Death Stranding Director’s Cut review: More fun, just as divisive

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  Sam’s Odradek acts as a sensor for BTs. [credit:
  Kojima Productions
  ]

Death Stranding‘s release in 2019 was probably the most anticipated game of Hideo Kojima’s career.

The Metal Gear director had arguably become the premiere auteur in video games. He had a reputation for convention-bucking design, meta-humor, and unapologetic cinematic influences. But this project was the first child of his acrimonious divorce with Konami, and no one had a clue what he might do next.

Death Stranding was appropriately weird, whatever it was. The first teaser showed crab exoskeletons crawling over a lifeless beach, tar handprints imprinted on the sand, a naked, weeping Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) tethered to a tiny, distressed baby, beached whales, and dead fish. All with zero indication of what the game actually was.