Demise Stranding 2: On The Seaside assumes two issues about anybody leaping into Hideo Kojima’s new cinematic post-apocalyptic open-world supply sim…err, sorry, I imply strand-type recreation. One: It assumes you may have performed the primary recreation and (principally) understood what occurred. And two: It assumes you appreciated all of that and needed extra. Much more. And if these two statements are correct for you, they usually had been for me, Demise Stranding 2 is probably going going to be a bizarre, enjoyable, considerably uneven, and undoubtedly memorable 30- to 50-hour expertise. I even have an assumption to share: If you happen to didn’t just like the OG recreation since you discovered it too lengthy, unusual, obtuse, or boring, you’ll completely hate Demise Stranding 2: On The Seaside.
To attempt to summarize the occasions of Demise Stranding and the setup for Demise Stranding 2 may be very difficult. I do know, as a result of I’m struggling to do it now. Even Demise Stranding 2, which features a “recap” of the earlier recreation, fails at summarizing what occurred in it. However I’ll give it a shot!
Okay, so what the heck is Demise Stranding 2 about?
Principally, the world of the residing and the world of the lifeless have develop into intertwined, and that has almost brought about humanity to go extinct, primarily due to creepy ghost individuals caught on Earth. Contact one in all these “beached issues,” aka BTs, and a giant increase occurs, killing anybody unfortunate sufficient to be caught within the blast. Aside from Sam Porter Bridges, the primary character of the sport, performed by Norman Reedus. He’s a “repatriate” and may’t die. He simply retains getting back from the opposite aspect. This provides him particular powers that make him the one particular person in a position to reconnect the remaining pockets of society by way of the Chiral Community, a super-fast model of the web powered by the opposite aspect.
Within the first recreation, with the assistance of a particular child in a pod, Sam was in a position to reconnect all the United States. However he was betrayed by his adopted sister, who was truly a mystical entity that was tasked with bringing a couple of new extinction occasion. Fortunately, Sam satisfied her to not use all of the individuals he’d simply related to carry in regards to the finish of the world, defeated a dude named Higgs who was working alongside Sam’s sister to finish all the things, and ran away with that child within the pod who’s not trapped within the pod and is rising up right into a wholesome child woman.
Received all that? I hope so, as a result of I’m transferring ahead with the remainder of this evaluate.
Anyway, that’s the place Demise Stranding 2 picks up. Sam resides with the infant, now a toddler, and having fun with his quiet lifetime of solitude in Mexico. However after a devastating occasion occurs and Sam finds himself at his lowest level, a good friend from the final recreation, Fragile (Léa Seydoux), reveals up with a brand new mission for Sam: Join all of Australia to the Chiral Community and hopefully save the nation from destruction. And so, Sam begins an even bigger journey throughout a large open world full of totally different biomes, cargo to ship, animals to seize, and baddies to keep away from or battle. All in pursuit of connecting up Australia and possibly, within the course of, coping with some trauma with the assistance of a small group of weirdos that kind Sam’s discovered household.
To say there’s a lot occurring in Demise Stranding 2 is an understatement. There are such a lot of transferring items on this sequel’s narrative that it shortly turned laborious to maintain monitor of all of it. Demise Stranding 2 does embody an in-game encyclopedia that you could reference at any time when you could, even throughout a cutscene, and that helps. However the actual drawback is that Demise Stranding 2 has too many plot threads occurring suddenly, and it does a poor job of balancing all of them or giving each sufficient display time. And this drawback extends to characters, too.
Over the course of Demise Stranding 2, we meet up with some outdated faces, together with Fragile and Heartman, and meet some new individuals, together with Tarman, Dollman, Wet, and Tomorrow. (Cease laughing.) I loved all of them and their interactions with one another. Sadly, all of those characters—excluding Dollman, who goes with you in your whole journey throughout Australia—really feel underused and exist primarily within the recreation’s cutscenes, which aren’t as frequent or so long as you would possibly count on for a Kojima recreation.
Demise Stranding 2 makes a giant deal about Sam not being alone. The members of his close-knit circle all inform Sam that he can lean on them throughout this horrible time in his life and use them for help on his journey to attach the continent, discover peace, and even get some solutions about that particular child in a pod. However these fuckers weren’t round a lot as I spent dozens of hours connecting Australia.
I received’t spoil the ending of the sport, however a lot of Demise Stranding 2’s remaining act is devoted to individuals unraveling a bunch of hidden identities, secret plans, and stunning betrayals. One beauty of Demise Stranding 2’s closing hours is that, within the midst of all these twists and turns, you lastly get to spend extra time with all of the characters. They even begin to assist Sam throughout gameplay, too.
Nevertheless, with its overreliance on plot twists and large reveals, the ultimate stretch feels much less like an thrilling conclusion to an epic story and extra like somebody writing a novel simply realized they solely have three clean pages left to wrap all the things up. It’s messy. It’s bizarre. I’ll always remember the ending. There are at the very least three moments which are so bonkers, I want the embargo I signed didn’t forbid me from even alluding to them as they’re among the wildest shit I’ve ever seen in a online game. However Demise Stranding 2 simply doesn’t nail its touchdown. Nor do I feel it presents a satisfying reply to the query posed by a lot of the sport’s advertising and marketing: Ought to we have now related? Finally, the reply the sport appears to offer is a giant fats “Possibly.” It was a memorable however unsatisfying approach to wrap up my 50-hour journey.
And but, regardless of a messy finale and a few irritating narrative pacing points, I nonetheless loved my time with Demise Stranding 2. Why? As a result of, expensive reader, I fucking love delivering cargo.
Saving humanity with infrastructure and group
Outdoors of Demise Stranding 2’s cutscenes and character moments is the majority of the sport: Traversing a large and gorgeously rendered digital Australia. Generally I did so by trekking throughout snowy mountains or flooded rivers on foot. Different occasions, I used a big van and traveled throughout highways that had been rebuilt by me and different gamers on-line. And generally, I traveled in type by way of a community of monorails I’d helped create. No matter how I crossed Australia, I used to be nearly at all times lugging round many various items of cargo on my again.
That is Demise Stranding 2. That is what I spent 80 p.c of my time doing. All of the weirdness seen within the recreation’s advertising and marketing and trailers makes up a small proportion of the particular gameplay expertise. Even the sport’s creepy ghost monsters, BTs, can principally be averted by taking detours, being cautious, and checking the climate by way of your in-game map.
I spent whole play classes simply touring throughout Australia whereas ferrying provides between walled-off cities and lonely outposts. I wouldn’t name it regular—because the world is dotted with holographic indicators left by different gamers, and a person trapped within the physique of a small wood doll was my companion—but it surely was quiet. It was typically very chill. Contemplative. I did quite a lot of considering on these journeys, generally getting misplaced in my very own ideas in regards to the world. Then I’d slip on some moist rocks and watch all my fastidiously stacked and undamaged cargo fly off Sam and fall down a cliff or right into a river, resulting in some panicked operating round as I attempted to reserve it all.
That’s what makes delivering cargo so satisfying. If you decide up some packages to hold to a location, they aren’t merely dumped right into a menu and by no means seen once more till you drop them off. As an alternative, you must stack them on Sam’s again. Every package deal makes you a bit heavier and throws your steadiness off. It’s attainable to restack your cargo or tie it down to assist preserve it from falling, however every trek continues to be a balancing act between attending to the subsequent drop-off level shortly and getting there safely.
All through all these deliveries and hikes throughout the nation, I interacted with different gamers by way of the return of Demise Stranding’s asynchronous multiplayer. To be clear: At no level do you ever immediately work together with one other participant within the recreation. You aren’t ever leaping into somebody’s world and serving to them decide up packages or battle nasty monsters. As an alternative, you work together with gamers by forsaking messages and indicators. Or constructing constructions that make your life and their lives simpler.
For instance, I spent just a few hours one weekend morning jamming out to Kojima’s great collection of in-game music and putting in ziplines throughout a variety of snowy mountains. Another gamers had already arrange ziplines, however the community wasn’t full. It was an extended course of, involving a number of journeys to totally different areas by way of van and on foot. I needed to collect up supplies, keep away from baddies, scale extremely tall cliffs, and cope with chilly climate that sapped my stamina and compelled me to take rests.
By the point I used to be performed, I had created an enormous spiderweb of Chiral-network-powered ziplines that allowed me and different gamers to simply attain a number of supply areas in minutes whereas additionally avoiding enemy mercs and monsters.
Every now and then, I’d get notifications within the left-hand nook of the display letting me know that somebody had used my ziplines or different constructions I’d crafted. In Demise Stranding 2, as with the final recreation, you too can “Like” or “Thumbs Up” all the things gamers construct and go away behind. Seeing these likes flood in after I constructed a helpful shelter, zip, or perhaps a part of street or monorail felt good.
I hate to confess that. It offers an identical feeling to when a viral tweet fills your feed with likes. However in Demise Stranding 2, there are not any offended feedback, racist posts, or slurs. Simply numerous likes. It’s a social community constructed round serving to everybody out and being good. In 2025, that’s an exquisite present to offer the world. Thanks, Kojima.
Inside Demise Stranding 2 are two wolves…
The issue, although, is that Demise Stranding 2: On The Seaside isn’t simply a extremely enjoyable and satisfying supply simulator that permits you to construct infrastructure and unfold positivity on a chiral social community. It’s additionally a Kojima-directed recreation, so it incorporates sneaking round and fight in addition to lengthy speeches and complicated plot twists. Within the first recreation, it felt like these two elements of the expertise—the cargo sim and the bizarre Kojima stuff—labored nicely collectively.
Right here, due to an even bigger map that provides extra methods to ship packages and extra methods to “join” to different gamers, the cargo sim a part of Demise Stranding has develop into much more dominant. And it makes the Kojima-y stuff really feel extra misplaced and pointless.
I don’t care that a lot about reconnecting Australia utilizing a Q-Pid system to kind a Plate Gate utilizing built-up Chiralium as directed by an AI-powered supercomputer managed by a personal firm that employs Fragile and Tarman whereas dodging a vengeful enemy from our previous utilizing the opposite aspect and the lifeless to his benefit. I simply wish to ship extra packages. Construct extra roads. Assist extra individuals. Get extra likes.
Demise Stranding 2’s ending appears to trace at a giant change for any future sequel. And consider me, I would like one other recreation. I would like a complete new world to discover whereas rebuilding native infrastructure and delivering bins of cargo. I wish to as soon as once more scramble down mountains on foot, managing my stamina and well being. I wish to slowly climb up a tall mountain, attain the highest, go away a humorous signal for others to love, and construct a zipline to my subsequent vacation spot. I wish to bounce throughout rivers on a motorbike utilizing ramps constructed by gamers I’ll by no means meet. And I wish to do all that whereas liking individuals’s creations and receiving little dopamine hits from their thumbs-up notifications.
However I’m undecided I wish to undergo one other chapter in Demise Stranding’s convoluted, messy, and sometimes contradictory universe. Particularly if the subsequent recreation’s ending is as unsatisfying as Demise Stranding 2’s finale.
Certain, the weird moments are superb to observe on display. A lot cash in Demise Stranding 2’s growth finances was put into among the silliest and strangest concepts. And that’s all great. I adore it. Nevertheless it doesn’t make up for the truth that a lot of the sport feels, paradoxically, disconnected from what you truly do in Demise Stranding 2: On The Seaside. Or that all of it ends so poorly. However I assume I can at all times construct extra ziplines and roads and get the satisfaction of a job nicely performed.
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