it. I don’t I don’t think I even reviewed it. I’m looking at… No, I don’t think I did an official review. I think we had.

C: I think that we’ve talked about on this show, we must and I think we both have said something like eight something.

B: If I was, if I was to go back now, like, literally right now and give Death Stranding one a score, I feel like it would be a nine, dude, honestly, because it’s so weird. The strand mechanics using navigation as the true challenge of the game, the way that stealth is kind of enforced, and the way that the beats kind of give you a different challenge. Not always pleasant, but I think they make you do something different than we have done before. Thematically. Well, fuck no no no no 8.5 because the story is so fucking awful. But I think mechanically true genius mechanically, but it is just diarrhea rocket dog shit for the story.

C: So I think mine would be eight because I didn’t finish it either. Because you said, nah, don’t you don’t have to finish it.

B: No, you didn’t miss nothing.

C: And so I didn’t miss anything. But at the same time, I didn’t like that garbage story. So. Yeah. So I think this one has got to be less than eight. that’s how. That’s why I was doing that.

B: Yeah, I gotcha.

C: I think it’s like a good cheese. This is the part where I get cancelled. I’m just overusing that word because it’s so played out. I think it’s a six.

B: Okay, okay.

C: 6.5. It’s a 6.5. I like the combat enough. I like going back to that world of being on a little place, and, the music kicks in and there’s moments that I was like, cool. But the Higgs thing really bothers me. Yeah. What? Higgs wasn’t in one, you know what I mean? Like that kind of annoying character wasn’t there?

B: Yeah, he just popped up, like at the very end or something. He was like, not even really. Present, right? But he wasn’t like this. Kind of like over omnipresent. and the unbelievable. Yeah. I think it’s got to be 6.5.

C: Okay. Okay.

B: That’s ironic because I was going to say 6.5 as well.

C: were you really?

B: It was really. Yeah. Because I feel like the script is terrible, the twists were predictably dumb, and the humanity isn’t present. The performances aren’t good, and none of the story works for me on any level. In terms of mechanics, the traversal that made it stand out for me before is not interesting this time around. It was all too easy, too fast and too simple. I didn’t get anything out of it that I wanted, and I and the pivot towards Metal Gear cheese, which is in the game quite a bit, and then the emphasis on combat, and it’s really like laissez faire combat, like you can really shoot a lot of stuff and not give a shit about any of it. I feel like most of what made the first Death Stranding unique has been stripped out, and because of that, it’s a much lesser experience. So for me, definitely like a 6.5 final score, I believe. Yeah.

C: All right. There you go, people. We did it.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Buy Death Stranding 2: On the Beach – PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive. It is currently available on PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 65 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language and Violence. The official description reads: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is rated M for Mature 17+ by the ESRB with Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, and Violence. This is an action game in which players assume the role of a courier (Sam Porter Bridges) attempting to reconnect society in a post-apocalyptic world. From a third-person perspective, players traverse an open-world landscape to deliver various goods and packages. Along the way, players can engage in combat against human soldiers, battle androids, and ghostly apparitions. Players use melee weapons (e.g., battle guitar) and firearms (e.g., machine guns, sniper rifles) to kill enemies. Players also employ stealth takedowns to incapacitate soldiers discreetly. Battles are sometimes frenetic, accompanied by realistic gunfire, blood-splatter, and slow-motion effects. Some sequences depict additional acts of violence and/or gore: a man’s hands and legs sliced off by a robotic samurai; a man set on fire in a fantastical manner; a man cut in half by a giant machine. The word “f**k” is heard in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game includes subtitles for all spoken dialogue. The game does use a variety of sound effects to signal the presence of various enemies, but there are visual cues that reflect those sounds. base don my time with it, I’d say it’s fully accessible.