Death Stranding is somehow as good as we hoped – if not better

(Image credit: Kojima Productions)

Death Stranding was first announced back at E3 2016 to a confused and excited crowd. And since that announcement, those feelings haven't changed much – they just swayed more into the confusion side. 

We've seen bottled babies, sea otter costumes and even the appearance of Conan O'Brien, and every new trailer has filled us more with fear than hype. 

But we can definitively say that Death Stranding is good. It's not just good, in fact, it's incredible. So much so that we awarded it our first five star rating (for gaming) of the year in our Death Stranding review.

In our Death Stranding review, we said:

"Death Stranding is a game where monotony is innately imbued with intangible subjects of the extraordinary. On paper, the premise shouldn’t work. A deliveryman, a ruined world, a convoluted plot centered around dejection and the abnormal Weird. In execution, however, it’s perfect, unwaveringly confident in itself and assured of its place in the zeitgeist. 

"It’s a game, an experience, where introspection is derived from futilely confronting the macrocosm of a decaying world. It’s a story where hopelessness is the source and adversary of an unquantifiable, incomprehensible desire to persevere."

Even as we enter the final throes of the current console generation, it's clear that there are still incredible games to come before the dawn of the PS5 – and that Hideo Kojima is continuing to make some of the best of them.

Death Stranding is a Sony PS4 exclusive, with a PC port set to arrive mid-2020.

Vic Hood
Associate Editor, TechRadar Gaming

Vic is TechRadar Gaming's Associate Editor. An award-winning games journalist, Vic brings experience from IGN, Eurogamer and more to the TechRadar table. You may have even heard her on the radio or speaking on a panel. Not only is Vic passionate about games, but she's also an avid mental health advocate who has appeared on both panels and podcasts to discuss mental health awareness. Make sure to follow her on Twitter for more.