It’s definitely an intriguing story setup, but if you think that playing the role of a courier makes it sound as though Death Stranding could be one continent-spanning series of glorified fetch quests, it’s because that’s exactly what it is. The vast majority of its 70 main story missions are structured in the same way as the optional side missions we’ve all run in countless other open-world games. With the exception of certain tutorial missions which introduce the basics of the combat system, boss fights, and a handful of other combat-oriented diversions, advancing the plot in Death Stranding amounts to taking item X from location A to location B, over and over again. Sounds pretty repetitive, right? Well, the good news is that there are also side missions in Death Stranding. The bad news is that these side missions are also fetch quests, undertaken mainly to unlock additional items or customisation options.

The actual gameplay experience, too, benefits from knowing what to expect. What feels like frustrating drudgery the first time, with valuable items getting swept away by rivers and progress often stymied by what feels like random battles against enemies made of goop, turns out to be empowering upon a second run. Despite Death Stranding’s surreal aesthetic and focus on heavy exposition, it’s fundamentally a game with very solid systems, and it’s a breeze to play once you understand them.

When I played Death Stranding on PS4, I felt compelled to get to the ending and figure out what was actually happening in the world. Of course, it didn’t help that I was on deadline at the time. But I’m looking forward to going slowly with the rest of the PC version, experimenting with the game’s unique mechanics and drinking in the atmosphere.

And yes, it helps that the game looks and runs a lot better on PC. It’s also a good omen for the forthcoming PC version of previously PS4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn, whose Decima engine Kojima Productions made use of for Death Stranding. That’s a game I didn’t get on with on PS4, but hey, maybe a better frame rate will draw me back. For now, I’m happy to recommend the PC version of Death Stranding to newcomers and veterans alike.

Powered by the Decima Engine, Death Stranding already looked great on PlayStation 4, but it will never compare to how good the game can look on PC. For starters, Death Stranding is extremely undemanding, for today's AAA standards, and it manages to scale well on a lot of different system configurations. On the machine used for the test, which features an i7-3770 CPU, GTX 980 Ti GPU, and 16 GB RAM, the game run effortlessly at 1440p, 60 FPS with high settings enabled. Increasing the resolution to 4K obviously tanked performance, but it was definitely playable at 30 FPS. The owners of the NVIDIA RTX GPU family can also take advantage of DLSS 2.0 support, which makes the game look even better. No matter what your system configuration is, you will be able to play Death Stranding with an acceptable quality and performance level.

Extreme care has been placed in sound and music as well. Death Stranding features amazing voice acting, and it couldn't have been any other way with Hollywood-grade actors and wise placement of music. While most of the moment-to-moment gameplay features no music, licensed tracks for a variety of artists are used to highlight specific sequences, such as when close to reaching a new city, giving off an extremely nice cinematic feel even outside of cutscenes.

Having been smitten by the core world-building gameplay of Death Stranding, I am stunned to realize that many of the game’s strongest, most appealing gameplay ideas (specifically the world-building and cooperation) are tossed aside in the final acts, in favor of a much more linear, scripted, cutscene-ridden experience. The freedom and sense of ownership I enjoyed while creating this world are dashed in favor of explaining and wrapping up a story that never had much going for it to begin with.

The final 10 hours of Death Stranding are a slog, just like the first 10 hours, as my leash is tugged from emotional monologue to ridiculous boss fight to emotional monologue. While a few of these narrative threads make sense and land with some gravitas, others sound like the ramblings of someone on speed who thinks they’ve figured out how the universe works.

Death Stranding feels like two games in one, designed for seemingly opposite audiences. One is a wholly unique open-world adventure with asynchronous cooperative multiplayer that allows me to feel like I’m part of a community, building a world from scratch. And the other is a long, confusing, deeply strange movie. The former is pulling most of the weight, but they share equal screen time. And, like a steamer trunk full of sperm, it’s impossible to separate the good from the bad. It’s all in the same box.