I played the first Death Stranding at launch when it was new, and didn’t finish it. I then restarted it later on, after it had been out a while, and played it all the way through to the end.
So regarding the chiral network, I kind of had both experiences: forging new paths before the community knew what the optimal routes were, laying down infrastructure for other porters to find and use and upvote and generally feeling like I was at the forefront of something.
Then later it was the opposite, following in well-worn footsteps, in a world that felt like it had been lived in by other porters, with a lot of quality-of-life advantages that come with taking advantage of the groundwork someone else has already laid.
I’d like to think I would have finished Death Stranding the second time regardless, because I really wanted to see it through, but I also wonder if perhaps being able to make use of the paths forged by other played actually helped ferry me along towards the endgame. Made it smoother sailing and more conducive to continued play.
I’m looking forward to Death Stranding 2, but I’m not going to play it on the PS5. I’ll wait until it inevitably comes to PC, with some sort of director’s cut or whatever. And then I’m honestly going to have to think about if I play it day one and blaze the trails (which is fun) or wait back a minute and let the chiral network really start to hum with life.
Getting to play a few days early for preordering a game is…among the lamest possible preorder bonuses I can think of. It’s even lamer if it’s a deluxe version bonus.
Then again, I don’t support preordering games or paying for deluxe versions in the first place, so there’s that.
I agree I wouldnt have paid the extra to play DOOM dark ages though I ended up not paying a penny as it came free with my GPU and includes future DLC if it comes.
I Played Death stranding both using online and also with other porters content disabled and the game was much much much harder without the online content
I got death stranding for free on epic, and I haven’t even touched it.
I watched some gameplay videos when it came out, and it was so boring that halfway through I had to switch to a compressed version with only the key situations in it.
It was too boring to watch in the background while doing something productive, I don’t want to know how boring it would be having to play it.
But then again, there are people who simulate doing actual work using games (e.g. Eurotruck Simulator) and it’s fun for them, so each to their own.
I tried the 1st game but couldn’t get into it. For me, I just did not like the gameplay and so dropped it fast.